Words Desert Miami as Arizona Romps : Fiesta Bowl: Embarrassed Hurricanes are limited to 35 yards rushing and never get past the Wildcats’ 40.

It took Arizona only 3 minutes 50 seconds to score on Miami in Saturday’s Fiesta Bowl and only slightly longer to totally embarrass the Hurricanes.

The final score was 29-0, and the game was nowhere near that close. This New Year’s Day contest only missed by one letter of being correctly named. It was, indeed, a siesta bowl.

Sleeping through this one was a Miami team and program that has become known for big victories and big mouths. This is the same program that, under then coach Jimmy Johnson, marched its team into Phoenix for the 1987 Fiesta Bowl showdown against Penn State wearing battle fatigues, then marched it out of a joint pregame dinner with the now classic pronouncement from the late Jerome Brown: “Did the Japanese go and sit down and have dinner with Pearl Harbor before they bombed ‘em?”

Penn State won that one, and the national title that went with it, 14-10.

This year, Coach Dennis Erickson brought the Hurricanes to town with a 9-2 record, a No. 10 national ranking that was six places better than Arizona’s, and a chance to rack up a ninth consecutive 10-victory season.

And while there were no battle fatigues or warlike pronouncements, there was certainly not total quiet. This was, after all, Miami.

In the wee hours of Thursday night, Erickson’s son, Bryce, a fourth-string quarterback, was the central figure in an incident at the team hotel involving a female who claimed she was “slapped” by Erickson. Details have been sketchy and no arrests were made, but the younger Erickson was suspended for the game for “rules violations,” and his father refused to take questions on the matter at the postgame news conference.

So, surrounded by controversy--a familiar situation for the Hurricanes--Miami took the field and got trampled. The mouths that usually roar barely whimpered, as Arizona’s often suspect offense ran up 409 yards and its vaunted defense played up to expectations by holding Miami to 182, only 35 rushing.

Perhaps the most telling statistics of all were those of field position. Miami’s deepest penetration was to the Arizona 40, twice in the first half. In the second half, the Hurricanes’ only venture across the 50-yard line was on a pass play to the Arizona 45, where they fumbled the ball away on the play.

Erickson’s postgame news conference centered on one phrase, and variations thereof: “We got our butt kicked,” he said, perhaps eight times.

Indeed, the last time a Miami team had been shut out was in its 1979 game against Alabama, the same team that deprived the Hurricanes of a national title chance last year with a 34-13 victory in the Sugar Bowl.

For Arizona and Coach Dick Tomey, there was really no turning point, other than just showing up. The Wildcats, who shared the Pacific 10 Conference title with USC and UCLA and finished with a 10-2 record, got two touchdown plays from the passing combination of Dan White to Troy Dickey. Dickey’s first reception, of 13 yards with 11:10 to go in the first quarter, occurred after Miami had won the toss and elected to kick off. Arizona went 75 yards in eight plays and never looked back.

Dickey also scored on a nicely executed 14-yard play from White in the left corner of the end zone, completing the scoring midway through the final quarter and driving many in the crowd of 72,260 to the exits.

In between, running back Chuck Levy rushed for 142 yards, including 68 on a touchdown run that was a dazzling example of his skills. Those skills will be tested in the NFL next year, since the junior from Lynwood High in Compton announced afterward that he would forgo his final season of eligibility at Arizona.

The rest of the work in putting points on the scoreboard was done by Steve McLaughlin, a junior kicker who is frequently remembered for barely missing a 51-yard kick in the last seconds of the classic 8-7 Miami victory over Arizona at Miami in 1992. This time, McLaughlin connected on three of four field-goal attempts.

Arizona’s defense made three interceptions, recovered a fumble and more than lived up to its “Desert Swarm” reputation. One of its leaders, flamboyant sophomore Tedy Bruschi, had one of the four Arizona sacks for a 16-yard loss and was voted the defensive player of the game. Levy won the offensive honor.

In the end, all that was left for the respective coaches was some summing up, and both went right to the heart of the matter.

Said Tomey: “It was just our day.”

Said Erickson: “A 9-3 record is just not good enough at Miami.”