I’ve been mouthing off in the sports office for the last few months that Saturday’s game in Albuquerque will define what sort of season the Cats will have.  I’ve been calling it the “swing game” of the season for Wildcat football.  But should I back off from that just a bit?  The Lobos are a very less than impressive (0-2), but, and isn’t there always a but, I think that could be a dangerous element.

There season, UNM, is up against it in a couple of days.  Starting 0-3 is very much borderline season over.  In fact, listen to this...The Lobos have trailed a combined thirty to nothing at the end of the first quarter in their first two games.  And mainly due to turnovers you’ve given TCU and Texas A&M scoring drives of thirty, twenty one, twenty, nine and four yards.  Plus, you’ve turned the ball over seven times in two games, translation, you’re worse than the Simpson sisters at live performances.

Snowy weather, in fact, might be in order this weekend in the land of enchantment.  Clearly a Lobo loss starts the downhill snowball effect for the rest of their season.  Road games at Tulsa and BYU and a home date with Utah look like three more losses to me and that would mean only five hundred at best with a loss to Cats and then rolling to six wins in between all that.  Sorry, I don’t see it. 

Now for the would be “snowy” Wildcat forecast.  It really wouldn’t be much of one with a road game the following week in Westwood followed by a home game with Washington, the BYU debacle, they could fall off the map.  But the reason I give Arizona a “snowy” forecast is because they sort of deserve it.  They deserve it because they have all the talent in the world to avoid it.  Point being that if they goof this thing up, the New Mexico game, they would deserve what they get.  There is way to much talent up and down the roster to not leave ABQ with another for the win column.  And that minimal snowball of losses, for example, at New Mexico and at UCLA would put such a bummer on the two and oh start.

Everyone’s expectations are sky high right now, mine and yours and theirs and Wilbur’s and Wanda’s and even the guy that sells over sized pretzels at Arizona Stadium.  A loss to the Bruins is easier to swallow after a win at New Mexico compared to vise versa, ummm, not so much.  And assuming again that the WAZU final score is a UA whole lot to them not so much and then you sneak one at Palo Alto, the simple math calculates out to a five and one start.  Can we live with that?  Dude totally!

So remember a couple of things leading up to kick off on Saturday evening.  The Lobos understand that any semblance of success in 2008 starts with a win over the Cats.  Arizona, on the other hand, understands that disappointment after disappointment in the first decade of the new millennium can take another big step toward laying all those miserable memories to rest with a bigger number on the UNM scoreboard at the end of Saturday night.  Funny things can happen when a team comes to terms with the fact that backs are squarely against the wall.  That’s New Mexico as we speak.  It is the term in it’s most literal sense this weekend...Bear Down Arizona!!!