Search

ARCHIVES
CONTACT US
WORLD NEWS

Canidate goes for the record

Arizona senior running back Trung Canidate enters Saturday's game at Oregon State just 57 yards shy of breaking Ontiwaun Carter's record for rushing yardage in a career.

Carter had 3,501 yards from 1991-94 while Canidate now stands at 3,445 with two games remaining.

"My thought is I'm not thinking about tying it," Canidate said. "I'm definitely thinking about breaking the record. But the main focus at hand ... up there in this wild environment we're going into, and coming out with a W is going to be the most important thing on my mind. Later on in my life it'll be something I'll cherish more."

But if Canidate does get the chance to break the record, he does know how he'd like to do it.

"I'd like to do it on my trademark run and break it all the way to the end zone," he said of his penchant for exploding through a hole for over 50 yards and a score, something he has done 11 times in his career.

Canidate has already eclipsed the 1,000-yard mark this season with 1,223. Oregon State's Ken Simonton (1,117) has also broken the barrier with Oregon's Ruben Droughns (856) and Arizona State's J.R. Redmond (887) not too far behind.

But if nothing else, Canidate has learned something from Redmond's recent one-game suspension by the NCAA for accepting improper gifts from his ex-wife.

"Nah, I ain't wed yet," Canidate said with a smile. "It's not that serious. I don't want to take my chances with the NCAA."

Turnovers have been a huge problem for Arizona all season long. The Wildcats went from being the third-best team in the conference in turnover margin in 1998 (+10) to the worst in 1999 (-8).

UA has 19 turnovers and only 11 turnovers forced, something that has not gone unnoticed by the coaches and players.

"We are not as far along as we'd hoped," UA head coach Dick Tomey said. "We're not creating any (turnovers) on defense, and we're not giving up that many more on offense than we did a year ago. But, we're still giving up more than we did, and we're giving them up in the wrong games."

The Wildcats had three interceptions against Washington Saturday, two of which resulted in Husky touchdowns.

"It's ridiculous," junior quarterback Ortege Jenkins said. "That's the thing about this game, you never know what's going to happen, you never know the outcome of games, you never know the outcome of seasons. This season we've turned the ball over once or two times a game.

"The quarterbacks, we probably account for I'd say 80 percent of the turnovers or more."

Smith and Jenkins have thrown 11 interceptions including the three against UW.

But as big a problem as turning the ball over has been, Arizona has not been forcing turnovers, either.

"In key games, you have to take care of the ball and you have to create some turnovers," Tomey said. "We just haven't done a good job as coaches and players in getting that done."

The Arizona defensive players are aware of this fact.

"Turnovers are such a key to a victory," senior free safety Rafell Jones said. "It's one of our main keys to victory that's posted up on our wall. Turnovers help in so many ways as far as momentum-builders for the defense, momentum-builders for the offense, just a chance to get the team to relax and come together. Okay, the defense has done something now and it's time for the offense to capitalize. We're all working together."