Buffaloes Feature Stories

College Football Hist-O-Graph Project - #12: Arizona Wildcats

By Ash Jackson Nov 10, 2011, 9:24am MST

Examining Colorado, Pac-12, and Big XII Football over the last 10 years using the Hist-O-Graph...and then saying stuff.

In running a comparison of our old conference-mates and our new ones, someone inevitably was going to wind up compared to Baylor. Not because it's fair, or even that it'll ever be a fair comparison, but because I made the numbers work out that way.

The Arizona Wildcats Hist-O-Graph: Drawing the Short Straw

You could say that Arizona's been drawing the short straw for a long time now. They're in Tucson instead of Tempe. They got Mike Stoops ('04-'10) instead of Bob Stoops. They're good at basketball instead of football.

Sorry Wildcats, but you drew the short straw. You're the most like Baylor of all the Pac-12. Here's why...

Of all the Pac-10 teams who've won conference championships in this past decade, Arizona is not one of them (as you can see). In fact, Arizona is the only Pac-10 member that never won the conference outright. To their credit, they've only been in it since 1978.

But when was their last outright conference championship? The same year that the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, 1941. That was before they were in the WAC, back in their Border Conference days with Arizona-Flagstaff and Texas Mines.

Since then they were co-champions in '93...and that's it. Sure, they won 12 games in '98, but the coach that did all that for them, Dick Tomey? Their winningest coach ever, who took them to their only 10+ win seasons? The leader of the 'Desert Swarm' defense?Yeah, they canned him in '00, Larry-Coker style for not winning enough. Wikipedia may say 'resigned,' but I can read between the pixels.

Think the way they fired Mike Stoops mid-season was un-called for? They actually have a track record of doing that: in '03 they fired John Mackovic mid-way into his third season. Yes, that John Mackovic who took Texas to win the last season of the Southwest Conference and then the next year to surprise everyone the next year by beating Nebraska for the inaugural Big 12 championship.

So don't feel bad for Arizona: they treat their winners like dogs. They may have drawn the short straw, but they deserve it.

The Baylor Bears Hist-O-Graph: Are you SURE you're playing football?

Yes. In '04 both Arizona and Baylor had a recruiting class composed almost entirely of 2-star recruits. My thing is that I think all those recruits thought they were going to be playing basketball instead of football. They were wrong and their record shows it.

Baylor wasn't just bad for 20 years. Try going years (multiple) without winning a single conference game. Now try doing that in Waco, Texas. Does your head hurt? It does mine.

There's not much more to say about the Baylor Baptist Bears except that the only reason they were ever in the Big 12 is because when the SWC was dissolving, poached by the SEC (hey, sound familiar?), the Governor of Texas at the time was a Baylor alum, and she told Texas that they couldn't go out and play unless they brought their small, dorky adopted half-brother with them. Baylor never belonged in the first place, and it makes my head hurt.

The teams of late are rather similar: a Quarterback with name recognition and not much else. Which makes my head hurt even though it shouldn't. I may have a fever. But that's not the point. The point is that Baylor sucks, and that Arizona is beatable.

So when our Buffs head out this Saturday, don't think of the season as being over. Nothing is over until WE decide it is...