By Arlie Rahn
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Put a fork in them, they're done.
Any hopes the Arizona football team had of entering postseason play were left on Oregon's 1-foot line. In the third quarter of Arizona's 17-13 loss to then-No. 17 Oregon Saturday afternoon, the Wildcats had four shots from the two-yard line and came up with nothing but bruises.
"I'm real proud of our team. I thought they played really well," UA head coach Dick Tomey said. "But to be successful you need to be able to score on fourth and a foot."
A Homecoming crowd of 53,736 painfully watched as Arizona (5-5 overall, 3-4 in the Pacific 10 Conference) tried to run up the gut on the Ducks (8-2, 5-2) four straight times, with fullback Charles Myles getting the call three times and halfback Kevin Schmidtke trying on fourth down. The end result: four carries, one yard.
"I think our mistake was that we didn't run the fullback on fourth down," Tomey said. "They had a bit of a gap that we might have capitalized on if we would have ran the fullback. But football is a bit of a guessing game and we just came up a bit short."
While they did miss their best offensive opportunity of the season, the Wildcats still made a game of it. Coming out of the gate on fire, Arizona put up the first 10 points and looked to be in control of the game. The key play was a fourth-and-one play-action pass to tight end Mike Lucky for 40 yards to Oregon's 6. Three plays later the Wildcats had a fourth-and-goal from the 1. After an Arizona timeout Ÿ its second in two plays Ÿ halfback Gary Taylor raced the Duck defenders to the corner of the end zone to put the Wildcats up by seven. Four minutes later, kicker Jon Prasuhn gave Arizona a 10-0 lead with a 50-yard field goal.
"We came in the game knowing that we needed to put some points on the board early," UA senior quarterback Dan White said. "We knew that Oregon usually came out and scored quickly so we wanted to try and match them."
But the rest of the game belonged to the Ducks, as the Wildcats scored only three more points after their first-quarter burst. The first strike came in the second quarter with a 1-yard run from Oregon running back Ricky Whittle. After Arizona went three-and-out, the Ducks drove to the Wildcats' 1 but settled for a field goal and a 10-10 halftime tie.
The Wildcats came out with an early 37-yard field goal by Prasuhn in the third quarter. On Oregon's next possession, however, the Ducks scored the deciding touchdown on a 5-yard pass from Tony Graziani to fullback A.J. Jelks.
It was on the next Arizona possession that it couldn't budge the green wave of the Oregon defense and failed to score on four straight attempts from inside the 3.
While hindsight is always 20-20, a big question might be why Taylor didn't get at least one shot from the 1, particularly since he scored in a similar situation earlier in the contest.
"It was very frustrating, especially when I thought I should have been in there," Taylor said. "But you can't dwell on it. We made the decision and we have to live by it."
Overall, this game was a big disappointment for the seniors and wasn't one they would like to remember as their final in Arizona Stadium.
"It was tough to lose a game like this, especially when we had so many chances to win it," said White, who completed 8-of-26 passes with two interceptions. "Nothing can ease the pain of losing your final home game."
For the first time in his colorful career, senior defensive end Tedy Bruschi was held sackless for two consecutive games. This means that he will need three sacks against Arizona State on Nov. 24 to break the collegiate sack record of 52, held by Alabama's Derrick Thomas (1985-88).
"I wanted to go out a winner in this stadium and give the fans one more good show before I left," Bruschi said. "As for the record, like I've said before, my only concern is to win and today we couldn't do that."
While he still has one year left, Taylor did come in with Bruschi and company, and he said he feels that this class deserves more than what they got.
"The seniors leaving this year built this team," Taylor said. "When I first came in we were 4-6 and ever since we've had a winning season. We really wanted a bowl game for the seniors to send them out on a good note, but now all we can do is try to send them out with a winning record."