Sept. 27--Arizona two-for-two early on third-down plays.
Solomon hits Caleb Jones with a pass for a first down.
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Three runs by Nick Wilson gives Arizona a first down.
One run by quarterback Anu Solomon gets another first down, with Solomon flattening Randall Goforth with a forearm at the end of the run.
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Arizona starts from its own 25.
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UCLA won the coin toss and chose to defer.
Arizona will open with the ball.
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UCLA has already won a pre-game battle.
Arizona had posted a sign just outside the UCLA locker room warning of extgreme heat.
UCLA took it down.
Arizona put it back up.
UCLA covered it.
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Jim Mora, not Will Ferrell, led UCLA onto the field.
Interesting choice.
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Scooby Wright, Arizona's star linebacker, looks like he's ready to play.
This will be his first game back after he sustained a minor knee injury in the Wildcats' season opener against Texas San Antonio.
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It is just a few minutes before kickoff and the stadium in Tucson is very, very, ve-ry, VERY, VE-RY red.
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Interesting game today in Ann Arbor, Mich., if you're a UCLA football fan.
That Brigham Young team the Bruins squeaked by at the Rose Bowl last week?
It was routed, 31-0, by Michigan and first-year coach Jim Harbaugh.
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OK, so after lauding Coach Mora for his focus on football, we'll get into some of the blah, blah, blah.
It's hot this evening in Tucson. Very hot.
Around the time No. 9 UCLA and No. 16 Arizona tee it up -- should be about 20 minutes from now -- the air temperature is expected to be about 97 degrees. Hotter on the field.
So, will those laid-back surfer dudes from Southern California wilt?
Of course not.
UCLA had training camp in San Bernardino for heavens sake. Tucson probably feels like an ocean breeze.
But then there's another kind of heat -- one coming from seats packed by fans of the Wildcats. Arizona's "Zona Zoo" has a reputation for hostility across the Pac-12 Conference.
Arizona fans were getting ready early Saturday, and it was clear they had zeroed in on a particular target: Josh Rosen, UCLA's quarterback.
Oh, fine, pick on the freshman.
During ESPN's GameDay broadcast, fans were panning Rosen's youth.
"Josh Rosen orders from the kid's menu" one sign read.
"Josh Rosen wears his socks to bed" read another. (Is that weird or somethingn?)
Jim Mora, UCLA's coach, wasn't worried about how Rosen would handle the crowd.
"What will help him is, on most plays, he will have 10 guys around him who have played at Arizona," Mora said. "They have been in hostile environments and know how to handle it.
"He has offensive line in front of him that is very, very confident and has played very, very well. Josh has the right personality to handle anything. That doesn't mean it's going be perfect, and it's not going to be, but it won't affect him a bit."
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Jim Mora is an old-school coach who doesn't get caught up in the blah, blah, blah of every-week ... day ... minute college football hype.
So you can talk about the UCLA revenge factor after the Bruins soundly defeated Arizona last season only to watch the Wildcats play in the Pac-12 Conference title game. And you can talk about the heat in Tucson today. And rabid crowd.
You could even give his team the ready-made excuse that it will be playing against a high-octane offense with three starters missing on defense because of injuries.
Just a lot of blah, blah, blah.
Here's what the UCLA coach told Chris Foster this week the game would come down to:
"It comes down to typical things -- running the football, stopping the run, protecting the quarterback, pressuring the quarterback, protect the football, try to take football."
Forced to, he did address the injury -- UCLA has lost tackle Eddie Vanderdoes, cornerback Fabian Moreau and linebacker Myles Jack in the last three weeks -- situation this way:
"We're working hard in developing a mindset of mental toughness, discipline, poise, maturity. I've seen that this week. I'm encouraged by that."
