It isn't cultural. It isn't local. It's just hate. Rivalry for rivalry sake.

It isn’t cultural. Try as they might to avoid admitting it, the Sun Devils from Tempe and the Wildcats from Tucson just aren’t that different. This isn’t city folk vs. country farmers. This is ‘zonies vs. ‘zonies. Perfectly-bronzed, fun-loving people who carry hot sauce with them at all times, spend their Saturdays hanging around the pool, and hate when anyone calls them ‘zonies (sorry).

It isn’t local. The schools are 2 hours apart. While there are plenty of U of A grads who end up in the the Phoenix/Tempe/Scottsdale area, Tucson is ‘Cats country. This isn’t like UCLA-USC, Cal-Stanford, or even Oregon-Oregon State. The Sun Devils could win by 100 and Tucson’s still staying painted navy and red, very few Tucson water coolers are going to be loitered by an annoying Sun Devil fan on Monday afterward, and the squads are still going to battle for every recruit in the state, knowing staving off the forces coming from California and Texas will be just as necessary as beating out the other team from the Grand Canyon State.

It’s just hate. Inarticulable, irrational hate, which in any other context is a very scary thing that tears our world apart, but for at least one week every fall, it’s that irrational hate that brings a state together. Some fans admit they have no reasons to support their hate, other fans come up with convoluted stories that they full well know don’t justify their emotions, but for one week every fall, they let that passion for beating their rival boil up to be as strong as their pride in their own school so that they can enjoy every ounce of the Territorial Cup.

"As long as we beat ASU"

“Look, everyone knows this is a basketball school. Not all of us like to admit it, but it’s the truth. But even for the most exclusive of basketball fans, there is one football game they care about. We have to beat ASU.”

That’s how one of our gracious tailgate hosts broke it down for us and that certainly wasn’t the only time all day that we heard this “as long as we beat ASU” mantra. And it makes sense. Why else would over 50,000 fans show up to watch two teams with a combined 13-game losing streak on the day after Thanksgiving? Because the only record that matters to a huge portion of these Arizona football fans is that their school goes 1-0 against that team from up north.

And given these facts, we sure picked the right weekend for our stop in Tucson. From brunch until the moment the ‘Cats thrusted that shiny silver jug into the air, the town was abuzz. Gameday down in “The Old Pueblo” is much more akin to a trip to Vegas than a family reunion BBQ. We started our morning with bloody marys on a packed patio, spent the afternoon working on our tans as we bounced from rowdy tailgate to tailgate, and wrapped it all up watching the sparks fly between a beauty queen and the QB.

Bear Down

With the Duel in the Desert falling on the day after Thanksgiving, I convinced Mrs. Saturday that a trip to Tucson would be much more enjoyable than any sale shopping she could get herself into and persuaded her to accompany me on the trip to Tucson. After a smooth trip down the highway on a beautiful, warm desert morning, we knew we were getting close to the destination when the U of A license plates and flags started to appear. After passing about the fifth such vehicle, Mrs. Saturday asked me, “Who are the Bears? I thought they were the Wildcats.”

She has to be about the 8 millionth person to have asked that question upon seeing the ‘Cats navy and red rally cry printed somewhere.

Bear Down.

Emblazoned on the football field, on the back of basketball jerseys, on saggy biceps and tanned ankles and everywhere in between, these two words have become nearly as prominent a representation of the University of Arizona as the big red, white, and blue A logo itself. Yet, for as omnipresent as it has become, undoubtedly, at least 80% of the population who randomly come across a Wildcats game when turning on ESPN wonder the same thing as Mrs. Saturday, “Who are the Bears? What is Bear Down?”

As someone who sort of knew the story before, and after being very well-educated on the subject during our day in Tucson, let me give a shot at explaining it in a way everyone should be able to understand.

In 1993, one of the greatest films of all-time, The Sandlot, was released to rave-reviews from 6-15 year-olds all across the country. For the 2 readers who’ve never seen this once-in-a-generation classic, here’s the short IMDB summary: A new kid in town is taken under the wing of a young baseball prodigy and his team in this coming of age movie set in the summer of 1962. Together, they get themselves into many adventures involving rival teams, lifeguards, and a vicious dog.

What you really need to know about this is that “vicious dog” is an understatement. In order to get their baseball back and outrun the nastiest, meanest, most ferocious dog of all time, one of the kids needed to enter the Beast’s den himself and make the greatest steal of his life. Did he do it? Of course. But only after the ghost of Babe Ruth came back and reminded him of the difference between heroes and legends:

“Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.”

That’s basically the best way to sum up the irreplaceable imprint John Byrd “Button” Salmon and his rally cry have left on Arizona athletics.

Imagine the most badass 22-year old college student you can think of. Student body president. Home-run hitting catcher. Quarterback of the football team. A walking legend. That’s who Button Salmon was. Mr. Everything.

Well, as all too often happens, tragedy struck and Button Salmon was gravely injured in a car accident. As he was laying on his deathbed, his last words to his coach were, “Tell them… tell the team... to Bear Down.”

Boom. Hearts all over Arizona were broken, but a rally cry was born. And so from baseball to volleyball and every sport in between, the Wildcats now rally to the cry of Bear Down. A slogan that is incredibly inspiring for those in the know, and equally perplexing for the other 80% of the population. Thanks to the ghost of Babe Ruth and incredible early 1990s family-friendly cinema, we’re luckily all now in the educated category.

University Boulevard

One of the best parts of gameday in Tucson is the fact that the stadium is right on campus and as a result, is walking distance from the very fun strip of bars and restaurants on University Boulevard right at the entrance to campus. By the time we strolled over to the area at 11:30am, a cool 8 hours prior to kickoff, a few of the bars and restaurants were starting to fill up and we were lucky to grab one of the last tables on the streetside patio. Being able to sit in shorts on the outdoor patio, guzzling down a bloody mary brunch while taking in the early games on the 19 outdoor big-screens on a late November morning... yeah, Arizona football has got some perks.

In the two hours we spent hanging out on the patio, University filled up with a sea of navy and red, and a real decent showing of gold and maroon (though rarely together, the commingling was far less at this rivalry game than the others along the way). Mrs. Saturday and I quickly made a game out of trying to find the fan with the most ridiculous rivalry game shirt, and there was no shortage of candidates. Among the most popular: for U of A fans - “ASWho?” & “Level the Devils”; for ASU fans - “No Pity for the Kitty”; but I think we have to admit the winner for most ridiculous has to go to the Arizona version of this year’s hottest rivalry clothing fad, a shirt saying “Make Arizona Great Again” with a map of Arizona that includes the sketch of a wall built around Tucson and the message “Build that Wall”.

By the time we left University Blvd. to head over to the Mall (the main tailgating area right on campus), the bars were beginning to have lines at the entrances and David Guetta and Avicii were echoing all the way to the campus entrance. Again, this was six hours before a game between teams with a combined 2 conference wins all season. This doesn’t happen in professional football. I’ve said it once and I will absolutely say it a thousand times more, college football rivalries are what make it the greatest sport on Earth.

The Mall

Most of the tailgating at Arizona happens on the Mall, one long grassy expanse, with palms lining each side, located a mere 1,000 yards from the stadium. On Territorial Cup day, the mall is overflowing with red and navy, as red coated RVs, trailers, and A frames are immersed between the large patches of grass tailgaters have metaphorically and physically roped off for chilling and grilling in the hours leading up to the game. As we began to make the rounds, I couldn’t help but reflect on how after 11 stops on the Tailgating Tour of Champions, I still am hit with the same rush of joy every time I arrive at a new tailgate lot and hear the beanbags hit the board on the cornhole set, smell the sweet scent of smoking meats waft through the air, and take in the visual rush of thousands of fans all dressed in the home team's colors.

While a fair share of our tailgate conversations ended up touching on Sean Miller and the ‘Cats basketball prospects for this year, as we made our way from tailgate to tailgate, I bought more and more into one fan’s notion that Arizona is that proverbial “sleeping giant” in the world of college football. The characteristics sure seem ripe for building something special: a mid-size town that’s crazy about it’s college athletics, access to fertile recruiting grounds, top-notch facilities, and weather that allows co-eds to dress in skirts year round. When you consider those facts and see the gameday atmosphere potential based on the type of turnout they get for the Territorial Cup, even when saddled with the downers of a terrible season and 7:30pm kickoff, it’s not too big of a stretch to buy into those ‘Cats fans’ lofty ambitions.

Clifford the Big Red Bus

We’ve seen a lot of unique tailgating vehicles on this journey. Buses of all shapes and sizes, old school firetrucks, the ever-present ambulances, a hearst or two, not to mention the sensational boats of UW. But just when you think you’ve seen it all, you go to the Territorial Cup and meet Clifford the Big Red Bus, an Arizona red double-decker bus that is rumored (at least by not totally sober Wildcats fans) to have once charioted around the Queen herself.

Originally one of those classic UK double-deckers built in 1964, the bus flew a little too close to a low bridge and unintentionally lost the roof to the upper deck in 1975. The bus was then converted into an open top bus and selected for use in the Queen’s Silver Jubilee before being shipped to the US to be used as an Arizona tour bus throughout the 80s and 90s until being discovered and purchased by one entrepreneurial Wildcat tailgater.

The double decker is now an ultimate tailgate vehicle that provides those lucky enough to board with the ultimate viewpoint of Arizona tailgating while standing on the astroturf covered upperdeck and peering out over the entire mall. Clifford has become such an attraction of U of A gamedays that the popular tailgate is often used to run other charitable events such as toy drives and fundraisers.

Tucson's Team

You know how we all have special innate abilities that cannot be taught or earned, but have simply been ingrained in us since birth. The guy who wins at craps everytime. The party-goer who can open a beer bottle with their eye socket. The girl who can wrap her legs around her head. I’m of the belief that we all have at least one of these super-human talents just waiting to be discovered. While I’m still waiting to find mine, Mrs. Saturday’s is without a doubt the ability to spot important people in crowds - celebrities, power brokers, professional athletes, you name it. No matter how low key or what the disguise, she can spot them.

So as we made our way over for the one-and-only Wildcat Walk, Mrs. Saturday grabbed my shoulder, pointed to a guy, and said “I don’t know who he is, but I know he’s important, go talk to him.” It was Arizona Athletic director Greg Byrne.

While waiting for Rich Rod and the squad to arrive for the Wildcat Walk, Greg Byrne (famously known for this hilarious Office Space parody encouraging ‘Cats fans to show up and stay late) couldn’t help but get animated as he gave me his pitch on what makes Arizona gamedays one-of-a-kind. In short, he gave a lot of the classic political talk that you’d expect: the mall (the main tailgating strip), the “best fans in the country,” the great weather (“Look at this, the day after Thanksgiving and everyone is in shorts.”) But when I asked him about the rivalry, there was one thing he said that stood out: “It’s important, it’s really important, maybe even more important down here than up there.”

I don’t think he was saying it as in the ‘Cats want to win more, or as some kind of dig on the Devils, but as I heard from several fans on Saturday, Tucson is the ‘Cats town. There aren’t a lot of other games around. If you grow up around the Tucson area, the ‘Cats are your sports. There’s no shortage of love for the Sun Devils up in Tempe, but the fact is ASU plays in the shadows of one of the only metropolis’ in America that has a team in all 4 major sports (yes, I just checked, as of now, the Arizona Coyotes are still a real NHL team). If the ‘Cats come home from the Territorial Cup empty handed, the whole city is going to be blue for a week (they’ll tell you they’ve already moved on to basketball season, but that’ll be lie, they’ll be hurting), if the Devils return to Tempe empty handed, there will be plenty of despair for the diehards, but a not insignificant portion of fans will just move on to the next section of the sports page to see what’s on deck for the rest of their teams.

As night fell and kickoff grew closer, the Mall had grown into one large extended tailgate and the speakers that had been playing everything from country to 80s to the fight song all seemed to go straight to Top 40 club remixes. The Arizona fans who had told me, “I’d be so happy if they suck worse than we do” we’re suddenly beginning to rationalize how Arizona’s very, very brief moments of brilliance this year might be able to show up together all in the same game. Finally, at long, merciful last, it was time to head in for the final 7:30pm kickoff of the season. (Who knows what the 2020 election will hold, but if “What will you do to end 7:30pm Pac-12 kickoffs?” isn’t one of the debate questions, we, as a conference, will have failed.)

Quick Hits:

Half-renovations - What’s up with Arizona stadiums and these half-way renovations? Both Sun Devil Stadium and Arizona Stadium are the Jetsons on one side and the Flintstones on the other. You go to use the Men’s room in one section and you’re just hoping the horse trough doesn’t have any leaking holes, but if you walk two sections over, you’re suddenly in a palatial bathhouse.

Students and Kickoffs - Pretty darn impressive turnout from the student section for the Friday after Thanksgiving, and while the scoreboard operator should probably cool it on some of the hokey stunts to get fans pumped (no need for a noise meter on 2nd and 3 midway through the first quarter), I did appreciate the kickoff rituals the Wildcat faithful dutifully followed. When preparing to receive, they hold their keys up to the sky and feverishly clang them until the kick (get it? Keys, because they are preparing to.. DRIVE!) and then what we saw much more of in this game, when the ‘Cats are kicking off, they throw their fists out in front of their face and pound them together (not entirely sure what this represents, I’m thinking maybe they switch to a simulated slash of a tire for next year. You know something that would stall a drive!).

All You Need to Know About the Game - The Wildcats pulled the classic switcheroo. The 'Cats pretended to lack any offensive firepower all season, just to set up their rivals, and then unleash a vicious rushing attack all over the Sun Devils. After giving the ‘Cats a 21-point headstart, ASU decided to make a game of it at the start of the third quarter, before realizing that they had hit their tackling limit for the season, and then allowing the ‘Cats to continually run over, around, and through them. Basically, the only must-see highlight of the game, was this tremendous tackle by Miss Arizona, by far the best defense against Arizona’s QB Brandon Dawkins all night.

And so it was the Wildcats who took home the Territorial Cup and all 365 days of bragging rights that comes with it. The Wildcats went 3-9 this season while the Sun Devils went 5-7, but don't doubt for a second that Wildcat fans will have a much better offseason than Sun Devil fans. While Arizona just finished off their worst football season of the decade, they finished it off by trouncing their in-state rival. College football is the only sport in the world where 3-9 can feel a whole lot better than 5-7 and that’s a beautiful thing.

Congrats 'Cats, Keanu was impressed.