Defense finally steps up in blowout win

"I felt violated after that UCLA game," junior linebacker DaShon Polk said after Saturday night's 45-7 drubbing of visiting Northeast Louisiana. "I just took it upon myself and I wanted everybody on defense to take a look at themselves and say 'did they do everything they could do?'"

A week later, Arizona held Oregon State to only 21 yards rushing for the entire game.

But coming out against the Indians Saturday night at Arizona Stadium, Polk said that the team once again wasn't giving its full effort, despite sacking NLU quarterback Andre Vige three times in the first half.

"We came out flat," he said. "We weren't playing with great effort like we should."

Then Polk, who had a sack and five tackles, said head coach Dick Tomey "got on" the defense during halftime.

The result was six second half sacks, a blocked punt, an interception and a fumble recovery as the Wildcats held Northeast Louisiana to just 66 yards of total offense to close out the game.

"I'm not saying they were the best o-line we had played against," Polk said, "but we just kept putting pressure on them and it worked out."

All this, and the Wildcats didn't even use anything other than their normal defensive base package.

"For us to be successful, we have to get pressure on the quarterback from our base package," said sophomore defensive end Mike Robertson, who started for the injured Joe Tafoya.

Though NLU fullback Alan Ricard was able to break open a couple long runs - he finished with 71 yards on nine carries - the Indian offensive line never stood a chance.

"You have to control the line of scrimmage, that's what we want to do," Polk said. "We have players in back who can make the plays."

And senior defensive tackle Daniel Greer, who finished with three sacks and six tackles, said the Indian offensive line was one of the more talented parts of the NLU team.

"The left side of their line was the best part of their team," Greer said, "even if number 60 kept getting called for false starts. They didn't want to get their butts stomped, but they did."

Not helping matters was that both Northeast Louisiana quarterbacks Ben Beach and Vige are both freshmen.

"It was a young quarterback, too, so maybe it wasn't as tough as it would have been against an older guy," junior linebacker Scooter Sprotte said.

Which is exactly what they'll face next week when the Oregon Ducks, led by senior quarterback Akili Smith, battle the cats for second place in the Pacific 10 Conference.

"I think confidence in the pass rush in this game and in the Oregon game is something different," Tomey said. "It's an entirely different challenge this week."

Seth Doria can be reached via e-mail at Seth.Doria@wildcat.arizona.edu.