Arizona waits for Stoops to conquer

Hiring Mike Stoops as Arizona coach in 2004 to clean up the circus-tent mess John Mackovic left behind made a lot of family-tree sense.

In 1999, Oklahoma hired Mike’s brother, Bob, off Steve Spurrier’s Florida staff to resurrect a once-proud powerhouse that had gone 12-22 in three seasons under John Blake.

Bob was a quick study.

Oklahoma went 7-5 in Stoops’ first year and won the national title in his second. Last Saturday, Stoops recorded his 100th career win with a victory at Washington.

Looking for the same kind of payoff, Arizona snatched Mike Stoops off Bob’s Oklahoma staff.

Oh, brother, where art thou?

Mike has a 2-1 record three games into his fifth season after posting previous seasons of 3-8, 3-8, 6-6 and 5-7.

As Arizona prepares to play at UCLA on Saturday, this isn’t the kind of lineage Wildcats fans had in mind.

“Turning the corner, that’s the last task at hand,” Stoops said on Tuesday’s Pacific 10 Conference coaches’ call.

Turning it over, actually, was the problem last weekend as five giveaways contributed to a 36-28 loss at New Mexico.

Mike has not, so far, been a chip off Bob’s block.

The New Mexico loss, the second in consecutive years to the Lobos, was a huge step backward and ended hopes of a 6-0 start that might have pacified the pessimists.

Both Stoops and UCLA Coach Rick Neuheisel are coming off humiliating road defeats -- but there’s a big difference.

Neuheisel is in the first year of a rebuilding program while Stoops is in the fifth year of a so-far failure.

The pressure for Stoops to get Arizona to a bowl game this year is immense -- he might have to do it to save his job.

“He is simply not ready to be a head coach, even after nearly five years on the job,” one fan posted on Tucson Citizen’s website after the New Mexico loss.

When someone mentioned winless New Mexico’s desperation entering the Arizona game, Stoops shot back to reporters: “We have 10 years of desperation. I don’t want to hear about desperation. Who is more desperate that us?”

All may not be lost because there appear to be four more wins on Arizona’s schedule, which would qualify the Wildcats for a bowl game.

The next three seem spongy enough -- UCLA, Washington and Stanford.

And, when the Wildcats aren’t handing the ball over to opponents, they have a dynamic and exciting offense led by quarterback Willie Tuitama, although the senior played one of his worst games against New Mexico, throwing two passes that were intercepted and fumbling twice.

“This is, by far, the best team we’ve had,” Stoops said. “We’re a much different team than we ever have been.”

Stoops had better hope so.

The good news for Arizona is that there are no more Mountain West Conference teams left on the schedule.

It’s all Pac-10 (downhill) from here.

“We’re disappointed we let an opportunity slip out of our hands to put us in another positive position,” Stoops said of the New Mexico loss. “But we’ve got another opportunity here. It’s a long season . . . it’s another game. We’re either going to be 3-1 or 2-2 after this week with eight more games to go.”

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chris.dufresne@latimes.com