Cal at Arizona

Written by Jack Jones

The Arizona Wildcats have moved up to No. 14 in the AP Polls after a huge 34-27 win against then-No. 9 Iowa over the weekend. Coaches, players and fans all feel this is a step in the right direction to put this program on the map on a national level. But a loss to California this Saturday would ruin all of that. The Wildcats host the Bears in the Pac-10 opener for both teams. College football lines on this game show Arizona -7 over Cal.

Players have the right mindset going in, at least they are saying the right things anyway. “Every win makes the next game bigger, so it’s actually more important than Iowa,” Wildcats receiver Dave Roberts said. “If we lose to Cal, then the Iowa game doesn’t mean anything. We’d be right back kind of where we had been, so it’s actually more important.”

When Mike Stoops took over six years ago, he was hoping to pick up wins against Top-10 opponents consistently year after year. It hadn’t happened for him yet, but their win over Iowa clearly has Arizona classified as a team on the rise. Plus, players have to have a lot of confidence now because of the way they won that game. After taking a 27-7 lead, the Wildcats let it all slip away as Iowa came back to tie it at 27-27. But Arizona responded with a huge touchdown drive led by QB Nick Foles, and the defense sacked Iowa quarterback Ricky Stanzi four straight times to finish it off.

Arizona’s No. 14 ranking is their highest since 1999, when they opened the season rated No. 4 in the country. But they went on to lose their opener that year and finished the season 6-6. These Wildcats do not want to let that happen again. Foles is completing 78.6 percent of his passes for 877 yards and 5 touchdowns to 3 interceptions. Nick Grigsby has rushed for 187 yards and 5 touchdowns, and Greg Nwoko has been a great compliment, averaging 7.4 yards/carry with on 17 attempts with two touchdowns.

California has opened the season 2-1. The Bears beat UC Davis 52-3 and followed that up with a 52-7 triumph over Colorado. But the Bears lost 31-52 last week, and will be highly motivated to beat a Top 25 Pac-10 opponent this Saturday after such a poor performance. It appeared the Bears had solved their defensive woes by allowing just 5.0 points/game in their first two contests, but that’s clearly not the case after Nevada’s Pistol offense put up 52 points and 497 yards of total offense on them.

Cal did not have their best defensive player against Nevada in linebacker Mike Mohamed, but he is expected to play against Arizona this week. That automatically makes this unit tougher if he can step on the field and play at 100%. This is a big game for QB Kevin Riley, who has not played well against teams with a good pass rush. Considering the Wildcats has six sacks against Iowa, Riley is most certainly going to be tested again.

Riley has been solid thus far this season, completing 64.2 percent of his passes for 732 yards and 8 touchdowns to just three interceptions. But Cal’s offense is once against led by a talented tailback, as it always has been under head coach Jeff Tedford. Shane Vareen is already having a monster year, rushing for 324 yards and six touchdowns while averaging 6.6 yards per carry. Vareen also has six receptions, taking two of them to the house for touchdowns. Expect a heavy dose of Vereen as Cal will certainly have to ride him if they are to stand any chance at pulling off this upset at Arizona.

Comments

One Response to “Cal at Arizona”

Charles on September 22nd, 2010 12:37 PM

I have been a fan of the Wildcats for 45 years. Many times the Cats have stepped up to the powers in the PAC Ten. I have seen the flags and calls go against the Cats by the PAC Ten Refs -unjustly so. If the Refs will call it fair on both sides, then Zona can defeat the Bears, Stanford, and USC for that matter. If not, look for another win for the California schools because of the West Coast biased mentality of the Refs.

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