To AZBALLER and the rest of you annoying/pretentious/myopic Sun Devil fans:
I have been waiting a long time for this. It's not complete just yet but after after about 7:00 on Saturday night it will all have come full circle. I am hoping for a good clean game - but more importantly i want to beat you by 40........
Wildcats on the rise as Sun Devils slide
John Gambadoro
Special for azcentral.com
Nov. 20, 2006 09:55 AM
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]The correct phrase is to "give the devil his due." But in this case it is clearly Mike Stoops and the Wildcats who deserve that due. For the third consecutive week, the Arizona Wildcats have knocked off a Pac-10 opponent, and now for the first time since 1998, the team from Tucson is bowl-eligible.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]And more important than even that is that they are one win away from taking control of the state for the first time in almost a decade. If the Wildcats can somehow continue this miraculous role and defeat Arizona State next week at Arizona Stadium, they will have surpassed the Sun Devils as the top team in the state. [/FONT]
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]And why shouldn't they win? Arizona will actually enter the game as a prohibitive favorite after knocking off Washington State, Cal and Oregon in successive weeks. And two of those wins were on the road, in Pullman and Eugene. Plus Washington State and Cal were ranked in the Top 25 when Arizona beat them, giving Stoops twice as many wins as Sun Devils head coach Dirk Koetter has against Top 25-ranked teams in half the amount of years. [/FONT]
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]It is clear that one team is on the way up and the other is on the way down. Arizona is playing great football right now. The Wildcats are hot, hot, hot at the right time. And the Sun Devils are, as Foreigner once put it, "as cold as ice" after failing to score a single touchdown in an embarrassing home loss to UCLA Saturday. [/FONT]
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]The loss to a bad Bruins team, which hadn't won a road game this season, guaranteed that ASU will finish with a losing record in conference play. The Sun Devils have never won more than five conference games in any of Koetter's six years at the helm and have only two winning seasons in Pac-10 play since he arrived in 2001, both of those seasons being 5-3. A loss to Arizona should seal Koetter's fate and force Athletic Director Lisa Love to fire him no matter how many years he has left on his contract. Michigan State fired John L Smith this year and will be paying him more than $4 million to go away. Michigan State does not want to settle for mediocrity and is willing to spend the money necessary to attempt to win. Will ASU?[/FONT]
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]But this cannot be about how bad Koetter is. The Sun Devil fans knew that they had a lemon for a coach after blowout losses to Cal, Oregon and Oregon State. This is about Stoops and his team taking that next step. After successive 3-8 seasons to open the Stoops era, the Wildcats have put together a very good season despite losing star quarterback Willie Tuitama for 2 ½ games. Tuitama was knocked out early in the loss to UCLA and did not play in the loss to Oregon State.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]After the loss to the Beavers, Arizona was 3-5 and facing a string of three games against ranked teams. But after beating Washington State by 27-17, Cal by 24-20 and Oregon by 37-10, the Wildcats have salvaged their season and put themselves in position to go to a bowl game for the first time since they beat Nebraska in the 1998 Holiday Bowl.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]While Arizona's 6-5 record is identical to that of ASU, they are light years better when comparing the games. Arizona State lost at home to Oregon by 35, Arizona beat the Ducks on the road by 27. Arizona State lost to Cal on the road by 28, Arizona beat the Bears at home by 4. Arizona State lost on the road to Oregon State by 34, Arizona lost to the Beavers by 7 without the Wildcats' starting quarterback. Arizona has a non-conference win over Mountain West Champion BYU (9-2), which is more highly regarded than Arizona State's win over 8-3 Nevada. [/FONT]
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]The bottom line is that Arizona is having a good season at 6-5 while Arizona State is having a bad season at 6-5. Part of that is expectations. Nothing was expected from Arizona this year, while the Sun Devils had Rose Bowl aspirations with a pre-season Top 25 ranking.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]But the tide is turning, the momentum shifting. Arizona is having better recruiting classes than Arizona State and has a highly respected head coach on solid ground. Arizona State has a coach that has little respect and his job hanging by a thread.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Since 1995, Arizona has had just one season in which it had a better record than Arizona State in a year in which the Wildcats finished above .500. That was in 1998 when the Wildcats went 12-1 and the Sun Devils were 5-6. Since that time, Arizona State has had a better record in six of seven seasons, with 2001 being the only other season the Wildcats bested the Sun Devils record wise, 5-6 compared to 4-7.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]With a win at home next Saturday, Arizona will finish the season at 7-5 with a 5-4 Pac-10 record and be headed to a bowl game. A loss and Arizona State will finish 6-6 overall, 3-6 in the conference and be headed home for the holidays. But that scenario will do more than the records will indicate; it will also signal the changing of the guard and balance of power in the state. [/FONT]
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Since 1999 the state has been maroon and gold. When Dick Tomey was let go following the 2000 season Arizona went through a miserable three-year span in which John Mackovick allowed the Wildcat program to hit rock bottom. Star running back Mike Bell spent four years in Arizona without ever going to a bowl game or enjoying a winning season. [/FONT]
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]When Stoops came in to begin the 2004 campaign, he had a lot of work to do because the cupboards were bare. Arizona was coming off a three-year stint in which the Wildcats went 11-24. But after just two seasons Stoops has made his mark on the Arizona program and brought excitement to its supporters. The Wildcats are recruiting top talent, winning big football games, winning on the road and finishing the 2006 season strong. [/FONT]
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]While just a few weeks ago it seemed unconscionable that Arizona could be favored over Arizona State, the Wildcats will enter the game as the team expected to win. Arizona State will be the underdog. And if Arizona can put an exclamation point on the regular season by finishing off the fragile Devils, Stoops will have done a lot more than beating his rival. He will have gained control of his backyard and painted over that maroon and gold with some cardinal red and navy blue. [/FONT]
Like I have never heard an announcer refer to Arizona State as the Wildcats and Arizona as the Sun Devils. Unfortunately, I think there are few people outside AZ who care.
