Hansen: Sour season brings fresh start (2003)

TEMPE

Jim Livengood slept at the office Tuesday night, awaking at 7, emerging from his McKale Center headquarters with hair askew and an all-wrinkled wardrobe.

It was an apt metaphor for the UA's wrinkled-and-tired football program. The search for a new coach has not only worn down Tucson's impatient and frustrated football community, it has kept the school's athletic director awake.

Everything changes now.

After a two-month search, Livengood has identified and is prepared to hire a new coach, possibly today, perhaps Sunday, but no later than Monday.

Thus, Friday's 28-7 loss to Arizona State becomes as insignificant as forgetting to put out the garbage. The UA's junk-in, junk-out football season, the worst in school history, is about to undergo a desperately needed housecleaning.

One can picture Oklahoma assistant head coach Mike Stoops - or any of the so-called UA coaching candidates - watching Friday's game from a football office in Norman, Okla., or wherever.

"Oh my Lord," he surely had to think as the Wildcats played poorly and were clobbered by a substandard Sun Devils team. "I hope I know what I'm getting myself into."

When Livengood introduces Stoops (or whomever) to Tucson, the energy of UA football will undergo a radical image makeover. The Wildcat team that left the turf at Sun Devil Stadium on Friday ranks No. 10 in the conference in defense, No. 10 in the conference in offense and - maybe a laugh-track would be appropriate - dead last in special teams, clearly the worst kicking-game team in modern Arizona history.

As much-respected interim coach Mike Hankwitz said before leaving the stadium Friday: "We can sell the potential of the program."

How true. The UA is stripped so thin of upper-tier football players that it has little else to sell.

Hankwitz overachieved in his seven-game, on-the-job tryout to replace John Mackovic. Given the loss of 11 projected starters via injuries, discipline issues or the chaos of Mackovic's exit, this was a dispirited 1-11 team waiting-to-happen. That Hankwitz was able to restore enough fight and energy for the Wildcats to beat Washington - and to hang tight with Wazzu and UCLA - is a testament to his ability to make the best of a bad situation.

He said he left the program in better shape than he found it. Agreed.

The new coach surely will begin to study game tapes early next week, or soon, and when he does, he will discover that the Wildcats need reinforcements in every conceivable area. Both lines are seriously thin. The linebacking group will have to be remade. Both starting cornerbacks are out of eligibility.

If Stoops is to be hired, it will be a blessing that he is a defensive specialist. The Wildcats can't stop anybody. Haven't stopped anybody for three years. What they need is for someone like Stoops to teach them how to run and hit, an Arizona trademark under Larry Smith and Dick Tomey.

Somewhere along the post-Tomey path, the UA lost its toughness.

Watching Friday's game on TV produced a few moments in which Arizona's next coach surely felt he will have a fighting chance in some 2004 games. Freshman quarterback Kris Heavner will join the new coach as a face of Arizona's football future.

Heavner has the arm strength, the demeanor and the physical ability to put Arizona into a bowl game before his eligibility expires in 2006. More impressively, he talked Friday afternoon like a young man who is willing to carry more than his load.

"This off-season," he said, "I'm going to challenge the guys. I'll be calling every guy, telling them to get their butts out to the practice field. I think we all realize the kind of commitment we need to make."

Heavner said the Wildcats will be "a team to reckon with next year."

Forgive him his youthful exuberance. This UA team, in its present form, will need more than a year to be reconstructed. But if Heavner is willing to take the lead - something missing the last 12 months - the '04 Wildcats will be a significant improvement on those of '03 and '02.

Before he returned to Tucson on Friday, prepared to complete the details of the coaching transition, Livengood said that contractual issues are not a problem. It probably means that Stoops (or whomever) has compromised and accepted Arizona's financial limits as it relates to his salary and to the total salaries of a new coaching staff.

Livengood also suggested that "most, if not all," of the recruiting season can be salvaged, and that a complete staff of assistant coaches will be in place by Jan. 1, if not sooner.

Losing to ASU is routinely the worst day on any Arizona football calendar. But in this chaotic season, Friday's setback to the Sun Devils was not the end - as much as it is a beginning.