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Long way off


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Wildcat File Photo
Arizona Daily Wildcat

Mike Jenkins


By Mike Jenkins
Arizona Daily Wildcat, September 23, 1999

At the beginning of the college football season, the University of Arizona's football team was ranked third in the nation by most publications.

After getting annihilated 41-7, the football team had its doubters. But, after wins against TCU and Middle Tennessee State, fans became excited about the opening of Pacific 10 Conference play.

Then, ranked 19th, Arizona was supposed to beat Stanford pretty easily.

Enough said?

Now Arizona is unranked and our conference is the laughing stock of college football.

This week the team plays possibly the worst team in college football. The Washington State Cougars lost to Stanford by almost 50 points and lost to Idaho and Utah at home. If UA doesn't beat the Cougars this weekend, they should forfeit all of their remaining games due to lack of heart and courage.

As the Wildcats' season enters its fifth week of play, all hopes of contending in the Pac-10 are basically in the hands of other teams. They may have only lost one game, but it was to Stanford. How does the team expect to contend against schools such as UCLA, USC and upstart Oregon State?

You could see a colossal collapse coming. It seems every time the Wildcats are ranked high in the preseason polls, they underachieve and fight to qualify for any bowl. An example is the 1994 team who was Sports Illustrated's preseason No. 1 pick. With the famous Desert Swarm defense leading the way, the Wildcats were supposed to dominate. They finished 8-4 with losses to Colorado State, Oregon, Southern Cal and the vaunted Runnin' Utes of Utah in the national spotlight of...the Freedom Bowl. The good thing was we didn't have the stupid commercials that come with this year's team.

At the beginning of this season, I hoped I wouldn't see a re-occurrence of the 1994 season, but I feared that if we lost to Penn State, than the whole season would crumble.

You have to blame the coaching staff for not preparing a diverse enough offensive game plan. How many QB draws in a row can you run? O.J. and Keith need to take command, become better field generals. Canidate has not fulfilled his hype but it's not all his fault. The offensive line needs to block somebody so that Trung can run. Northcutt has done all he can do to help the squad, but he can't do it by himself. The defensive line has put limited pressure on the quarterback. Polk and Bell have done admirable jobs but they can't make up for a secondary, with the exception of Payne, that has become the worst in the Pac-10 by far. There is not enough space to write about how bad our kicking game is. Without Polk, Bell, and Northcutt, our team might be 0-4.

Good luck the rest of the way though. I'll see you guys in the Poulan Weedeater Independence Bowl or the Insight.com bowl at the end of the season.


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