How Mighty Wildcats Fell

Misery gets its company tonight.

Arizona comes to the Rose Bowl with a better record than UCLA but also a bigger fall, having gone from prohibitive Pacific 10 Conference favorite to a fourth-place tie and from No. 4 in the preseason national rankings to forgotten.

The Wildcats are 5-3 overall--and 2-2 in conference--but two of the victories were over 1-6 Middle Tennessee State and 3-5 Texas El Paso and another was a struggle to get past 3-4 Texas Christian. Otherwise, they beat USC and Washington State and lost by 34 to Penn State in the season opener that offered an early indication of the fate for the entire Pac-10, to Stanford by 28 and last week to Oregon by three.

“I’m sure there’s a lot co-conspirators,” Coach Dick Tomey said. “I think we were overrated in the first place. We had six guys make it in the NFL, which is the most we’ve ever had, so I think probably we were rated a little bit on last year’s performance and last year’s final ranking. Then we just didn’t start off well. Obviously the Penn State game was devastating for us.

“We thought we’d be more competitive. We weren’t. And then I think we all contributed. We didn’t coach as well or play as well at virtually every position as we had hoped. I think we’ve gotten a little better. We’re continuing to improve and hopefully our best football is yet to come.

“I think the whole season has been a struggle. I just think that’s the way it is anymore. Whether you win or you lose, it’s a struggle. I think our attitude is good. I think we have an attitude by which every week we know it’s going to be a real tough challenge. We’ve got four games to try and make a season out of this that we’re proud of, and we understand that that’s a big challenge. “

But big possibilities remain. A Stanford win today at Washington would eliminate Arizona from Rose Bowl consideration, but the Wildcats could still make it back to the Holiday Bowl as the second-place finisher in the Pac-10, the same San Diego game in which they so impressively beat Nebraska last season.