UA Wildcats football season continues into the abyss today with the dismissal of RB Clarence Farmer.

Farmer, the 2001 Pac 10 rushing champion, spent most of 2002 on the IR, and was part of a public feud with former coach, John Mackovic, and was benched for most of the first half of the season.

AZ Daily Star Columnist Greg Hansen has this to say about the talented running backs fall from grace.

Whatever Farmer did or did not do is not the issue. In the days since John Mackovic was jettisoned, the UA has been in a zero-tolerance mode - and the players knew all about it.

This team has been through so much chaos that a pillow fight should be grounds for dismissal.

Farmer, a 22-year-old senior with a lot to lose, a wise guy whose speciality at Arizona has been resisting authority, ran out of second chances. He will rue his post-Mackovic behavior in April when the NFL draft commences and he is considered an at-risk prospect, if a prospect at all.

Further, when an old-school disciplinarian such as interim coach Mike Hankwitz is forced to take the tough-love approach and kick a potentially productive senior leader out of the program, it shouts that Mackovic was not always in error in his awkward run-ins with Farmer.

By discharging Farmer, Hankwitz has thus sent a message that the final month of the season will not be one of total loss. He is the boss, and even a temporary boss must establish order if the Wildcats are to exit this sorry season with any dignity.

Thus, the UA's biggest victory of the 2003 season might be that Hank-witz did not give in to the temptation of letting Farmer, or anyone else, run the team. The few seniors remaining on this squad deserve better than playing out the string with a lame-duck administration letting a few would-be stars run amok.

It is almost comical, isn't it? Mackovic's demise began when he refer-red to tight end Justin Levasseur as "a disgrace." And a few weeks later, totally coincidentally, Levasseur was arrested after an embarrassing drug deal.

But it was Mackovic's public feud with Farmer that did the most damage to his reputation and job security. In another grand coincidence, Far-mer has been kicked off the team a few weeks after Mackovic was fired.

Everybody comes out looking bad in a painful series of lose-lose situations.

You can't make up this stuff.

The UA will not miss Farmer in its final four games. It is to the point that it would not miss anybody. What does it matter, anyway? What's another 42-14 loss? What is a 1-11 record as opposed to 2-10?

Turn the page. Start over.

ESPN reports the interesting tidbit that Farmer was drafted by the LA Dodgers, perhaps hinting at a possible new career.