Pac 10 Fans Home
Pac 10 Football
Pac 10 Basketball
Pac 10 Baseball
College Fansites
Pac 10 Apparel
Pac 10 Tickets

Arizona Wildcats vs Oregon State Beavers Football Recap

Oregon State 29, Arizona 27

It’s one thing to talk about a season in theoretical terms and promise the fulfillment of various hopes and dreams. It’s quite another matter to turn talk into results, and to transform an attractive idea into a far more pleasing reality.

You could receive unanimous agreement from the two football programs at Oregon State and Arizona.

The Beavers from the Pacific Northwest and the Wildcats from the Desert Southwest would both affirm the wisdom of valuing actual accomplishments more than declarations of intent. OSU and Arizona have both wanted to make the Rose Bowl for a very long time; Oregon State since 1965 and Arizona ever since it joined the Pac-10 in 1978. The Beavers have made the Rose Bowl in their history, but their last appearance was so long ago that it belongs to an entirely different frame of experience. No Beaver fan under 50 years of age knows what it’s like to make a pilgrimage to Pasadena, California, on the first day of a new calendar year. The Beavers might as well conceive of life as being free of any Rose Bowl appearance whatsoever.

For Arizona, the matter is real on a more literal level. The Wildcats have, in truth, never reached the Granddaddy. In their first 32 Pac-10 seasons, the U of A never grabbed a bouquet of Roses, regularly falling short in the quest for to be the best in the West. As both of these teams locked horns at Arizona Stadium on Saturday evening, the urgency of the situation could not have been overstated.

Sixty thrilling minutes later, at least one of these teams can dare to dream a little more of a special season on the West Coast.

Yes, Oregon State did lose receiver James Rodgers – one half of the dynamic Rodgers Brothers combo – but the Beavers won a football game in Tucson. So close to the Pac-10 title in both 2008 and 2009, when Oregon knocked them out of the Rose Bowl, the Beavers – two games into October – are keeping pace with the Ducks en route to a possible year-ending showdown for the Pac-10 championship.

> Browse the selection of Pac 10 apparel & merchandise online as well as Pac 10 Football Scores through Pac 10 Fans and partner sites.

Coach Mike Riley’s men flew from Corvallis down to the desert to face the No. 9 Wildcats, a team reveling in their conquest of Iowa and a Harry Houdini act against luckless Cal the week after that. Arizona showed signs of beginning to turn over a new leaf this season; the Wildcats exhibited a flinty and feisty persona on the defensive side of the ball this past September, a personality that hadn’t really been in evidence in 2009 and in seasons prior. Oregon State faced a very formidable test on the road, but one of the more overachieving programs in the Pac-10 – a maximizer of resources that always seems to compete on relatively even terms with elite teams – left town with a spotless conference record. Arizona was left to wonder “what might have been,” in an achingly familiar turn of events for coach Mike Stoops’s team.

The key sequence of the game occurred when Oregon State, trying to preserve a tenuous 23-20 lead midway through the fourth quarter, faced a third-and-four at the Arizona 18. OSU quarterback Ryan Katz – who got schooled by both TCU and Boise State earlier this season in games the Beavers lost – managed to scramble seven yards for the first down. Against TCU and Boise, Katz didn’t make that kind of play, partly because the freshman was still growing into the quarterback position but also because he felt the pressure of each occasion. Yet, there’s a reason why Riley schedules tough non-conference games. He wants to teach his players how to handle pressure situations while getting them to peak for Pac-10 play in the second half of the season. On that Katz scramble – which paved the way for the Beavers’ game-sealing touchdown with 5:46 left – the desire to turn a blueprint into results, and transform potential into fulfillment, came true. Owning a 29-20 lead, OSU – up by two scores – was able to make Arizona use clock, thereby shortening the endgame phase of competition. When the Wildcats’ late onside kick failed at the 1:52 mark of regulation, the Beavers found the winner’s circle.

On the other sideline, Arizona’s dreams of turning a snake-bitten past into a glorious present-tense experience were, conversely, shattered.

Oregon State crossed at least one threshold, while Arizona’s hopes never jumped from the realm of theory and into reality. Such is life for two schools that are eternally in search of a Rose Bowl breakthrough.

By Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer