Sept. 16, 2007
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TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — When the football finally stopped flying all over Arizona Stadium, New Mexico had its second victory over a Pac-10 team in school history.
The Lobos beat mistake-prone Arizona Saturday night in a game that featured 773 yards passing.
The victory, coupled with UCLA’s loss at Utah, made the Mountain West Conference 2-0 against the Pac-10 on Saturday.
Donovan Porterie threw for 327 yards and three touchdowns for New Mexico.
“He’s a kid with a lot of ability, talent, and he has a great mentality,” said New Mexico coach Rocky Long, a former UCLA and Oregon State assistant who ended a six-game losing streak against Pac-10 teams.
Willie Tuitama passed for 446 yards – second-most ever for Arizona – and three touchdowns, but Arizona (1-2) couldn’t overcome critical fumbles and penalties.
The Lobos (2-1) took advantage of the miscues and tore apart what is supposed to be good Arizona secondary all night. Marcus Smith caught 11 passes for 164 yards and a touchdown. Travis Brown added 10 catches for 121 yards and two scores for New Mexico. Porterie, a sophomore, was 29-for-41 with one interception.
He became the first Lobo with consecutive 300-yard passing games since Graham Leigh in 1998. Porterie directed touchdown drives on his team’s first and last possessions of the first half.
“Playing in a hostile environment, we wanted to get off to a good start offensively,” he said, “and not be afraid of attacking their secondary.”
Since a season-opening loss to UTEP, New Mexico has beaten New Mexico State and Arizona.
“We regret losing to UTEP,” Porterie said, “but we’re very excited to knock off a team from the Pac-10 and keep this momentum going.”
The Wildcats, who play at No. 8 California next Saturday in their Pac-10 opener, twice fumbled the ball away on what would have been go-ahead touchdown drives in the second half, the first at the New Mexico 2-yard line on the first possession of the third quarter. OJ Smith scooped up both fumbles. On the second one, he probably would have ran for a touchdown had he not tripped over his feet at midfield.
Arizona also was plagued by penalties, including one against coach Mike Stoops and his staff for unsportsmanlike conduct during a time out. New Mexico got what turned out to be two critical points when Tuitama was called for intentional grounding in the Arizona end zone for a safety late in the third quarter, and the Wildcats’
“We played like a team that did not have disciplined,” Stoops said. “We are not playing well as a team right now, and we are very frustrated.”
New Mexico is 2-9 against the Pac-10. The Lobos had lost nine in a row, the last six under Long, since beating Oregon State in 1979. The Lobos last defeated Arizona in 1976, when both schools were in the Western Athletic Conference.
It was only the Lobos’ second nonconference road victory outside the state of New Mexico in 19 tries.
Tuitama completed 30-of-53 and had fourth-quarter TD passes of 12 and 13 yards to Mike Thomas to cut the lead to 29-27. But Frankie Solomon intercepted Tuitama on Arizona’s final possession with just under two minutes to play. Any hope the Wildcats had ended when New Mexico’s Rodney Ferguson ran for a first down on third-and-9 with 1:13 to play.
“When you lose the turnover battle you usually lose the game,” Arizona cornerback Antoine Cason said. “It only gets harder from here.”
New Mexico led 14-13 at the half, thanks to Porterie’s 38-yard touchdown pass to Brown with three seconds left. It was a play that typified the night.
The Lobos went 80 yards in 1 minute, 5 seconds, with the help of a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against the Wildcats’ bench during a time out. The drive also got an early assist from an Arizona time out.
“They wanted to stop us on third down, have us punt the ball and get the ball in their punt returners’ hands,” Long said. “It backfired on them, which was good for us, but I would have made the same decision.”
Stoops, though, called the time out “a bad mistake.”
That unsportsmanlike conduct penalty moved the ball to the Arizona 27. After a false start penalty and a sack moved New Mexico back to the 38, Brown ran straight downfield, past the Wildcats’ secondary, and caught the pass in the end zone.
Arizona took the second half kickoff and drove to the New Mexico 5-yard line. But Tuitama fumbled trying to run for the score. Swift scooped up the ball at the 2 and rambled 39 yards to the 41. A roughing-the-passer penalty on Lionel Dotson led to John Sullivan’s 31-yard field goal and New Mexico led 17-13 with 7:15 left in the third.
After Arizona cut it to 26-20, Sullivan’s career-long 44-yarder gave the Lobos a 29-20 lead with 6:41 remaining.
After the game, Stoops said four Arizona players had been suspended from the team indefinitely. He did not elaborate or identify the players.