Bear Down Wildcats

TheCatInTheHat

Meanwhile, as far as a Big XII schedule goes, we're like the people at Rick's Cafe Americain...we wait...and wait. I assume the big networks hit the Big Ten, then maybe the ACC for Duke and Carolina, then possibly the SEC over football loyalties, and finally the Big XII, despite the rankings of our ...

TheCatInTheHat

The thing is, when a new coaching regime comes in here, the coordinators seem to have about the same expectation of 3-years of job safety as the head coach. That's absolutely not true at the biggest football schools, but it seems to be the case at Arizona, based on history. I don't particularly like...

TheCatInTheHat

I think most people figured we'd likely go 2-2 in our first 4 games, but that assumed looking very good in the first 2, being respectable in the next 2 on the road, then doing very well, like a minimum of 5-3 and more like an assumed 6-2, in the rest of them. There was probably a bit of pride involv...

TheCatInTheHat

Not sure there is anything like a bad win. A win is a win. Polls didn't care how bad UA played. Not sure what Kelly wanted the Cats to do, sit around and feel sorry for themselves? He just seems mad at the world. Regardless of the BS some people try to push, nobody expects or particularly wants a c...

TheCatInTheHat

He asked Brennan why he actually followed the school tradition for celebrating a win when he didn't cover the point spread. I guess the band shouldn't be allowed to play the alma mater either when we don't cover; isn't that what everybody does? And this follows the incident of giving out information...

TheCatInTheHat

I don't think that would be a foregone conclusion. When the question arose, they took action to sit him down. It would be up to the NCAA to decide any violation or penalties, which might take until after the season with a lot of back and forth dialogue. If it's an asterisk after everything shakes ou...

TheCatInTheHat

Per Spears in the Star, his status is still "questionable." Apparently, the issue was raised by Arizona's compliance department. With the COVID situation and redshirting, most players of his class year are out of eligibility, but there are some exceptions, as Spears mentioned Miami TE Cam McCormick ...

TheCatInTheHat

KSU's coach did the Tulane review/Arizona preview presser. Mostly about them and how they need to improve, but that they've only completed their second game, so similar circumstances. A lot of their concerns are about their secondary getting burned by not having their eyes in the right place. He sai...

TheCatInTheHat

Ah, what the hell. Alternates are part of the business model these days. I think they're kind of sporty.

TheCatInTheHat

I managed to find photos of four of the seven contests in our catfight series.

TheCatInTheHat

This will be our first trip to the Little Apple, as the previous seven games (5-1-1 Arizona) were all played in Tucson. The last time we played was when Tony Mason was our coach in 1978. 17th-ranked KSU took care of UT-Martin in their opener 41-6, then pulled out a tight one at Tulane Saturday 34-27...

TheCatInTheHat

So it was interesting to me how many players on NAU came through transfers either through high major programs or who were bigger recruits who went the JC route. I swear I heard 7-8 of those stories. Had me thinking this wasn’t your usual NAU team stocked with the best Yuma, Sierra Vista, Colorado C...

TheCatInTheHat

NAU has a new coach in Brian Wright, who made the move from Pittsburg State (of Kansas.) The Lumberjacks played everybody and rolled up crazy stats in a season opening win over the Division II Lincoln Oaks. As usual, it’s hard to draw any conclusions about an FCS team, and particularly so with a new...

TheCatInTheHat

Certainly not a work of art. In a perfect world, we'd have played NAU last week while NM played Montana St. Get all the logistics and butterflies out and make the same Game One to Game Two improvement (particularly so with the all-new staff and some new rules and equipment.) Lev said it was a 29 poi...

TheCatInTheHat

https://i.imgur.com/yCCkgRR.jpeg Looking back at what I guess was considered a rivalry, I'm mostly grateful that we outgrew it. I'm not one to throw out or deny history, so the past is what it is. There have been plenty of close contests through the years. But some close games don't make for the pa...

TheCatInTheHat

I'd say the only real surprises are walk-on Cole Tannenbaum as the backup QB, and true freshman Mathew Lado as the backup RT.

TheCatInTheHat

...and it looks like it rains a little bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07JUS2_rkoo

TheCatInTheHat

New Mexico lost in Bronco Mendenhall’s first game as head coach, dropping a home game to a supposedly pretty good FCS Montana St 31-35. I guess, considering our loss to NAU a couple of years ago, and a close win against North Dakota St in 2022, we should suspend judgment for now, but I think we’ll f...

TheCatInTheHat

This sure ain't your father's college football anymore...

https://www.si.com/college/arizona/news ... %20company.

TheCatInTheHat

It says ACC Network, but it looks like it ** might ** also be available on ESPN+.

TheCatInTheHat

Brent Brennan apparently specifically singled out the offensive line as an area of strength for the 2024 Wildcats. That certainly provides some level of reassurance to Arizona fans concerned about player losses and the injury bug in that position group. In theory, that's the first and most crucial a...

TheCatInTheHat

If it worked out that we'd play Gonzaga in the Atlantis title game, that would be 8 games against Top Ten teams on our schedule:

1. @ Kansas
4. Houston
5. Gonzaga (Bahamas)
6. Baylor
6. @ Baylor
7. Iowa St
7. @ Iowa St
8. Duke

TheCatInTheHat

I actually did. God, it was the worst...especially during a time when Snowden's guys wanted to run up and down the court willing to give up 110 to get 120 (which I believe they did more than once.) One of the worst parts of it was that while the crowd was bored into a silent stupor, the visiting UT...

TheCatInTheHat

Have you been following Justin Spears in the Star? I think he's done a pretty good job following on to Lev's approach. Not sure what's going to happen now with the supposedly closed practices, but he's covered most of the position groups and talked about who's up, who's down, different combinations,...

TheCatInTheHat

It's a quid pro quo. There's a trust factor, kind of like when a small group of long-standing reporters are given some heads-up on military operations (which I don't agree with.) In exchange for the privilege of watching practice, it's understood that you're not to divulge information on injuries, t...

TheCatInTheHat

From the retirement home, the Star lets Hansen write his views about the (old and) new opponents in the Big XII. When I bother to read his stuff, I just speed-read/skim, so I'm not going to go line-by-line. As usual, there a few buried easter eggs of info that I suppose might make somebody's mouth h...

TheCatInTheHat

I guess it's not unexpected, but since moving away from Arizona a few years ago, my attention toward ASU and their local media is now almost non-existent. I used to get annoyed about their various lame attempts to downplay and smear all things Wildcat. But, in addition to those geographic changes, t...

TheCatInTheHat

azcat49 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 14, 2024 3:49 pm Word is David Kelly

Thanks; that was my guess. For such a little dude with a pretty privileged upbringing (NFL HOF dad/USC degree) the guy seems to have a pretty big chip on his shoulder.

TheCatInTheHat

Per Scheer, evidently somebody who's been attending practices since at least RichRod's time tweeted out some injury information, resulting in the coaching staff declaring all practices closed for the time being. He said the individual has had run-ins with previous coaches. My assumption is it wouldn...

TheCatInTheHat

The 1972 Olympics was horrific in many ways, with the massacre of the Israeli athletes overshadowing everything else. The basketball game was outrageous. The officials giving the Soviet (pros) chances at the end against the US collegians until they finally "won" also overshadows one-sided officiatin...

TheCatInTheHat

There are always controversies and complaints. In the past, athletes have complained about the accommodations, food, water quality, judges' rulings, etc. And outside critics love to nit-pick various aspects of the ceremonies, and any unfairness they can uncover in the inevitable disruption of everyd...

TheCatInTheHat

Lev has a preview story in the Star where he compares the weight of this year's defensive line to last year's team. It's certainly a legitimate issue and concern, as size and depth there contributed to our success last year. It also plays into the schematic change of being in more of an attack mode ...

TheCatInTheHat

Looking at how Stanford and Cal are putting more emphasis on academics, and less on athletics, I can see this guy trying to do that. There is literally nothing to suggest he would ever think to do such a thing. If anything he's more likely to cut out the humanities department than do anything to sp...

TheCatInTheHat

With the geography, I guess that would be very possible, and it would certainly make things interesting. To that point, I looked up our NCAA Tournament records against former (and future) conference rivals. Former WAC Schools: 2009 - Beat Utah 2002 - Beat Wyoming 1998 - Lost to Utah 1991 - Beat BYU ...

TheCatInTheHat

To my knowledge, this is all there is so far: Non-Conference: 11/4 Canisius 11/9 Old Dominion 11/22 Duke 12/14 UCLA (@ Phoenix) 12/17 CS-Northridge Big XII: Home And Home: ASU/ at ASU Baylor/ at Baylor BYU/ at BYU Iowa St/ at Iowa St Texas Tech/ at Texas Tech Home Only Central Florida Colorado Houst...

TheCatInTheHat

I've probably told this before, but here goes again. I was pretty excited about the '73-74 basketball team's prospects, so I went to a few of Fred Snowden's practices at McKale to see Money, Norman, Fleming, Allen, Rappis, and some freshmen: Bob Elliot...and Herman Harris. Harris was the most physic...

TheCatInTheHat

So, after all the drama and waiting, we're finally underway, and the new chapter begins.

TheCatInTheHat

Things change, and anything's possible, but I've become pessimistic that the Big XII will ever move the hoops tourney to Vegas. 9 of the league schools are in semi-reasonable driving range of KC (the Texas and Kansas schools, OSU, ISU, and CU.) The other 7 are likely flying. With Vegas, 5 (now inclu...

TheCatInTheHat

Yeah, and to be fair, Andy Enfield also went that "new sheriff in town" route for USC basketball before leaving for the ACC at SMU. Same approach: rinse and repeat. Anyway, continuing headwinds for UCLA football, despite Bolch's puff-piece today with AD Martin Jarmond blowing rainbow Skittles all ov...

TheCatInTheHat

Chase Budinger and his partner won their first match 2-0 over France. Then they lost to the Netherlands. They play again Friday (I believe at 6 am PT) against Spain. A salute to them from somebody's South Bay condo overlooking the beach and the volleyball nets to the amazingly scenic beach volleyba...

TheCatInTheHat

Brennan's announcement at the start of fall camp that they've added LB Jared Small isn't necessarily just a shrug about an extra body. He was fourth in tackles on an 11-3 Tulane team last year.

TheCatInTheHat

For years UCLA has tried to be more than the "gutty little Bruins" in football in LA, but now I guess they're stuck with embracing it. If the T-shirt idea wasn't likely the result of somebody in their football offices with "creative" as part of a job title trying to flip the script, I'd probably fin...

TheCatInTheHat

It reminds me of that American Express ad in Major League : "You don't know us, but we're a major league baseball team." Sad. And I just don't see a path for them to get back to their glory days. The Rose Bowl is hot for day games (which I assume they'll play more of in the Big Ten) and distant for ...

TheCatInTheHat

Looking at the draft "schedule" before what I assume will be filler games, what figure to be the top 11 home games (and I'll include UCLA at Phoenix) involve 4 preseason top 10 teams (Houston, Baylor, Iowa St, Duke), a top 25 (UCLA), 2 more teams from the upper division of the toughest conference in...

TheCatInTheHat

Wilner quotes somebody named Nick Carparelli, executive director of Bowl Season, the organizing association for bowl games (neither of which I've ever heard of) as the authority who says we're still tethered to "Pac-12" bowl games for the next two seasons. So, beyond the CFP, it's: Big XII San Anton...

TheCatInTheHat

Northwestern's temp field is pretty cool, and it will also be cool when they play at Wrigley. I have fond memories of watching Gale Sayers and Dick Butkus (just on TV) playing games there. This kind of situation brings up a concern I have for whenever they decide to re-do the west side of Arizona St...

TheCatInTheHat

Looks like the only constant really is change. Not sure what are the eventual TV-driven forward expectations for the SEC and Big Ten. If the model is to attempt to achieve something similar to this a number of years down the line, Yormark may be putting this out there as part of trolling for ACC tea...

TheCatInTheHat

Yeah, that 2014 game was really something. When it was 31-13, I got fed up and left; guess I'm a bad fan. Our car was parked near Dirtbag's, so we went in there to drown our sorrows and watch the game. The only seats were at the bar, so we squeezed in there, and as luck would have it, there was a Ca...

TheCatInTheHat

It's a little surprising how quickly all the angst about the demise of the Pac died down. It's been only a little more than a month since the last "real" Pac teams competed and P12N shut down, but all attention seems (properly) focused on competition in the new expanded leagues and expanded CFP. It'...

TheCatInTheHat

Timely update from the Star. I missed one on the roster (since she wasn't/isn't yet listed on the official roster.) But Mailien Rolf, a 5-10 incoming freshman from Germany, led her under 20 Eurobasket team to the semi-finals, losing to France 64-55.

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