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See if this sounds familiar: In 1988, Oregon's Rich Brooks was a 47-year-old football coach who had never won more than six games in a season, an embattled figure whose career record was 25 games under .500. He had piloted his '88 team to an unprecedented 5-1 start.

It was mid-October. Brooks' Ducks faced fourth-and-goal at the 5, 1:46 remaining in a tense and meaningful Pac-10 game against Washington.

Brooks approved the play that offensive coordinator Bob Toledo dispatched from the press box. The Ducks pushed all of their chips to the middle of the table; they would run a daring end-around to Terry Obee.

Obee scored; the Ducks beat the hated Huskies, and the perception of Brooks forever changed in Eugene, Ore. The Ducks were not always good, but Brooks was thereafter considered a resourceful character, at his best in the clutch.

That one play — eternally worshiped by UO fans as "The Reverse'' — changed the way Oregon played football. Over the next two seasons, Brooks produced 16 wins and by 1993 went to the Rose Bowl.

The similarities between the '88 Ducks and the '08 Arizona Wildcats, Brooks and Arizona's Mike Stoops, are compelling.

Stoops turns 47 in two months. He has never won more than six games in a season, and his career record is 10 games under .500. A few days ago, his UA football team had a chance to win a meaningful Pac-10 game and improve to 5-1.

With fewer than six minutes remaining, pressure everywhere, Stoops' team faced a fourth-and-goal at the Stanford6.

"I thought about" going for it, he said Monday. "It crossed my mind. … It's a hard call to make.''

Ironically, on the UA's first play from scrimmage Saturday, spitfire receiver Mike Thomas gained 21 yards on an end-around.

But on that fourth-and-goal, Stoops instructed his team to attempt a field goal, which was successful, giving Arizona a 23-17 lead. Stanford won anyway 24-23.

"I knew six points weren't going to matter with 5 1/2 minutes remaining,'' Stoops said 48 hours after the game. "But we hadn't been good in the red zone, too; that's another thing that bothered me. If we had a go-to play that we thought was a higher percentage than 50-50, then it's a good time. We had struggled down there."

How many college football coaches would have gone for a touchdown in Stoops' position Saturday? Maybe nobody.

Even though fourth-down failure would have meant Stanford taking possession 95 yards from a winning touchdown, and about 70 yards from a reasonable chance at an into-the-wind, tying field goal attempt, the conventional move was to add to your lead and play defense against third-string Stanford quarterback Alex Loukas.

Two problems arose: Stanford returned the ensuing kickoff 33 yards to give the Cardinal excellent field position. And the UA defense did not know what to expect from the swift, elusive Loukas, who had been on the field for just one play before the final drive; he had carried the ball just four times all season.

"We didn't prepare for that type of guy,'' UA defensive end Ricky Elmore said after the game. "We didn't have anything on him.''

Loukas' mobility was so effective that he scrambled four times for 32 yards in the final five minutes; three of his runs produced first downs.

For the UA, it was six minutes of hell.

Rather than be viewed by Wildcat fans as a conquering hero, 5-1 and probably ranked in the Top 25, Stoops has been second-, third- and fourth-guessed.

Stoops and his staff spend half of each Sunday's 12-hour work sessions reviewing and questioning the previous day's work. The theory is: No coaching staff can be successful until it first understands why it has lost.

"It's human nature,'' Stoops said. "You can do it until you're sick, you can't sleep, you can't eat and you can't function. You've got to move on. You can't let it bother you so much that you can't concentrate on the next game.''

Sometimes playing it safe is a bigger risk than taking a chance.

On Monday, UA senior safety Nate Ness, speaking generally and not specifically about the UA's failed fourth-quarter attempts in the red zone, said: "We play not to lose, and the other teams play to win. We need to start playing the way Stanford played.''

The difference between smart-and-bold and daring-but-dumb is almost indecipherable.

Late in a 1995 Arizona Stadium game against Oregon, UA offensive coordinator Duane Akina called four consecutive up-the-middle runs from the Ducks' 2-yard line. Much like Saturday's game at Stanford, the Wildcats were trying to add to a 13-10 lead and put the Ducks away.

All four runs failed. Oregon then drove for the winning touchdown, 17-13.

Akina was vilified by UA fans; the Wildcats plummeted to 5-5.

In the next game, after the sky had fallen, Arizona stunned favored Arizona State 31-28 in Tempe.