Rich Rodriguez gets 150th win in Arizona's defeat of Oregon State
Arizona head honcho Rich Rodriguez earned his 150th career victory as a collegiate head coach Saturday afternoon with the Wildcats’ 44-7 trouncing of Oregon State. It was also the 30th win in Tucson for Rodriguez, who previously went 2-8 at Salem University, 43-28-2 at Glenville State, 60-26 at West Virginia and 15-22 at Michigan before heading to Arizona.
The Wildcats put the game in the freezer in the second quarter and took a 34-7 lead at the half. Quarterback Anu Solomon looked just fine in his return to the field from a concussion that kept him out of last week’s loss to Stanford, throwing for 276 yards and remaining interception-less on the season. The star in the red zone for the Wildcats was freshman running back Orlando Bradford, who collected the first three rushing touchdowns of his career.
And that defense? RichRod’s 3-3-5 odd stack held the Beavers to just 249 yards of total offense and 3.8 yards per play after giving up a combined 111 points and 1,067 yards in the losses to UCLA and Stanford the previous two weekends.
The win snapped a six-game home losing streak to Oregon State; the Wildcats hadn’t defeated the Beavers in Tucson since 1997 before Saturday’s result.