Arizona Beats Arizona State Again : Wildcats Make It Five Straight Over Their Rivals, 34-17

David Adams, Art Greathouse and Chris McLemore scored touchdowns out of the backfield, while Chuck Cecil returned an interception a school-record 100 yards for another score as 14th-ranked Arizona beat No. 4 Arizona State, 34-17, Saturday.

The victory was the fifth straight by the Wildcats over their archrival and earned them a berth in the Aloha Bowl against North Carolina on Dec. 27. Arizona is 8-2 overall and 5-2 in the Pacific 10 Conference with one game remaining. The Wildcats play Stanford at Tokyo Nov. 30.

Arizona State already is bound for the Jan. 1 Rose Bowl after clinching the Pac-10 title on Nov. 8. But the Sun Devils, 9-1-1 overall and 5-1-1 in the conference, failed to notch their first undefeated regular season since 1975, when they went 11-0.

A crowd of 58,267--the second-largest ever at 56,452-seat Arizona Stadium--watched the 50th meeting of the schools in a series that started in 1899.

Arizona Coach Larry Smith said: “I said before the game I felt we were ready to bust loose and play our best game of the season and I think we did. The beautiful thing about it is that it was in front of the whole country. (The game was nationally televised.)

“We beat the No. 4 team in the country and the Pac-10 champion. That’s a lot to be proud of.”

Arizona State Coach John Cooper said: “We just made too many mistakes. It was one of those games where you win in the stats, but you just don’t win the game. We gave them good field position all day and you can’t beat good football teams by making mistakes like that.”

After tackle George Hinkle recovered a fumble at the Arizona three-yard line, the Wildcats drove 97 yards in six plays, with Adams scoring on an 18-yard swing pass from Alfred Jenkins with 7:14 remaining in the first quarter.

Greathouse, a freshman tailback, bulled over from five yards out 1:29 into the second quarter to make it 14-0. The 11-play, 73-yard drive was set up by cornerback James DeBow’s interception at the Arizona 29-yard line.

In the third quarter, Kent Bostrom kicked an 18-yard field goal that would have brought the Sun Devils to within eight at 21-13. But Arizona was penalized for having 12 men on the field, so the Sun Devils took the fourth down again from the Arizona one. The strategy backfired as fullback Channing Williams was stopped shy of the goal line.