Tucson is a golf town, so perhaps you’ll forgive the poetic license, but Rich Rodriguez deserves a mulligan for this season.
Things look bleak; that much is true. Despite an early 14-0 lead, Arizona fell to the USC Trojans, 38-30, on Saturday at the Los Angeles Coliseum, sending the Wildcats to 5-5 and leaving them on the precipice of bowl eligibility in what began as a season with such promise.
Luckily, you’re a forgiving lot, Arizona football fans. You’re willing to give a guy a break, ready to forgive trying circumstances. You’re not SEC fans, ready to hang ’em high if a coach doesn’t deliver bowl games and national championships. You’re not crude like that.
“I think we just have a little more patience,” said Arizona fan Tony Alvarado, waiting to head to his seat as kickoff approached. “We have a good team, and we’re waiting for it. Scooby Wright, that’s a good player right there, a team captain who went down. So those aren’t excuses. Next year, when we have everybody, we’ll be good to go.”
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That’s all you can ask for as a college football head coach, a leash.
And as a fan, all you can ask for is a little fight.
Arizona showed too little last Saturday in a 49-3 slashing at Washington, and Rodriguez was rightfully excoriated for it. It was as if the Wildcats lost the will to play, and as a coach, a more damning indictment doesn’t exist.
But the Wildcats brought their gloves to the Los Angeles Coliseum, and a defense that has been besieged by injuries and a dearth of impact plays hung tough against a Trojans offense with more star power than the Milky Way galaxy.
“I don’t think anybody’s going to flee away from the problem,” Rodriguez said earlier in the week. “We hope nobody freezes. There’s a tendency to freeze when adversity happens. We’re going to fight through it.”
Still, no play seemed to signify Arizona’s wayward season than Anu Solomon’s second-quarter interception with the Wildcats driving to score, which would have made it at least a two-touchdown game. Solomon had tight end Josh Kern wide-open up the middle just before the USC end zone, but Kern was faced the wrong way, and Trojans defensive back John Plattenburg simply stepped right up and snatched the ball, returning it to the 28-yard line.
On the next play, Cody Kessler uncorked a bomb to Juju Smith-Schuster for a 72-yard touchdown connection.
A would-be Arizona 21-3 lead turned into a manageable four-point deficit for USC.
Like the season, which began with all that promise, so too did Saturday, only to flame out. And instead of locking up a bowl berth, the Wildcats enter the final two games of the season with their backs against the wall.
But at least Rodriguez isn’t being thrown over it.
“A lot of people talk about replacing RichRod; how can you say that?” Arizona fan Xavier Rios said. “We had Stoops in there; he came in there with all these promises, and it was horrible.
“With RichRod, we’ve made a big-time bowl game — this year feels like an anomaly with the injuries. You can’t lose your top three, four linebackers and be competitive.”
On Saturday, they were, though, and that was enough.
Enough to stave off the critics, enough to give the Wildcats a reason to hope, enough to give non-Wildcats fans a reason to respect them.
“I really thought they were gonna be contenders this year, man,” said USC fan Oscar Castillo, sporting a USC No. 75 jersey and playing toss with his family in the Trojans parking lot. “Everybody makes mistakes; we’re all human. So for the most part, you give him a pass.”
Fair enough, Mr. Castillo, fair enough.
Would you have given Steve Sarkisian a pass at 5-5?
“Ehh,” Castillo said. “I don’t know about that.”
