The Territorial Cup Revisited: The Top 10 games in the storied football rivalry between Arizona and Arizona State

An Arizona fan lofted that sign high in Arizona Stadium as the Wildcats were delivering a knockout blow of historical proportions.

The punch that put an exclamation point on the victory was Chuck Cecil’s 106-yard interception for a touchdown early in the fourth quarter. The play, officially listed at 100 yards, is the greatest play in the history of the program.

The Sun Devils were 9-0-1 entering the game, already clinching a spot in their first Rose Bowl, and were challenging for a national championship. The Wildcats (7-2) had not beaten their arch-rivals this convincingly since 1964 when Arizona beat Frank Kush’s 8-1 ASU team 30-6 in Tucson.

Given the circumstance of ASU’s dominance in the series at that point and the Wildcats’ struggles, the Sun Devils probably felt like they could do just about anything.

The Wildcats had no business winning this game or keeping it close. They were 5-4-1 overall, coming off one of the worst losses in the program’s history — a 14-7 loss the previous week at winless Oregon in which junior quarterback Tom Tunnicliffe was intercepted five times.

ASU (9-1) needed a victory to make its first Rose Bowl despite being in the Pac-10 only five years after leaving the Western Athletic Conference with Arizona. The Sun Devils were ranked No. 6 with the nation’s top-rated defense, anchored by menacing linebacker Vernon Maxwell.

The Tucson Citizen paints a gloomy picture of what-could-have-been in the Arizona locker room following the Wildcats’ 24-21 loss at ASU in 1975

Hard to believe: There was no live television (cable and satellite TV were not around back then) of this showdown in Tempe despite the fact that ASU was 10-0 and ranked No. 8 in the nation while Arizona was 9-1 and ranked No. 12. A trip to the Fiesta Bowl for the teams, as the WAC champion, was on the line. The Tucson Daily Citizen reported that 8,000 viewed a closed-circuit telecast of the game in Tempe and at McKale Center.

Most of what we have of “The Catch” are inconclusive grainy photos of Jefferson outstretched with the ball in his hands before he hits the ground. Did he trap it? Does he cradle the ball in his hands, preventing it from grazing the ground?

Max Zendejas reacts to kicking the 32-yard field goal to give Arizona a 16-13 victory over ASU (Tucson Citizn file photo)

The fourth game in “The Streak” — Arizona’s unlikely win in 1985 — happened because of the foot of place-kicker Max Zendejas and the questionable play calling of Cooper (who was in his first season in Tempe). All the Sun Devils needed was a tie against Arizona to advance to the Rose Bowl after they learned that first-place UCLA lost earlier in the day to USC.

ASU, 8-2 and on a six-game winning streak, appeared headed to Pasadena with the game tied at 13-13 and 3:30 remaining in the fourth quarter. The Sun Devils had possession after advancing 12 yards from its 20 to the 32. Cooper called a running play on first down to eat some more clock. But instead of executing at least two more running plays to chew up more clock, Cooper went with the high-risk choices of passing on second and third down. The risk backfired.

After quarterback Jeff Van Raaphorst threw an incompletion on second down, Arizona nose guard Stan Mataele sacked Van Raaphorst and caused a fumble, which Mataele recovered at the ASU 20. That gave Zendejas the opportunity to make a game-winning 32-yard field goal with 1:43 left as the Wildcats prevented their rivals from the Rose Bowl for the second time in four years.

Former Arizona coach Darrell Mudra’s ultimatum to Sun Bowl officials before the 1968 game against ASU helped lead to his dismissal

Officials of the Sun Bowl intended to invite the winner of the ASU-UA game to the El Paso bowl game. Instead, UA coach Darrell Mudra issued his famous ultimatum: Take us now or don’t take us at all and we’ll shop for other bowls. The Sun Bowl officials buckled to his demand and offered Arizona its 1968 invitation before the motivated Sun Devils routed the Wildcats 30-7 in Tucson.

The Ultimatum Bowl led to the successful Fiesta Bowl because Phoenix officials wanted to create their own bowl game to avoid what happened to the Sun Devils in 1968. The Fiesta Bowl began in 1971. ASU played in four of the first five games (winning four). By then, the Fiesta Bowl had been established nationally and financially. Arizona played Auburn in the 1968 Sun Bowl and lost 34-10.

Arizona had three ties in 1987, including this zany outcome in Dick Tomey’s first season with the Wildcats in which the UA was 4-4-3. This one felt like a victory.

Tomey later said that “all they had to do was punt the ball” to win (at the 2:30 mark of the accompanying video). But the craziest thing happened. ASU punter Mike Schuh fumbled the snap and then was flagged for an illegal kick (trying to kick the ball on the ground) and All-American safety Chuck Cecil recovered.

The ball was placed at the ASU 13 on the penalty and Gary Coston nailed a 30-yard field goal as time expired to tie the game for Arizona. The Cats celebrated on the Sun Devil Stadium turf as if they were victorious. The outcome ended the UA’s winning run in “The Streak” but the Wildcats remained undefeated in the historic 1982-1990 stretch against their arch-rivals.

UA place-kicker Max Zendejas sets up for his game-winning 45-yard field goal against ASU in 1983 (Click on photo to access YouTube video)

In the battle of the Zendejas brothers — ASU’s Luis Zendejas and UA’s Max Zendejas — Arizona got the maximum out of its place-kicker and received the push it needed to generate “The Streak” — the Wildcats’ nine-year unbeaten run against ASU.

Max Zendejas kicked a dramatic 45-yard field goal as time expired to beat the Sun Devils in front of a hostile crowd in Tempe. The Wildcats wilted the Sun Devils’ Rose Bowl hopes a year before with a 28-18 win in Tucson. Zendejas’ game-winner in 1983 not only gave the UA consecutive wins over ASU for the first time since 1961 and 1962, it provided the momentum for the Wildcats to prolong “The Streak” with the next game in Tucson (which the UA won 16-10).

From there, the dominoes fell until 1990.

Arizona coach Jim Young beat ASU and nemesis Frank Kush only once in four seasons but it happens to be the last time either team has shut out the other in the series

Although Frank Kush has not coached at ASU since 1979, he remains the figurehead for Arizona’s dislike for the Sun Devils in the football rivalry between the schools. Between 1965-1978, the Wildcats went 1-13 against Kush and ASU. In that 14-year span, the Wildcats lost six of seven games in Tucson by an average margin of 12.5 points.

The one loss for Kush in his 13-1 run against Arizona was this dominating 10-0 victory for Jim Young and the Wildcats. It remains the last shutout by either team in the series. It also improved the UA’s season to 9-2 — the first nine-win season in the program’s history. The game, which was the UA’s last win against a Kush-coached team, ended a nine-game losing streak against the Sun Devils. Kush and ASU shut out the UA two times previously, including Kush’s first season with the Sun Devils in 1958, when they defeated Arizona 47-0 in Tucson.

Young, who coached Arizona from 1973 to 1976 and helped the Wildcats gain the mindset they can competitively go from the WAC to the Pac-10, is quoted as saying in an Associated Press article of the 10-0 win over ASU: “It is the best win since I came to Arizona.” It was his lone victory against ASU and Kush and it occurred a year after the Sun Devils routed Arizona 55-19 in Tempe.

Arizona receiver Brad Brennan celebrates a crazy touchdown against ASU in 1997. He broke free behind ASU’s secondary after the Sun Devils stopped, thinking that they would be called for defensive encroachment, but the refs never blew the whistle after the Sun Devils got back on their side of the line before Ortege Jenkins lofted the ball to Brennan (YouTube video, 6:30 mark, click on photo to access video).

Talk about a reversal of fortunes: ASU was playing at home with a five-game winning streak, ranked No. 12 in the nation with an eye on a Fiesta Bowl bid with a victory over an Arizona team on a nine-game road losing streak. The Cats were 5-5 overall, including 1-4 against ranked teams. The Wildcats dominated from the start, however, in what turned out to be one victory in the middle of a 16-1 run from 1997 to 1998 for the Wildcats — the best stretch in the program’s history. The Sun Devils regressed to a 5-6 record the following year.

Ortege Jenkins, a redshirt freshman who started the 1997 season as a wide receiver, threw three first-half touchdown passes and linebacker Chester Burnett made two key plays in the fourth quarter in Arizona’s upset victory at Sun Devil Stadium. Arizona, which beat New Mexico in the Copper Bowl to end the season, stunned the Tempe crowd by taking a 21-0 lead.

Jenkins threw for 182 of his 194 yards in the first half, leading the Wildcats to a 28-7 advantage. Keith Smith also tossed a touchdown pass in the first half.

“I knew I had to run somebody over or put a move on,” Canidate told reporters afterward. “I put some moves on and I got into a flow and went to the house. The (offensive) line told me they would give me 14 inches of daylight. That’s all I needed.”

The 92-point shootout is the highest-scoring game in the intense intrasate rivalry. Canidate, who holds the UA record with 18 games with at least 100 yards rushing, broke the single-game record of 232 yards set by Jim Upchurch against Texas-El Paso in 1973. Carey now holds that record. Canidate has the career rushing mark at Arizona with 3,824 yards on 604 attempts from 1996-1999.