The clock ticked past midnight. The calendar flipped to December. Many disgruntled Arizona Wildcats fans hoped the program would turn the page.
But when UA athletic director Dave Heeke met the media for an impromptu scrum in a hallway near the visitors’ locker room at Sun Devil Stadium late Saturday night — sorry, early Sunday morning — that was not the message he delivered.
Instead, Heeke doubled down on his support for embattled coach Kevin Sumlin.
Sumlin had just delivered his final 2019 postgame news conference, which followed Arizona’s seventh consecutive defeat.