Michael Schwartz sports editor

Any true Arizona fan would watch the Cats
Saturday presents the ultimate dilemma.

At 1:30 p.m., the Arizona football team plays at Oregon on FSNA needing a win to become bowl-eligible and No. 2 Michigan travels to Columbus, Ohio, for a showdown against No. 1 Ohio State on ABC with the winner guaranteeing itself a spot in the national championship game.

The easy answer is you’ve got to go somewhere with two televisions, but even then, there’s the question of which TV gets sound and which game to put on the bigger set.

For anyone who has followed the few highs and many lows of the Arizona football team the past eight years, this really shouldn’t be much of a choice.

Follow your team.

All anybody could talk about at the start of the football season was the possibility of the Wildcats finally ending their bowlless streak and spending winter break in Las Vegas, San Francisco or Honolulu.

After a 3-5 start, most everybody jumped off the Arizona bandwagon, at least concerning bowl hopes this season. Now, after consecutive wins against then-No. 25 Washington State and then-No. 8 California, Arizona’s bowl hopes are more realistic.

Sure, Michigan-Ohio State is the biggest game of the year and probably one of the biggest regular-season games this decade, but nothing should be more important than your team, the one you follow through the good and the bad.

The seemingly impossibly could be about to come true: Arizona winning three of four over a brutal stretch in which all teams were ranked at some point this year, two of them on the road, to become bowl-eligible.

For the Arizona sports fan, nothing, not even Michigan-Ohio State, is a bigger deal than that possibility.

Cameron Jones staff writer

Watch the real championship game

There should be no question: If you love college football, you absolutely have to watch No. 2 Michigan battle No. 1 Ohio State in Columbus on Saturday.

Michigan-Ohio State is always must-see TV, but this one has all the makings of a classic. As if one of the best rivalries in all of sports was not enough, the winner of this game is guaranteed a spot in the Bowl Championship Series title game.

Why would you watch anything else when the two best teams in college football are essentially playing for a national championship?

Now I know this is Wildcat country and the prospect of watching Arizona beat Oregon and secure a spot in the prestigious Insight.com Bowl or one of the other 150 bowl games is enticing, but this could be the game of the century. You cannot miss this game.

The always-intense Michigan-Ohio State rivalry will be at its absolute climax on Saturday. The loser of this game will have its season written off as a disappointment no matter what it does the rest of the year.

Tickets for the game are being sold for upwards of $750, with some going as high as $1,500. Those prices are higher than those commanded for the 2002 national championship game that Ohio State won.

Make no mistake about it, the national championship will be decided this weekend at “”The Horseshoe.”” The two best teams in college football will be on the same field in a battle of strength versus strength. It is just a shame that it comes two months too early.

This game will be the pinnacle of the college football season, regardless of how it plays out the rest of the way.

It is No. 1 vs. No. 2, in a rivalry game, for a spot in the championship.

How could you even think about watching anything else?