COLLEGE FOOTBALL DAILY REPORT / USC : Arizona’s Disaster Called Temporary

Arizona’s 41-7 defensive disaster against Penn State on Saturday makes the Pacific 10 race look wide open, but the performance didn’t convince USC defensive coordinator Bill Young that the Wildcats are a bust.

“They got shell-shocked. They’ll get it back together,” Young said. “Early in the year, if you haven’t done a lot of scrimmaging, that can affect your defense.

“A lot of teams don’t tackle well early in the season. You don’t want to scrimmage too much because you don’t want anybody to get hurt, but if you don’t scrimmage enough, your defense might not be ready.”

Arizona has too many players back from last season’s 12-1 team--including nine starters on defense--for the Wildcats not to be a good team, Young believes.

“I’m sure they’ll rally back,” Young said. “The coaches will tell them they can still go to the Rose Bowl.”

It’s one game, not the whole season.

“You can go back to our game against TCU,” Young said. “We were better than we played. That’s not to take anything away from TCU, but we’d like to play that one again.”

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Freshman Kevin Arbet, a walk-on cornerback, was awarded a scholarship Sunday--an almost unheard-of accomplishment. “The real story is No. 30. From the time he got here he has caught everybody’s eye,” Coach Paul Hackett said. “How would you like to be a parent and get that call? You just picked up $30,000.” Junior safety John Morgan and senior cornerback Antoinne Harris also were given scholarships. . . . Cornerback Darrell Rideaux suffered a back spasm during practice and tailback Sultan McCullough has a sore knee, but Hackett so far isn’t concerned about their availability for Saturday’s game.