It’s going to be a blowout, they said.
Over by halftime, they said.
Just write about the band, they said.
OK, here’s this: For more than 32 minutes, the Grambling State Tiger Marching Band played better than Arizona on Saturday night.
Recruit the tuba player for right guard. Can the drum major run a curl? Time to hire the band leader as offensive coordinator. Better timing.
Better offense, better defense, better Jackson 5, too. They had rhythm, and the Wildcats had none.
Rhythm? Arizona didn’t even have a pulse, much less rhythm, in the first half of an eventual 31-21 win over the FCS Tigers at Arizona Stadium.
Many will celebrate the Wildcats’ second-half surge, when they came from 18 behind to outscore the Tigers 28-0 in the final 27:07. But Arizona never should’ve been in that position.
People are also reading…
An illustration: On a first-and-5 from the Grambling State 22 yard line midway through the second quarter, Arizona center Nathan Eldridge snapped the ball high, requiring quarterback Brandon Dawkins to adjust, but he corralled it quickly enough to hand off to Nick Wilson, who ran the ball —right into the back of Jacob Alsadek. Wilson crumpled to the ground after a 1-yard loss.
Arizona managed a first down on the next play, but squandered the opportunity with back-to-back Dawkins-to-Wilson incompletions and capped off a fruitful drive with a field goal, its only points of the first 32 minutes, 53 seconds.
It wasn’t that Dawkins was particularly poor on Saturday night in his first college start — he went 15 for 29 for 223 yard and a touchdown after starting just 6 for 15 for 114 yards in the first half — but it sure looked like Grambling State had the better quarterback. Maybe two.
Starter DeVante Kincade, a transfer from Ole Miss with sensational footwork and a strong arm, went 15 for 19 for 193 yards and two touchdowns before being sidelined on the Tigers’ last drive of the first half. Enter Trevon Cherry, who completed his first five passes — for 12, 3, 8, 30 and 10 yards, respectively — en route to leading Grambling State on its third touchdown drive of the game. He crumbled late with three interceptions on long heaves .
But the Tigers looked like a threat throughout, a week after putting up a program-record 72 points. This performance may have been more impressive.
And a week after looking listless and boring in a loss to BYU, the Arizona offense looked worse against the Tigers.
Arizona managed 230 first-half yards, nearly half coming on two plays, a 70-yard Dawkins-to-Samajie Grant connection and a 42-yard Dawkins run.
The Tigers were plodding and methodical, gaining 303 first-half yards — including 256 through the air — and 462 for the game. Ballcarriers sliced through the Arizona defense like a cold knife through warm butter.
The Wildcats, who as an FBS program you’d expect would be the bigger and stronger team, if not faster, went 0-for-3 on fourth-down attempts, getting stuffed on a fourth-and-2 early, a fourth-and-1 in the second quarter and a fourth-and-2 midway through the third. Against a team that plays an FBS opponent about once every decade, that’s quite an indictment.
Maybe it’s on us. Maybe we all shouldn’t have been so cocky, Las Vegas included — the Vegas books had Arizona as a 40-point-plus favorite. By the end of the first quarter, it was clear that prediction was as about as accurate as a blind man shooting a bow and arrow.
By the end of the second, it looked like Grambling State was the better team.
And once the second quarter was over, it was halftime.
Ah well. At least we got to see the band.
