Looking Back at the Mike Stoops Era in Tucson

Arizona football’s golden era was from the mid 80s to late 90s, which was capped off by an incredible 1998 season where the Wildcats went 12-1 ending in the AP Poll at No. 4 following an impressive 23-20 win over powerhouse Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl.

That era featured two 10-win seasons, two legendary coaches in Larry Smith and Dick Tomey with the program making it to 12 bowls games with 14 first team All-Americans, 71 NFL Draft picks with five first round draft picks.

That golden era however, came to a screeching halt when the athletic department replaced Tomey with former UA assistant John Mackovic, who coached under Jim Young from 1973-67. Mackovic didn’t last long but did damage to the program while going 10-18 before getting fired in the middle of the 2003 season.

The job of turning around the damage that Mackovic had done wasn’t an easy task and was going to take a number of years to fix. So, Arizona hired and brought in Oklahoma defensive coordinator Mike Stoops to lead the program.

In his first two seasons, Arizona struggled going 6-16 under Stoops. However, the Wildcats managed to upset No. 18 ASU 34-27 (2004) and No. 7 UCLA 52-14 (2005) helping set the tone early in his career.

By the end of the second season, Stoops had put together a good defensive unit led by cornerback Antoine Cason and an offensive unit that was growing under the underclassmen duo of quarterback WIllie Tuitama and wide receiver Mike Thomas.

In 2006, Arizona improved by six games going 6-6 under Stoops and pulling off another three wins-in-a-row over No. 25 Washington State (27-17), No. 8 Cal (24-20) and over Oregon (37-10). Two of the three games came on the road.

However, the Wildcats fell short of making a bowl game, thus continuing the drought of the postseason.

By 2008, Stoops had his best team that would finish 8-5 with a bowl win over No. 16 BYU 31-10 marking the end of a 10-year bowl drought.

It seemed like an impossible task to rebuild Arizona given the failures of Mackovic, the poor football facilities and strength of the Pac-10. However, Stoops was successful at getting the program back on the competitive track.

Stoops would go to two more bowl games and come close to getting to a Rose Bowl during the 2009 season.

However, injuries and coaching changes on the staff with his brother Mark Stoops leaving for Florida State and offensive coordinator leaving for Louisiana Tech proved too much to overcome.

Not only were there issues on the field for Stoops, but he also had stuff happening off the field that weighed on him during his time in Tucson.

The Stoops era would come to an end during the 2011 season after a slow 1-5 start, he was replaced as new A.D. Greg Bryne became tired of the results on the field.

Looking back, that might’ve been a massive mistake by Byrne, who didn’t give Stoops a chance with new football facilities that he worked hard to get.

However, Rich Rodriguiez came in and had a successful career with Arizona.

Many Arizona fans look at the Stoops era as a failure with his 41-50 record. But, it was the building blocks to get the program back on track and in the right directions.

If it wasn’t for a new A.D., Stoops might’ve had a longer career in Tucson and turned things around again.

In all, the Stoops era was a success despite a losing record and should be looked back on with great fondness.

Yes, Stoops had his issues. But, he built the program from the ground up and helped build a blueprint on how to have success in Tucson. It's a blueprint Jedd Fisch followed and it's one that Brent Brennan is starting to take the path on.

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