Season already over for the Arizonas?

[CatsbyAZ]

Last night's games were such disappointments!

Arizona St giving San Diego St  it's first road win vs a Pac 10/12 program.

Arizona tossing a late pick deep inside Houston territory to nullify a game winning/tying drive.

And with both facing uphill conference schedules my hopes for winning seasons are deflated.

The crowds didn't look to great. Maybe it's time for Arizona to take after ASU and reduce their stadium capacity.

I can hear Tucson shifting its focus to Wildcats basketball, and the Valley keeping the dial on the Cardinals and DBacks.

What really sucks is any new HCs face complete roster rebuilds, whereas when Stoops and Erickson were fired they left a lot of talent for RichRod and Graham to work with. Now, after five and six seasons of neglectful recruiting there are entire units (AZ DL, ASU secondary) that wouldn't succeed in the Mountain West.

Meanwhile we see the winning consistency of Washington St in Leach who admittedly isn't a Defense guy entrusting that side of the ball to guys he can trust rather than enjoy a drink with (cough cough Casteel, cough cough Patterson), and out in Westwood, for as hot as Mora Jr's seat was this offseason, things are looking way up. And look at Cal (!) whose roster isn't any better sporting a cross country road win and a 2-0 start.

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[rook119]

I was glad Graham left Pitt a year in. You could tell his thing was never going to fly there and he also never seemed like he wanted to be there in the 1st place. I almost always want to give coaches at least 3 years and was hoping Pitt would cut ties after the 1st season. I don't think he's an awful coach however there always just seems to be something so phony about him. 

I watched most of the Arizona game. Neither team played well and it looked like both teams were trying to throw the game away. RR seems like he's already resigned that its his last season there. In the past at WVU when RR was coach the offense used to catch non-conf opponents by suprise and blow them away (even very good ones). The Big East opponents who saw WVU every year are usually what tripped them up. Today though, it looks like the whole country has caught up though given that almost every team at least occasionally runs those kind of offensive sets now. Whatever happened to Anu Solomon? I thought he was the 2nd coming of Pat White a couple years ago. 

[CatsbyAZ]

Both coaches are losing their teams. When, as you saw, Arizona plays like they aren't trying, that's strictly a coaching issue. It's the coach's job to collectively motivate the roster. At least most of ASU's players are playing hard despite the stubborn defensive scheme, lack of defensive substitutions, and neglect along the OL.

I was listening to the ASU postgame call-in radio and one of the hosts reluctantly addressed Graham not using a single defensive substitution (vs New Mexico State) until the fourth quarter. The hosts commented that Graham said he didn't think the second team worked hard enough in practice to earn any playing time alongside the first team. But isn't that missing the point? And if you hold back the second team isn't that at a cost to the first string, who last season was consistently worn out and giving up a lot of points come 4th quarter? And with the season started, why is Graham even practicing the first and second strings as two separate entities? Most coaches practice them as a single entity going into the season because that's how substitutional rotations (especially on the front 7) are established, during practice in prep for the actual game!

I didn't bother catching Arizona's post game call-in.

[PiratesRoost]

ASU's next five games are Oregon, @Stanford, Washington, @Utah, and USC.  Coach Graham could well be unemployed before we even get to November.

Arizona's next five games are Utah, @Colorado, UCLA, @Cal, WSU.  That's not quite as ugly, but it ain't pretty either with Cal looking way better than expected and Colorado not looking as down as many thought.

[rook119]

I'm sorry I missed this game. I know the Buffs aren't all that but Mother of God this is the most amazing stat line I think I ever saw. 

Khail Tate: 11/12 142yds 1TD 0INT. 14 carries 327 yards, 4TDs

[CatsbyAZ]

No doubt Khalil had a game for the ages. Nationally the story went buried by a number of other big headlines over the weekend, but it probably matters more to Khalil that Lebron James' and Steph Curry's Instagrams showered praise of his highlight clips. Beyond the incredible stat line my hopes are up for the momentum for a bowl run. Up next is UCLA; with any luck a revived Arizona offense will match what Jake Rosen throws at the young defense.

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[rook119]

Only 237 yards rushing on 15 carries for Tate this week. Just a 1 week wonder I guess. 

[CatsbyAZ]

What a night for the Pac 12; and the Cactus schools played right in the middle of it all!


It's got to be a disappointment for UCLA that they had two weeks to prepare for Khalil Tate and were still run out of the stadium. The 47-30 final score looks closer than it really was. Arizona piled up 608 yards of offense. In season's past, Bruins backers were athletic enough to stifle RichRod's attack but now they look slow and caught out of position. Alas they are a "young" team, with 5 freshman playing on front 7, but why are some teams always "young?" UCLA has 34 scout.com rated 4 star players on the roster and yet are giving up a nations near-worst 523 yds/game!

But the bigger congrats goes to ASU! It's amazing how history can repeat itself - how twenty years ago the '97 Sun Devils blanked a top ranked Huskers team in Tempe. And now for this year's embattled Sun Devils 119th-ranked total defense to pitch a near shutout of the #5 Huskies is the weekend's biggest surprise. Congrats to the D coordinator Bennett whose containment approach was a big upgrade to the constant blitzing that's exposed ASU to big plays. Manny Wilkins went 29/41 for 245 yds and 0/0, a stellar showing considering the difficulty of managing this game down the stretch.


And so much for this thread title

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[rook119]

I had forgotten how fun a RR offense can be with one of those good QBs. 

[CatsbyAZ]

Where in the world did ASU suddenly come up with a real defense?!?!?

And not merely a functionally adequate defense, but rather the nation's most dominant performers these past two weeks. After all the preseason talk of no depth in the secondary and the stubborn lack of a defensive subbing in the early season games, it's got to be the biggest surprise in all of college football that the Sun Devil's defense held both Washington and Utah to a combined total that's a little higher than what they allow per game.  This is a reborn team that can definitely take down SC on their visit to Tempe next weekend.

DC Phil Bennett deserves coordinator of the year if ASU can ride his coaching out. He is saving Graham's job similarly to Khalil Tate saving RichRod's this season. Suddenly Territorial Cup tickets are expensive again.

[847badgerfan]

Is it still over?