Stanford defeats Arizona

Arizona lost to Stanford 24-23 on Saturday night and here are some general observations:

The defensive line was embarrassing, as the Wildcats could not stop Stanford from running at will. We all knew that the Cardinal was going to go into the game with the plan of running the football, but at times it did not seem like the coaching staff knew.

Why not load the box and make Stanford throw, instead of letting Toby Gerhart run right through the defense? If it makes sense to you and me, why did it not make sense to the coaching staff?

The fact that Rob Gronkowski barely touched the ball is the fault of Willie Tuitama, not Sonny Dykes. Dykes knows what kind of weapon he has, but Tui needs to get him the ball in the middle. Instead, Tui still can not handle a blitz and panics when he could instead look to the middle of the field.

Why was there no timeout called late in the game? Everybody knew that Stanford was scoring except for Mike Stoops. Next time, Stoops will probably realize he should call the time out in order to give his team more time at the end of the game.

Terrell Turner was the only player that seemed to care out there and while there were probably others, it definitely did not show up in the stats. Turner kept the offense in the game and made big catch after big catch. He deserves major credit.

Nate Ness also deserves credit because he saved the defense time after time when Gerhart and company got through the line. A player like Ness should never have double digit tackles but it worked out that way because he was one of the few that were able to make stops.

Arizona is in deep trouble now and Cal may be a must win game. If it can beat Cal, the UA is in good shape but if it can not, missing a bowl game yet again seems to be a reality.