It’s been a streaky season for the Arizona Wildcats. The team won its first three games, then lost the next two, which were in turn followed by three wins and, you guessed it, two more in the loss column. If you play the pattern, Arizona is on pace to beat Oregon this Saturday in Tucson.
Luckily for Oregon, patterns don’t always play out.
Following practice Tuesday, head coach Mark Helfrich and defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti discussed the upcoming game and the dramatic recent history the two schools share in head-to-head matchups.
“It’s a brand new slate,” Helfrich said. “The field’s new, everything’s new. The overtime game, that was a great game to be involved in. There’s a lot of familiarity with the players and it’s another tough place to play in this conference.”
The overtime game Helfrich spoke of took place Tucson in 2009, when both teams needed a win to keep their respective Rose Bowl hopes alive. Oregon trailed by 10 points in the fourth quarter but staged an epic comeback and sent field-rushing fans back to their seats before finishing off the victory in overtime.
And while the Ducks have beaten the Wildcats five times in a row, Arizona has played better than final scores indicate and average 25.3 points per game at home against Oregon all-time.
“Some teams I think it’s like that sometimes,” Aliotti said. “I wish I had an answer. I don’t think I know. They always come ready to play, their students are into it, they get cranked up. Maybe we bring the best out of them. I don’t like saying that but maybe we do.”
Arizona crushed Oregon’s national title aspirations in 2007 in Tucson. The Ducks were ranked second nationally and Dennis Dixon was a Heisman favorite. Then Dixon aggravated a torn ACL and missed the remainder of the game, a 34-24 Arizona win.
As far as this year goes, the Wildcats have been up and down but have been involved in some close games. Each of their last three games have ended with point margins of seven or less, and their Oct. 10 loss to USC was by a mere seven points.
“They’ve had a couple of oddball endings to games. It seems like they’re playing better than the result of the game may have indicated,” Helfrich said. “The quarterback’s playing really well. He and (Ka’Deem) Carey are playing in sync really well.”
Arizona’s running back has been brilliant this season and will continue to be a factor against Oregon on Saturday. Carey is second in the country in rushing yards per game with 150.33 and fifth with 1,353 total rushing yards.
“I’m impressed with Ka’Deem Carey. He’s as good a back as there is in the country,” Aliotti said. “We’ve got to do our job, read our keys, stay in our gaps. And if he comes in our gap we’ve got to make a tackle … we have to stop him.”
Senior quarterback B.J. Denker’s been no slouch, either. Denker is a dual threat QB who has almost as many rushing touchdowns (11) as passing scores (12) this season and has thrown only four interceptions.
“We have to stop (Carey) and then we have to stop their quarterback because their quarterback’s a really good runner. I don’t like that,” Aliotti said. “He’s fast. He’s good. If we stop the run, stop Ka’Deem and stop the quarterback that’ll go a long way towards us having success in the game on Saturday afternoon.”
Follow Madison Guernsey on Twitter @guernseymd