Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Despite win, Wildcats are in repair mode

Despite win, Wildcats are back in repair mode

For artistic merit, Arizona’s 45-37 victory in Saturday’s Gildan New Mexico Bowl was something straight out of the Division III postseason, maybe Mount Union vs. Wisconsin-Whitewater.

Maybe it wasn’t even up to those standards.

The Lobos gained 522 yards but were penalized for 109. The Wildcat defense yielded a first down on 11 third-down plays. Arizona almost averaged a first down each time it snapped the ball, gaining 506 yards on just 56 snaps.

It wasn’t your grandfather’s idea of a bowl game — two big scorers in a high noon shootout. It was strictly ESPN filling its programming windows with teams who combined to go 14-12 this season.

Arizona’s mandate was simple: Do not lose to the Lobos. Nobody will understand.

New Mexico’s theme was much different: Give it your best shot. If you can hang tight with a Pac-12 team, throw a scare into ‘em, it’ll almost be as good as winning.

Where Rich Rodriguez‘s football program goes from here is anybody’s guess. It is not trending upward.

If you give up 522 yards to a Mountain West Conference team that only averaged 378, you’ve got troubles. On a day Scooby Wright returned and made 15 tackles, many of them when he appeared gassed and running on empty, it was sobering to wonder what might’ve happened had Scooby not been available.

Arizona’s secondary is such a mess that you can almost blow it up and start over. With Scooby declaring for the NFL draft, and with defensive linemen Jeff Worthy and Reggie Gilbert out of eligibility, it’s frightening to look at Arizona’s 2016 schedule.

It plays road games at UCLA, Utah and Washington State in midseason. And it gets USC and Stanford in October Tucson games.

On paper, that looks like 1-4 at best. But that’s a long way off.

Between now and then, RichRod must fix a defense that was moved up and down the field Saturday by a New Mexico team that had no real offensive imagination or strategy other than “we’re going to run it.”

Arizona isn’t alone in its need to restock the cupboard; the Pac-12 South division has some major issues between now and September.

Utah must replace long-time starting quarterback Travis Wilson and star tailback Devontae Booker.

Arizona State, which is 6-6, lost the brains of its offense, coordinator Mike Novell, and will lose starting QB Mike Bercovici and its top playmaker, D.J. Foster.

New USC coach Clay Helton is no one’s idea of Pete Carroll and UCLA limped home at 8-4, a notable disappointment.

College football is a hard business and the Pac-12 is unforgiving. For a football program that never seems far from a rebuilding project, Arizona is again in the repair business.

Beating New Mexico in a bowl game that will be forgotten by Tuesday wasn’t where a team that was ranked No. 16 as recently as Sept. 20 hoped to finish the season.

But it was sure better than losing to the Lobos.

Arizona Bowl getting ready for Dec. 29 game

The UA grounds crew painted over the Pac-12 logo at Arizona Stadium on Friday and made the first outline for the inaugural Arizona Bowl logo. The coloring will be added early this week. Colorado State and Nevada players will arrive in Tucson at Christmas Day.

So far, 130 TV stations nationally have paid for broadcast rights from the American Sports Network, including Channel 58 in Tucson. The game also will be broadcast on Dish Network channel 632 and DirecTV channel 640.

The financial break-even point is 25,000 fans at Arizona Stadium.

“Every breath I take is to hit 25,000,” said Ali Farhang, a Tucson attorney who is chairman of the Arizona Bowl Committee. “I don’t want to just hit 25,000, I want to exceed it. ‘’

Colorado State and Nevada will stay at the Marriott Starr Pass and at the Loews Ventana Canyon hotels. CSU has doubled its original allotment of room reservations at Starr Pass.

Grevers still going strong, sets backstroke record

UA volunteer swimming coach Matt Grevers broke the world record in the 100 backstroke at last week’s Duel in the Pool meet in Indianapolis. He swam the distance in 48.92 seconds, which broke a 6-year-old record held by ex-Wildcat Nick Thoman, now Grevers’ training partner in the Ford Aquatics program at the UA. Grevers, who is 30 and a six-time Olympic medalist, could be 1-2, or 2-1, against Thoman at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Delaney Schnell finishes second in Winter Championships

Tucson High diver Delaney Schnell finished second last week at the USA Diving Winter Championships in Indianapolis. Schnell was second overall in synchronized platform diving. She was fifth overall in platform diving semifinals in the meet that ends Sunday. It’s a promising development for the Badger junior, who is competing against the leading Olympic-hopeful divers in Indianapolis.

Dave Liggins undergoes liver transplant

Former UA defensive back Dave Liggins, defensive MVP of the 1979 Fiesta Bowl, underwent a liver transplant earlier this year but is back in a Cleveland, Ohio, hospital for further examination; he may require a second liver transplant. Liggins is struggling financially to pay for his treatment. Those interested in helping can contribute to the Liver & Kidney Fund of David Liggins, Wayne County Community Federal Credit Union P O Box 214, Smithville, Ohio 44677.

Brandon Sanders featured in article

Arizona’s 1994 All-Pac-10 safety Brandon Sanders, now the football coach and athletic director at Pueblo High School, has persevered over significant off-field troubles that began in his high school days in San Diego and continued at the UA and, later, when he played in the NFL. SB Nation last week wrote a lengthy story about Sanders, chronicling his life in and out of football. I recommend it. “Oasis in the Desert” can be found at sbnation.com/longform

Goalkeeper Robles back in Arizona for Q&A session

Tucson Soccer Academy alumnus Luis Robles, the 2015 MLS Goalkeeper of the Year for the New York Red Bulls, will make a public appearance at the Sheraton, 5151 E. Grant Road, from 3-5 p.m. on Sunday. There is no admission charge for the Q&A session with the Sierra Vista Buena High School product.

Ex-Lancer Iliana Gonzales sets school record

Former Salpointe Catholic basketball standout Iliana Gonzales scored a school-record 33 points for Division III Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, last week. Gonzales, a senior guard, was 9 for 9 from the foul line and also made 4 of 5 three-point attempts. She is averaging a team-high 21.3 points. 

Former UA basketball managers making it as coaches

When former UA basketball manager Jack Murphy, now head coach at NAU, played at McKale Center last week, he was not the only ex-UA basketball manager in a high-profile game. Adam Cohen, who was Lute Olson’s manager in 2006 and 2007, is now an assistant at Vanderbilt, which lost to Archie Miller’s Dayton team last week. Cohen previously coached at Rice and USC.

Nick Johnson is example of how tough it is to make NBA

How tough is it to make it in NBA? Nick Johnson, the Pac-12’s 2014 Player of the Year, remains unemployed, looking for a way back into the NBA. And Delon Wright, a consensus All-American guard at Utah last season, is playing for Salpointe Catholic grad Jesse Mermuys’ NBA D-League team, Raptors 905, based in Mississauga, Ontario.

Stanley Johnson averaging 21 minutes for Pistons

Stanley Johnson is averaging 21 minutes per game for the Detroit Pistons, but has not started a game. Johnson is only shooting 38 percent afield. At Arizona last year, as the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, Johnson shot .446. 

Team that beat UA women's basketball team was 4-5

The SMU women’s basketball team that beat Niya Butts’ Arizona squad Saturday in Puerto Rico is 4-5, and had lost this month to North Texas and New Mexico.

Community college DE Josh Allen to visit Arizona

One of the key Arizona football recruiting targets is Long Beach City College defensive end Josh Allen, which is a position of great need at every school, especially Arizona. Allen will make an official visit to Arizona on Jan. 15 and a final visit, to Washington State, on Jan. 22. Advantage, Arizona. Average temperature in Pullman, Washington, on Jan. 22 is 38 high, 22 low.

Kahi Neves commits to Arizona

Arizona got a recruiting commitment last week from Timpview (Utah) High School quarterback Kahi Neves, a three-star prospect who projects as a linebacker at Arizona. Neves’ background is unsettling, to say the least. He has played for six high school programs in four years, including Scooby Wright’s Cardinal Newman in Northern California, Kaiser High in Hawaii, Bishop Gorman in Las Vegas and in Salt Lake City-area schools Bingham, Brighton and Timpview. That’s got to be a record, but it’s also a troubling trend at the elite level of high school sports. Neves committed to Utah a year ago.

UA assistant coaches Caitlin Lowe, Paul Nagy marry

UA assistant softball coach Caitlin Lowe, a 2008 Olympic outfielder and consensus All-American, last week married UA assistant soccer coach Paul Nagy, who is in his third year at Arizona. They’ll be one of the most high-profile couples on the UA staff; senior associate AD Erika Hanson Barnes is married to ex-UA golf standout Andy Barnes, now a caddie on the PGA Tour.

Higher golf prices not the solution

OB Sports, which manages 55 golf properties in the country, sent its big hitters, president, C.A. Roberts, and its senior vice president, Mark Woodward, to the Tucson City Council meeting last week.

It was much ado about nickels and dimes.

Proposed rate adjustments for the five city courses — Dell Urich, Randolph North, Fred Enke, Silverbell and El Rio — are minimal and depend on time of the year and time of the day. The highest rate hike came quietly over the last four years, when a daily “mega pass” went from about $1,800 a year to its current $2,350.

The comment that most lingered was councilwoman Regina Romero saying “we are not closing any golf courses.”

Councilman Steve Kozachik suggested OB’s maneuvering for rate adjustments are misguided.

“I’m more inclined to say we lower (rates),” Kozachik said. “These are muni courses and they need to be affordable to the public. … If golf’s going to go forward and survive, we need to try to attract a new audience, expand the market, and go for volume.”

OB Sports has operated the city’s five courses for just 22 months. Play and profits have increased. It’s a promising partnership whose future will spin, as Kozachik says, on growth and volume, not higher prices.