Arizona falls from unbeaten ranks after squandering multiple chances to beat USC
Arizona tried to pull out another magical last-second victory, but the opportunity went wide right.
Kicker Casey Skowron shanked the game-winning field goal right — his third miss of the day — to give USC a 28-26 upset win against the No. 10 Wildcats.
But, amazingly enough, that wasn’t the only drama.
USC had a 28-13 lead heading into the fourth quarter, but a 41-yard touchdown pass from Arizona quarterback Anu Solomon to Jared Baker quickly cut the deficit to eight. All game, USC had been able to move the ball at will on the Wildcats, but some iffy playcalling late allowed Arizona to get the ball back with 3:27 remaining. After 14 consecutive pass attempts, Jared Baker ran the ball 1-yard into the end zone to put the Wildcats within two with 1:07 remaining.
And that’s when things started to get a little strange and Arizona started mixing second chances with bad decisions.
The Wildcats tried a pass play on its two-point conversion to tie the game and the ball sailed over the head of receiver Cayleb Jones. However, USC was called for pass interference. Then, Arizona attempted a read play and quarterback Anu Solomon opted to hand the ball off instead of keep it. The handoff was stuffed. If Solomon had kept the ball, he would have walked into the end zone.
Game should have been over, right?
Well, on the ensuing kickoff, Arizona miraculously recovered an onside kick. And if you’ve watched any Arizona football this season, you would realize that this was not, in fact, miraculous just par for the course when it comes to the charmed Wildcats.
After a couple more passes and a couple more bad decisions that went several yards out of bounds, Arizona ended up on the USC 19-yard line with what should have been a chip shot field goal. And it was. Skowron made the kick, everyone celebrated and then, oh wait, USC called a timeout.
And we know what happened on the next kick.
The football gods tried very hard to give Arizona every opportunity to win this game – there was even a questionable batting call that extended the drive on Arizona’s final TD – during those final two drives and Arizona just couldn’t get it together and secure the victory.
Arizona joins TCU and Georgia Tech as the only ranked undefeated teams to lose in Week 7 and five still remain. The loss also puts the Wildcats a game behind USC in the early race for the Pac-12 South. Though the way things have been going in the Pac-12 so far this season, this game likely will not be the reason one of these two teams doesn’t win it.
For more Arizona news, visit GOAZCats.com.
For more USC news, visit TrojanSports.com.
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Graham Watson is the editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter! Follow @YahooDrSaturday
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