Midnight had come and gone at Arizona Stadium and it was already Sunday morning, Oct. 15, 2000. I walked slowly past buses that would take Washington State's football team to the Tucson airport.
The Cougars would fly to Lewiston, Idaho, and then make a 45-mile uphill drive to the WSU campus. ETA: 5 a.m.
Wazzu's 53-47, three-overtime loss to Arizona meant that the Cougars had lost 17 of their last 19 Pac-10 games.
See ya, wouldn't want to be ya.
As I often do following a football game at Arizona Stadium, I stopped to observe the visiting team as it began the trip home. For most of the previous 20 years, I observed the losing team. Didn't matter who was sitting in the front-row coach's seat — John Robinson of USC or Don James of Washington — most of them went home losers.
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I remember thinking that the Wildcats, 5-1 and ranked No. 22, had re-established themselves as a college football power. They were eight days removed from routing USC at the Los Angeles Coliseum. Arizona undeniably — unthinkably — had a better football program than USC.
October, 2000.
The Wildcats of '00 possessed two future NFL receivers, Brandon Manumaleuna and Bobby Wade. They had a three-man tailback rotation that ranked with the best in the nation: Clarence Farmer, Leo Mills and Larry Croom. Mills gained 129 yards that night.
Their starting linebackers, Antonio Pierce and Lance Briggs, were destined to become NFL millionaires. Two offensive linemen — Makoa Freitas and Kevin Barry — would stick in the NFL.
Defense? Three of Arizona's five victims had been unable to score a touchdown.
The elevator was still on the ascent at Arizona Stadium.
I stopped to watch the listless Cougars and their coaches board a late-night bus to nowhere. The Wildcats were bound for a classic showdown at No. 7 Oregon, another in a series of Big Games played out over 20 seasons of UA football (non-Rose Bowl category) success.
From the first game of the 1990s to Arizona's triple-overtime victory over WSU, October 2000, the Pac-10 standings stood this way:
Washington 87-36-1
Arizona 76-47-1
UCLA 74-47
Oregon 75-49
USC 71-52-3
Arizona State 63-55
Stanford 62-58-2
Cal 57-63-1
Wazzu 55-64
Oregon State 34-82-1
There was no warning of the storm about to hit UA football.
The Wildcats would lose their final five games. Dick Tomey would be fired. Chaos would ensue.
It all begin, fully unexpected, the day after Arizona scored 53 points to beat the Cougars and climb to No. 21 in The Associated Press poll.
To further test the believability scale, Washington State would roll off consecutive seasons of 10-2, 10-3 and 10-3, including a Rose Bowl appearance.
Everything changed after that October night at Arizona Stadium. The losers became grand winners. The winners have established institutional lows for losing in contemporary football.
Next time you think you know that Boise State can't possibly beat Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, or that Washington State and Northwestern will never play in a Rose Bowl game, remember how Arizona's football program came crashing down so swiftly.
Try this: Since Arizona beat WSU in triple-overtime that night, the Pac-10 standings are as follows:
USC 70-16
Oregon 57-27
Oregon State 52-33
Cal 49-35
UCLA 49-36
Wazzu 48-33
Arizona State 46-39
Washington 38-44
Stanford 29-49
Arizona 24-54
This unexpected change of fortune is one reason why it is so foolish to predict the future of college football. It applies everywhere.
Washington, for example, was the Pac-10's most successful program of the '90s. Almost overnight it fell behind long-time punching bags Oregon State and Cal.
Remember that when you write off Arizona and insist that Jim Livengood begin searching for another football coach.
On the night Arizona began its fall from grace in October 2000, Mike Stoops was part of the juggernaut at Oklahoma. The Sooners went 13-0 that season, won the national title, and Stoops was just another 38-year-old assistant coach trying to move up the career ladder.
Sonny Dykes, the man who has been hired to help Arizona score enough points to save everyone's job, was at that time a 29-year-old assistant at Kentucky, a few months removed from a Louisiana-Monroe coaching staff that was fired en masse.
Stoops and Dykes are now trusted to win Arizona's most important game of the year — games of the year — Saturday against WSU and next week at Oregon State.
It can't be done, you say? The Wildcats are done? Everyone should be fired?
Just remember that Washington State's long trip home to Pullman in October 2000 was the beginning of the Cougars' shocking Road to the Rose Bowl and once-proud Arizona's Road to Ruin.
