November is one of the best months in Tucson. The weather has finally cooled down, college basketball has begun and the biggest college town in America lives up to that billing.
But for many visiting ranked football teams, November is a month they’d like to avoid.
When the UA hosts No. 2 Utah on Saturday evening at Casino Del Sol Stadium it will be the 38th time a Top 25 opponent has come to town in November. Fourteen of those have left with a loss, including nine who were ranked in the Top 10.
It’s
been seven years since a Top 10 team came to Tucson in November, that being Utah in 2019 when it was ranked 7th and rolled to a 35-7 win. But the previous five Top 10 visitors got knocked off by the Wildcats, including 10th-ranked Utah in double overtime in 2015 and Top 5 Oregon squads in 2013 and 2007.
The 2007 win over No. 2 Oregon was the last time Arizona hosted a Top 2 team. The Wildcats were 4-6 and headed towards a ninth straight bowl-less season but they scored 21 straight points—including interception and punt return touchdowns by Antoine Cason—to build a 31-11 halftime lead and then held on to win 34-24.
The Oregon win was the third of three Top 5 wins at home in November in as many seasons. In 2006 Cason had a game-winning pick-6 to beat No. 8 California, and in 2005 the UA steamrolled unbeaten No. 7 UCLA 52-14.
Before that you have to go back to 1992 for a November home win over a Top 10 team, and it was the biggest of them all. Arizona was playing its second top-ranked opponent of the season, losing 8-7 at Miami in September, but when unbeaten Washington brought its 22-game win streak to Arizona Stadium the Wildcats weren’t going to miss out on a second chance to take out No. 1.
Thanks to four takeaways, the UA beat the Huskies 16-3.
Overall, Arizona is 31-65 at home against ranked opponents, the most recent being last season when No. 6 BYU won in double OT. The last home win over a ranked team was in 2023, a 42-18 blowout of No. 16 Utah on Senior Day.
