Lots of talk in Sportsland about the hiring today in Tucson of Rich Rodriguez as the Arizona Wildcats' next head football coach.
Price tag: 5-year deal for $9.55 million.
Nice work if you can get it, huh?
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| Rich Rodriguez is not universally loved from what we gather. |
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Dennis Erickson, the veteran head football coach at Arizona State University, collects $1,275,000 in salary each year, plus whatever else he pulls in from endorsements and what have you.
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| What the Devil got into St. Dennis? |
Other than Erickson's semi-glorious first season (2007), in which ASU was beaten soundly by Texas in the Holiday Bowl after a 10-win season, the Devils have underachieved time and again, going 21-26 in the past four years without a bowl appearance in the mix.
Erickson's teams have earned a reputation as being undisciplined to the extreme, both in terms of temperament and execution on the field.
Case in point was Saturday night's stunning 31-27 home loss to the hated Arizona Wildcats (and one of the worst UA teams ever, at that). Missed tackles aplenty, personal fouls, an altogether pathetic performance in what was a hugely important game on every level for ASU even aside from the traditional rival aspect.
More >>It was a sellout at Miller Park in Milwaukee (same as it was in the first two games of the ongoing National League playoffs) on a beautiful Fourth of July.
The Brewers were cruising, up 6-1 after the fourth inning.
But this was becoming a special D-Backs team.
Over the next several innings, Arizona chipped away at the big lead before finally tying it at 6 in the eighth and adding two runs in the ninth to shock the home team 8-6.
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By this point in the season, it was beginning to become ever more clear to Arizona fans that this team might just be a little bit special.
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| Manager Kirk Gibson instilled some winning ways |
Good teams win more than their share of close games, but the Arizona Diamondbacks weren't doing much of that in April and into May of the regular season.
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| Many a big hit in 2011 for this young fella named Justin Upton |
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| Daniel Hudson was big reason for D-Backs success |
One of the greatest moments of the 2011 season came at Chase Field in early May against the Colorado Rockies.
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| We love to run this image |
We were about to leave after the 7th inning with the D-Backs down 2-0 and stinking up the joint offensively, but decided to stick it out until the end--sure glad we did.
The Rockies' ace reliever Huston Street came in to try to seal the deal as he had in eleven straight games going back to the previous season.
Then things got a little crazy, make that a lot crazy.
Here is the just-the-facts-ma'am Colorado version, which of course in no way reflects the sheer excitement of the event:
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| More celebrations in store? We'll see.... |
It was the kind of game that the D-Backs lost just about every time last year -- a game in which they lost a lead late and had to go into extra innings.
