NCAA Football Arizona Football

The Pac-10, for better or worse, has never been known for particularly intense, physical play. Heck, even their obligatory "conference teams as whatever" topic was, uh, wine. Be proud, left coasters. Be proud.

So Mike Stoops, who loses football games, clearly must have seen a conference-wide toughness deficiency for the Wildcats to exploit during this off-season. How, you may ask? Intensifying their strength and conditioning training? Longer practices? Amped up recruiting?

Well... would you settle for four days of pretending they're in the Armed Forces?

Coach Mike Stoops announced Monday that the UA football team will practice at Fort Huachuca Aug. 13-16 as it prepares for a critical season.

The Wildcats will sleep in army barracks, practice on a pair of artificial-surface fields and spend much of their downtime with the troops. The practices will be open to the public.

Your move, Kellen Winslow.

To be fair, this isn't actually new for the Arizona program; they practiced at Camp Cochise as far back as the 1970s, and they were there as late as 2001, when John Mackovic decided to take the "Wreck The Arizona Wildcats Project" to dizzying new heights.

If the four practices at Fort Huachuca don't prove to be the single factor that pushes the Wildcats back into Pac-10 contention, they can always fall back on praying the opposing star QB's knee implodes. Hey, it worked once.

This one does not feature Paris Hilton. Surprisingly. Or Bayern Munich goalie Oliver Kahn.

Arizona defensive end Josh Lewis has been "suspended indefinitely" after a video of him using his hand on a girl in what appears to be an uncomfortable and unwanted fashion. The kicker: it's outside during the day in the midst of a pool party. Which, like... geez, man.

Though Lewis hasn't been charged with any crime, at least not yet, he's a walk-on and his days as an Arizona football player are probably numbered. A warning on the video: though it's not particularly explicit, it's very uncomfortable to watch. Anyone with a tolerance for offense south of "heroic" should probably skip it. It's after the jump.

Mike Stoops got off a zinger in his signing day press conference when asked about more successful in-state rival Arizona State:

"Each school has to recruit to their school and what kind of requirements they (have)," Stoops said. "Arizona State has turned into a JC, and we're a four-year college. According to all the players, they say it's easier to go to school there, easier to get in."

Stoops laughed. "I thought we all had the same requirements."

This may well be true. Arizona State takes a lot of two-year players. But if there's any BCS school in the country that should avoid the subject of academics at all costs, it's Arizona:

NCAA academic indicators for athletes in school - the Academic Progress Rate - show Arizona football with a score of 883, well below the 925 standard. Arizona State is at 926.

The Wildcats were the only BCS team in the nation to get socked with scholarship penalties from the APR last year; they are the most academically irresponsible program in the country.

All this... and no bowls ever. Arizona! Not a JC! Not even a C!

Former USC, Arizona, Tulane and Missouri coach Larry Smith died Monday, succumbing to leukemia and lymphoma.

Smith coached for the greater part of two decades, compiling a 143-126-7 (.531) career record between 1976 and 2000. He is fondly remembered at Arizona for starting the first five of a ten-game win streak against rival Arizona State.

He also coached USC to within two games of the national championship in 1988 before falling to Notre Dame in the season finale and Michigan in the Rose Bowl. The Trojans finished with a 10-2 record that year.

Smith left football after the 2000 season, retiring to Arizona. He spent the last two years as an analyst for an Arizona television station.

In case you missed the first half, I'll quickly recap it for you: "Notre Dame Notre Dame, Brady Quinn Commercial, Notre Dame Notre Dame".

Quickly recapping the commitments, Ryan Williams (RB) picked Virginia Tech, Covaughn Deboskie (RB) picked Cal, Brandon Smith (DB) picked Michigan, Marquis Gray (QB) picked Minnesota, and Gerrell Robinson, traitor of traitors, spurned the Irish to stay in-state at Arizona State.

East leads 20-10 and has looked like the better team out there. Tyrelle Pryor and Marquis Gray look like they have huge potential running that spread option kind of offense. Also, we have had 7 Army commercials and counting.

Once again, the commitments (actually, the NBC announcers are calling them "declarations", in maybe a sidelong way of highlighting how meaningless they can be before signing day) will be in bold, so you can skim for them.

Finito. No mas. Retire the jersey time. Done.

Dennis Dixon completely tore the ACL in his left knee in Oregon's win over Arizona State on Nov. 3, and convinced Oregon's coaches and doctors to let him try and play in the Arizona game last night.

After leaving last night's loss in the first quarter when the knee faltered again, Dixon will now have season-ending surgery, bringing his UO career to a close. That was the word on a conference call featuring UO coach Mike Bellotti and team physician Dr. Bob Crist this evening.

It was fun while it lasted but that show just came to an end. Oregon's a different team without him and it showed last night. Their runaway Pac-10 Championship and BCS game hopes are now teetering. Dixon's Heisman Trophy crashed the minute he crumpled to the turf last night and Arizona's victory obviously ended their BCS Championship Game hopes.

What a cruel blow to both Dixon and the team. The senior was a middling draft prospect to begin with but this late-season injury will deeply interfere with his ability to train and test ahead of next April's draft. Fortunately for Dixon he has a minor league baseball opportunity to fall back upon, but even that won't last much longer unless he learns to hit the curve ball.

Dixon's final line:

172/254 passing (.677), 2136 yards, 20 touchdowns, 4 interceptions,161.2 rating
105 carries, 583 yards (5.6 average) 9 touchdowns

Sorry, No Photos

Ok so we didn't believe it when we called it, but we saw the signs. Dennis Dixon's unforced leg injury made the upset a mere formality.

I don't credit this to parity, I think that's a lazy description for what's happening this year in college football. College football is a game with uneven matchups but so much more psychologically at play that provides this great variance that we see. And tonight that variance was an injury to Oregon's quarterback absolutely putting his team into a shell.

His backup tossed an interception that was returned for a touchdown, they surrendered a weird punt return touchdown and then basically quit until late in the fourth quarter. That's college kids for ya.

And now the red-shirted college kids are storming the field, reminiscent of Rutgers' upset over Louisville last year.

The effects are far-reaching. With Dixon's injury, Florida quarterback Tim Tebow is the runaway favorite to win the Heisman Trophy. He would be the award's first-ever underclass winner.

Elsewhere, Kansas is now the clear favorite to play LSU in the BCS Championship Game. Kansas! Heaven help us trying to sort things out if one or both of them lose any of their remaining games. This is big.

Oregon @ Arizona | 1st Half | 2nd Half

Welcome back!

Lou Holtz is pep talkin' for Notre Dame. Go figure.

Oregon @ Arizona | 1st Half | 2nd Half

Whoah Nellie, we have the rarest of rare Thursday night opportunities here: not one but two Pac-10 teams are battling tonight.

It's not the sexiest matchup in the world, but there's certainly enough at stake for Oregon to make this dramatic if Arizona wants to make a game of it. The Ducks are closing in on a chance to play for the BCS Championship if they can hang on (a Kansas loss would help) and win out. Quarterback Dennis Dixon has the narrowest of leads over Florida's Tim Tebow in what could be one of the better down-to-the-wire Heisman Trophy races.

It's all there for them, and it's all here on FanHouse starting at around 9 Eastern. I'll be your host, so feel free to bookmark this and visit while simultaneously watching the game. Or, if you're more distracted by other Thursday night programming, just keep the laptop or computer nearby and check in with us to get a feel for what's going on.

We're here for ya.

Vitals, Pregame Notes and Live Blog after the jump . . .

Personally, I don't see it happening but let's take a look at something interesting here.

What jumps out at me is this Las Vegas Sports Consultants' Top 30 ranking. Scroll down the list a bit. Ok, maybe scroll down all the way. See that, right there at #30? That's Arizona (! ! !)

They're not a terrible team, but Arizona clearly has its issues as their coach may get fired and as recently as three games ago lost 21-20 to Stanford. However, Las Vegas obviously sees something in them and even more notable is the company they keep.

Nearby to them in the rankings are two solid teams who have already knocked off a #1 team this year. There's #28 Kentucky who knocked off #1 LSU a few weeks back. There's also #27 Illinois, victors over #1 Ohio State last weekend. Hmm . . .

Not convincing enough? Well, keep in mind that Arizona is at home and they're red-hot these last two weeks, scoring 48 and 34 points in victories over Washington State and UCLA. As noted by the wise guys, Arizona has turned things around with their offense in a hurry and they are dangerous.

Normally, total overhauls like this take at least a season or two to start showing progress – see Nebraska. However, in Arizona's case, the year-over-year difference is obvious. The Wildcats offense has scored almost 13 more points per game this season, going from 16 points last year to 28.5 points this year.

Finally, this is a weird setting for both teams. The Pac-10 doesn't play very often on Thursday nights so the unfamiliar prep times may cause sluggish play for one or both teams. The last time we saw a Pac-10 team on Thursday, Oregon State was getting manhandled by Cincinnati. Anyway, just something to keep an eye on. This season has been madness and an Arizona victory over Oregon - improbable as it seems - only adds to the insanity. Be sure to stop by our First and Second Half Live Blogs of tonight's game.

Oh, and let it be known that Oregon isn't alone in these worries - Kansas better be on the lookout as well.