(Photo Courtesy GoAZCats.com)

They may have lost their top recruit for next year…and possibly soon afterward their head coach.

Talk about replacing Arizona head football coach Mike Stoops has grown more serious after the Wildcats once again gave up 24 first-quarter points on the way to a loss to the Oregon State Beavers, 31-16. The Wildcats fell behind 31-3 with 10:50 to play in the second quarter and were never in contention in Saturday’s game in Corvallis.

In addition, 2008 top recruit Gerell Robinson, a four-star wide receiver and quarterback from Hamilton High School in Chandler, announced Sunday night he is going to look at other schools.

“I just decided to play wide receiver in college,” Robinson told Josh Gershon and Jason Scheer of GOAZCATS.com. “In all honesty there are a lot of other schools because I never gave other schools (a chance). The only official I have set up is Georgia Tech for November 24,” Robinson added.

Robinson was looked to be a starter at either position from his first game at Arizona and envisioned as the quarterback of the future in offensive coordinator Sonny Dykes’ new spread offense.

His reopening of his recruitment should not come as a surprise, given Arizona’s downhill slide since an unconscionable 28-26 loss at home to New Mexico Sept. 15.

Where it hits hard, sadly, again, is at the future of the Arizona coaching staff. After leaving his position as defensive coordinator at Oklahoma to replace the fired John Mackovic in 2004, Mike Stoops had virtually nowhere but up to take Arizona football.

Yet he has struggled, posting only a 13-25 mark in 3 1/2 seasons. In spite of this record, Stoops was able to attract a higher caliber of recruit to Tucson than Arizona football had ever been able to consistently get before.

The #1 junior college player of 2005, Louis Holmes. Last year’s best tight end in the nation, Rob Gronkowski from Pennsylvania.

Numerous other four- and five-star recruits along the secondary and both offensive and defensive lines bought into Mike Stoops’ vision to raise Arizona to greatness. No matter the struggles on the field, Stoops has brought Arizona some of its highest-ranked recruiting classes ever.

That is, until now. There have been other recruits who have spurned Arizona since Stoops arrived, but the decommit of the prize of next year’s class puts Stoops’ future in Tucson past 2008 in serious doubt.

Barring a miraculous turnaround, of course, in which Arizona could win out this season. It’s happened before in college football at the halfway point of a schedule, but don’t look for it to happen at Arizona.

Why? Reason #1: the Cats’ next opponent is USC.

Reason #2: not just USC, but USC coming off what Las Vegas oddsmakers are already naming the biggest upset in college football history: a 24-23 loss to Stanford…at home.

As one former Trojan alum always writes in his movies, I have a bad feeling about this.

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