By Monty Phan
Arizona Daily Wildcat
For the first time in 10 home games, the visiting locker room wasn't silent. It was noisy. Extremely.
For the first time in 10 games, the the locker room jabber wasn't about "Desert Swarm." It was about "Gang Green," Colorado State's unifying battle cry.
For the first time in 10 home games, the Arizona defense was flat-out dissed, receiving taunts and mockery instead of the usual praise and hype.
Simply put, the Colorado State offense made the Arizona defense look bad. Led by quarterback Anthoney Hill, the Rams walked the walk on the field and talked the talk off it, referring to their opponents' defense as "Dust Storm" instead of the more recognized nickname.
"I think the 'Desert Swarm,' the name, is unjust," Hill said. "Maybe last year, it could've been a 'Desert Swarm,' but this year, I don't know. I don't know if I could say that."
He may have a point. But for the time being, Hill and crew were too busy reveling in victory and hyping their own defense, a defense that Ä despite giving up 439 yards of total offense Ä limited the Wildcats to just 16 points. In fact, the Ram defense matched the UA offense in touchdowns scored, a feat that used to occur often, only vice-versa.
"'Gang Green,' that's what you need to talk about," Hill said. "Our defense is 'Gang Green.'"
The offense wasn't too shabby, either. Hill completed 10 of 20 passes in the first half for 200 yards, exploiting the holes in the Wildcats' often swiss cheese-like secondary, picking particularly on cornerback Claudius Wright. But Hill insists he wasn't playing favorites.
"We thought we could make the plays happen against the corners," Hill said. "Other than that they were pretty solid. We felt we could catch them in man-to-man and get some big plays off their corners, but we just did what we had to do."
"We felt we could pass the ball," said Colorado State coach Sonny Lubick. "Anthoney had a great game, he did what he had to do to keep things going."
Particularly frustrating was that the Wildcats lost on their own turf. The Colorado State fans that gathered in the corner of Arizona Stadium loved every minute of it, though, and they may want to make a habit of following their team away from Fort Collins.
"This whole year we've been road warriors, knocking people off on the road," Hill said. "This is a good team. If people don't realize that by now, they'll see it when we face them."