Hansen's Sunday Notebook: RichRod, QB coach resourceful with QBs

Through 37 years of Pac-12 football, you could make a case that the league’s most skilled quarterbacks coach was Homer Smith, who later installed the UA’s first modern and proven offensive “system” in 1996-97.

From 1983 to 1985, Smith used three first-year starters at quarterback to take UCLA to a pair of Rose Bowls and a 25-9-2 record. Rick Neuheisel, Steve Bono and David Norrie were nobody’s idea of stars — none made the all-conference team — but Smith and his surprisingly effective Bruins QBs did something no one else did until Rich Rodriguez and his QBs coach, Rod Smith, came along more than a quarter-century later.

Getting to three consecutive bowl games with three different QBs just isn’t done.

In Pete Carroll’s rise to power at USC, he inherited future Heisman Trophy winner Carson Palmer for two years, then inserted future Heisman Trophy winner Matt Leinart for three.

Oregon’s emergence as an elite football school has one theme: dating to 2002, the Ducks have never started a quarterback for just one season. Kellen Clemens, Dennis Dixon, Jeremiah Masoli, Darron Thomas and Marcus Mariota were all multi-year starters.

Arizona has been forced to be more resourceful.

You would need the Elias Sports Bureau or someone from Stats LLC to do the proper research, but it seems impossible that any FBS quarterbacks coach in America has coached seven different starting QBs the last seven seasons (and is still employed).

That’s what Smith has done.

In order, beginning in 2008 at Michigan, Smith deployed first-year starting QBs Steven Threet, Tate Forcier and Denard Robinson. Smith mentored quarterback Edward Wright-Baker at Indiana before coming to Tucson, where he has coached Matt Scott, B.J. Denker and Anu Solomon.

That’s now how you win big.

Washington State got to a pair of Rose Bowls with second-year starting QBs Ryan Leaf and Jason Gesser. ASU reached the Rose Bowl with four-year starter Jake Plummer and three-year starter Jeff Van Raaphorst.

What Smith and RichRod have done with QBs at Arizona — a school that has never had the first-team All-Pac-12 QB — is inestimable.

The first time I met Rod Smith I asked him what it was like to be the quarterbacks coach at 1-11 Indiana in 2011.

“You don’t want to know,” he said.

Ironically, he was more prepared to coach QB-needy Arizona than he knew.

In the days leading up to Arizona’s NCAA tournament appearances at McKale Center, UA coach Dave Rubio and his staff scouted and evaluated potential second-round opponent BYU and came to the same conclusion: the selection committee had blown it on the unseeded Cougars.

“Everyone in the volleyball world knew how good they were,” Rubio said Friday. “I knew we had a team good enough to get to the Final Four. I also knew BYU was good enough.”

BYU beat the Wildcats in a close match at McKale, and then roared through the West Regional in Seattle, beat favored Texas in the national semifinals Thursday, and on Saturday played Penn State for the national championship.

Even though UA finished in sole possession of third place in the Pac-12, the nation’s top conference, the NCAA selection committee gave fourth-place Oregon an easier route, at home, with the highest–ranked RPI opponent No. 38 LSU. The committee also gave a less difficult field to UCLA, which finished tied with Oregon. UCLA’s top opponent was No. 26 Long Beach State.

BYU was No. 17 in the RPI and vastly underrated. For Arizona, it was RIP. 

With Tucson’s loss of football’s Copper Bowl, and the holiday Fiesta Bowl basketball classic at McKale Center — the UA will not be playing a home basketball game during the holidays for only the fourth time since 1984 — the enduring game in town over the holidays is tennis. The USTA Winter Nationals will again be held at seven Tucson venues, centered at the Reffkin Tennis Center, from Dec. 27 to Jan. 2, a tournament that Jim Reffkin has fostered for two decades, and now carried on by his tournament director Meghan Houk. Reffkin’s USTA tournaments probably fill as many hotel rooms in Tucson as any sporting event all year. 

Here’s hoping Sean Miller’s wardrobe change, eschewing a tie, will trigger a fashion change in college basketball. Too many coaches wear $2,000 designer suits in a game played by sweaty college kids and watched by people in casual attire. College football figured it out years ago; former Arizona coach John Mackovic, 2001-03, was the last head coach in the Pac-12 to wear a coat and tie on the sidelines. Now the men like Utah’s Kyle Whittingham and UCLA’s Jim Mora look like coaches and not high school principals. 

Given the background of Arizona State AD Ray Anderson — he was an NFL money-man, a vice-president of operations for eight years — it’s not surprising the Sun Devils took almost double money (about $5 million annually) from Adidas and dumped their soon-to-expire deal with sports brand king Nike. It’s a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t predicament. ASU gets more money, but it loses Nike’s cache. In recent years, Under Armour surpassed Adidas in the list of cool merchandisers in college sports. 

It would be a shock if the Fiesta Bowl, Arizona vs. Boise State, is played before a capacity crowd. Tickets are simply too expensive, but the Broncos report they have sold $1.5 million of their $1.9 million ticket allotment, which means you can expect almost 12,000 to 15,000 BSU fans. Arizona is likely to have 35,000 fans at University of Phoenix Stadium, but they’ll likely be more scattered around the cavernous NFL stadium. Fiesta Bowl officials in 2011 announced a near-capacity crowd of 67,232 for the UConn-Oklahoma game, but UConn officials later said they lost about $2.5 million in unrealized ticket sales. Beer at the stadium costs as much as $11 per cup. 

After 18 years as minor-league manager, at every conceivable level, Sahuarita resident Charlie Montoyo was hired Friday to be third base coach of Tampa Bay Rays. Montoyo has been the manager of Durham Bulls for the last eight years, winning six International League division championships. Didn’t somebody do a movie on something like that? Or shouldn’t they? Montoyo has managed, among others, Shelley Duncan, Evan Longoria, Josh Hamilton and B.J. Upton. It will be Montoyo’s first return to The Show since 1993, when he played four games for the Montreal Expos. 

When West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck left the Mountaineers to accept a position with the NCAA last week, it triggered speculation that WVU will hire alumnus Rob Mullen for the vacancy. Mullen is the AD at Oregon. If that happens, the dominoes will continue to fall, and Arizona’s Greg Byrne would surely become the first name mentioned to be AD at Oregon. Byrne grew up in Eugene and later worked for the Ducks. His wife, Regina, is from Junction City, a small town 15 miles from Eugene. 

Like father, like son: Cloverdale (California) High School forward John McMillan was the MVP of last week’s John McMillan Holiday Invitational Basketball Tournament in Northern California. That’s his grandfather. His father is Craig McMillan, starting guard on Arizona’s 1988 Final Four basketball team. John is averaging 16 points for the Eagles; his brother, sophomore Jayson McMillan, is a starter who averages 10 points for his father’s alma mater. 

Santa Rita High grad Terrell Stoglin is averaging 27.7 points for Sagesse in the Lebanese pro basketball league, third of all players. In his last three games, the point guard has scored 21, 30 and 32 points. 

Boise State tailback Jay Ajayi might be the most skilled and talented running back Arizona has played this year. He’s Ka’Deem Carey with more speed, and has rushed for 1,689 yards this year. I watched him in TV games against BYU and Utah State and he is dynamic. Never heard of him? Ajayi was born in London, moved to America as a youngster and became a soccer player. He committed to Boise State before a big recruiting chase could take place, and once he got to Idaho was sidelined for discipline issues: In October 2011, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor petty theft after trying to steal several pairs of sweatpants from a Walmart, according to Boise police. He fulfilled his sentence (90 days of jail, with 85 suspended) by taking eight hours of classes, according to court records. 

Boise State offensive coordinator Mike Sanford might have given the best description of UA’s Scooby Wright all year. Last week Sanford told Boise reporters: “It seems like he’s always in the right place at the right time in those critical moments. He gets very quick reads on the run/pass conflict. He does a great job identifying what you’re trying to do and being in the right place at the right time, and when he gets there, he’s an extremely physical player.” Well said. 

I enjoyed the way Catalina Foothills golf standout Gavin Cohen last week announced he has accepted a golf scholarship to play for Jim Anderson at Arizona. Cohen, who is only a sophomore, and who has been scouted by Anderson since he was in middle school, packaged his announcement on twitter with an image of Arizona’s classic cactus-and-sunset logo of the ’80s and ’90s. That’s good taste. 

Former Sabino High football all-state receiver Keanu Nelson will play his final college game Monday in the Miami Beach Bowl against Memphis. Nelson, a fifth-year senior at BYU, has caught four passes for 35 yards and a touchdown, and returned six punts for 51 yards this season. 

In a wardrobe rarity for college basketball, both coaches in Friday night’s Arizona-UTEP game, Sean Miller and Tim Floyd, didn’t wear a tie.

That’s not style, it’s the new way of Arizona basketball. It has become a working man’s game. How can you be buttoned up when the tension pounds at your nervous system?

Arizona fans grind it out, too. Friday’s final score, 60-55, was 40 minutes of tension. You can’t watch without a lump in your throat.

Do these scores sound familiar?

• 66-63 Gonzaga, win.
• 61-59 San Diego State, win.

It was no different last year:

• 64-63 Wisconsin, loss in overtime.
• 67-63 Utah, win in overtime.
• 69-66 ASU, loss in double overtime.
• 67-65 Oregon, win.
• 60-58 Cal, loss.
• 60-57 Stanford, win.

Somehow, Arizona beat UTEP while committing 17 turnovers, which matched its high of a year ago. Somehow it won while shooting 15 of 26 from the foul line. Somehow it won when the best player on the court, UTEP’s 6-foot-8-inch Vince Hunter, had an 18-12 double-double. (Hunter is averaging 17 points and 12 rebounds in games against Arizona, Washington and Washington State this year.)

Arizona won because Friday’s game was its game. That’s the way the Wildcats play.

No more than four or five college basketball teams would’ve won Friday in El Paso, and no other Pac-12 team seems equipped to handle UTEP’s skill, coaching tactics and the howling crowd at Haskins Center.

From now on, especially when Arizona plays Pac-12 road games against Utah, Cal, Washington and Colorado, you can almost book the final score in advance.

One team gets 65, the other 62. Or something close.

No ties. 

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