SAN DIEGO -At halftime Wednesday, I took the Qualcomm Stadium elevator to ground level, talked my way past a security guy and reached the field just as someone dimmed the lights.
I was jarred as fireworks exploded overhead. An instant later I was swarmed, almost disoriented, as 200 dancers and 300 musicians rushed onto the field.
It was then that I knew how the UA's offense must have felt.
There was no place to run, no time to pass and no place to hide.
And then it started to rain.
On a night the UA football program would've been happy had ESPN lost its audio and video feeds, a night the Wildcats played their worst game of the Mike Stoops years, the Holiday Bowl came off as a game between the Big 12 and the Little One.
Remember Penn State 41, Arizona 7 in 1999, when the Wildcats got too big for their britches? This was the sequel.
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"I apologize to our fans," said UA coach Mike Stoops. "This game was over before it started. It's my fault."
The Cornhuskers won 33-0 and, no, I didn't really go onto the field at halftime. Stadium personnel had secured the area, apparently worried that the Wildcats would sneak out in the darkness, board their buses and leave the Cornhuskers with no one to play in the second half.
But even when the Wildcats returned, it was as if Nebraska had the field to itself.
It was almost as bad as losing on your home basketball court by 30 when some guy named Jimmer scored 49 points.
So, yes, this is a colossally bad week for the UA athletic department. But losing to the Cornhuskers so badly on such a big stage went beyond bad. It went all the way to embarrassment.
It was worse than Cal's 37-27 loss to Utah on the same turf a week earlier, and was every bit as squalid as Oregon State's 44-20 loss to BYU in the Las Vegas Bowl.
The only happy UA fan today is the guy who didn't drive six hours through Gila Bend and Yuma and parts unknown to pay $63 for a cheap seat, $8 for a beer and buy a souvenir T-shirt that he would be too embarrassed to wear.
"I'm in a complete state of shock," said UA offensive coordinator Sonny Dykes. This is shock: Before its garbage-time final possession, Arizona had 28 yards of total offense. That's 28 yards in 53 minutes. When did the Cornhuskers become the '79 Steelers?
"The snowball started rolling…" Dykes said. He didn't need to finish the sentence.
I have a few questions:
How did this Nebraska team ever lose four games, including one to Iowa State?
How did this Arizona team win eight games, including one at USC?
What has gone wrong with Dykes' offense? Is Nick Foles no longer the quarterback of the future?
Was an eight-day Christmas vacation in San Diego too long for the UA's psyche?
Not only were the Cornhuskers noticeably bigger and faster, they seemed to know what was coming, as if they were piped into Dykes' headsets. They were never out of position. For a guy whose first three starts this season gained 1,061 passing yards, Foles averaged 0.8 yards on his first 15 pass attempts Wednesday.
That's 10 yards at half. It was dismal television. ESPN's ratings must've been 0.001 in all states whose capital isn't Lincoln.
Does this undo all the good of the regular season? Not if you judge it in the context that an 8-5 season is now a disappointment and a year ago 8-5 was a reason for joy. But it does make you wonder if opposing defenses have had time to figure out Foles and Dykes. It does scuttle much of the program's positive traction.
And surely it means that the Wildcats have not arrived. After beating USC, they might've gotten so full of themselves, so content, that they didn't fully comprehend that Nebraska plays big-boy football.
"A lot of the guys were getting caught up in the hoo-rah," said UA safety Cam Nelson.
At Nebraska, the people are different, the pace is different and life is different. That's why about 30,000 Huskers fans, almost half the crowd of 64,607, made such a financial and time commitment to be in San Diego to watch their beloved Huskers.
To them, this was serious business. The Cornhuskers got that message and played with a savage desire.
By comparison, according to Stoops and Nelson, the Wildcats left their heart at the L.A. Coliseum on Dec. 5. Perhaps an eight-day holiday vacation in San Diego, expenses paid, was too long; the Huskers were here for six days.
"A week is not too long," said Stoops, whose Mr. Nice Guy approach of late didn't seem to work. "It's what you're doing with the time during the week. We didn't spend our time wisely, is what it tells me."
But after witnessing Wednesday's 60-minute mash, I prefer to think that the best team won and that if Nebraska and Arizona played a seven-game series the Cornhuskers would win at least seven, maybe more.
Contact Greg Hansen at 573-4362 or ghansen@azstarnet.com
