Arizona's football season was on the brink of irrelevance - other than the dubious distinction of its losing streaks and the depths of its defensive deficiency.
Potential coaching candidates for Arizona Wildcats | Top football games to watch
The Oct. 10 firing of Mike Stoops drew attention to a 1-5 team. Ten days later, UA still manages to hold college football's attention.
A 6 p.m. home game Thursday night against UCLA airs on ESPN, serves as Tim Kish's interim head coach debut and could create a hot seat for Bruins coach Rick Neuheisel - or put UCLA in a Pac-12 South first-place tie with Arizona State.
Otherwise, it would just be arguably the Pac-12's two worst defenses on display. Instead, there is intrigue: What can a makeover do for UA? And how will UCLA fare, having lost its past three trips to Tucson?
"I anticipate us coming out and playing with a lot of energy and enthusiasm," said Kish, who is a head coach for the first time in 36 years of coaching. "I think it's good that we get an opportunity to start at home with the transition."
Kish said the team has moved on from a grieving process to a healing process. He was talking about the emotions after Stoops was fired. It could have been about their season, too.
Their high hopes have passed, although slim bowl hopes remain with six games to go. There is much to heal after the streak of consecutive Football Bowl Subdivision losses reached 10 because of an abysmal defense (fifth worst in the nation, allowing 487.7 yards per game), a muted running game (71.8 yards per game is second lowest in the nation), a laughable kicking game (five missed extra points, leading to a third field-goal kicker, John Bonano) and mental miscues (8.2 penalties per game is fourth most in nation).
There has been a general lack of playmakers on defense, with the team registering five takeaways and three sacks all season. The sack total is the nation's worst and more regrettable considering two came against Northern Arizona and the third when a quarterback fell.
UA should worry about UCLA's rushing attack tonight. The Bruins average 194.5 yards, second in the Pac-12.
UA last won an FBS game on Oct. 30, 2010, vs. UCLA.
"We kind of trashed that," Kish said of the FBS losing streak. "We put that away. We're focusing on a new journey right now."
The last time UA made a midseason change, another defensive coordinator (Mike Hankwitz) took over for John Mackovic and the team went from 1-4 to 2-10. Kish has a better shot at improvement, especially after the Wildcats have faced a schedule that Sagarin ranks as the nation's toughest.
Just a better start would take the weight of the world off UA, which has given up at least two scores before its first score in each loss.
"We played to make a mistake sometimes and that's not really the right way to be able to approach the game," Kish said. "Hopefully, we've made a few corrections that way and allowed our guys to free themselves up mentally, as well as physically and emotionally."
The best part for UA is that quarterback Nick Foles has excelled with a deep receiving crew. His 2,225-yard season already ranks 10th in UA history at its midpoint. Neuheisel called Foles a "first-day" draft pick, meaning a first-rounder in the new format.
Neuheisel has enough issues without Foles, including the unexpected wrinkle of facing a midseason coaching debut, and his job could be on the line after going 18-25 in four years at his former school.
Neuheisel said he doesn't dwell on talk about this job.
"Maybe that's naïve on my part," Neuheisel said. "Maybe that's early onset of some sort of dementia. I'm just enjoying coaching this football team and I'm enjoying trying to keep ourselves in the race. We've got a chance with a victory this weekend to be in first place and that's what we're focusing on."
Source:
No comments:
Post a Comment