Three weeks from today, the football season starts again, and along with that, the partying. Five weeks from today, the festivities will take place at Arizona Stadium.
Win or lose, the only thing that matters before an Arizona game is the food, beer, college football games on television and music. You don’t have to be an Arizona fan or even like college football to take part in the fun.
This countdown series to the Arizona football season includes comments from fans about what they are looking forward to this season, and so far, we’ve read about earlier kickoff times, cynically other sports seasons such as basketball and an important fast start out of the gate for the Wildcats (perhaps even a 5-0 start?).
Today’s comment (one everybody can agree with):
Tailgating — Armando Duarte
Season tailgate passes are sold as over 30-feet passes and under 30-feet passes depending on the size of the vehicle. Limited quantities of season tailgate passes exist. Season tailgate passes will be distributed to fans who are season ticket holders with a minimum of two seats and are also Wildcat Club members of $100 donation or higher.
If you are not a season tailgate pass holder and would like to obtain a game-specific tailgate pass, you can call the university to be added to a waiting list. Game-specific tailgate passes will only be distributed if space is available. If additional space exists, game-specific tailgate passes will be allocated based upon a priority point system waiting list and will become available two Mondays preceding the home game.
Arizona Tailgate Prices
- Season Pass:
- $400 for under 30 feet.
- $500 for over 30 feet.
- Individual Game Pass:
- $80 for under 30 feet.
- $90 for over 30 feet.
To read about Arizona’s tailgating policies with numbers to call click on this link.
The festivities around campus really begin a day before the game with Bear Down Fridays. Bear Down Friday is celebrated on University Boulevard. The school’s cheer and band teams perform. The celebration ends with a pep rally on the corner of Tyndall and University.
Athletic director Dave Heeke and coach Kevin Sumlin may attend these pep rallies.
A growing tradition before Arizona football games is the Wildcat Walk. Football players walk through some of the tailgating crowd to the stadium after getting off the team buses about two hours before kickoff.
And then the games begin … will the fun continue inside Arizona Stadium?
Quotable
“Oh my gosh, I love that guy, he’s done great. My respect for him is off the charts, because he saw a need and kind of saw the big picture of our football team and our offense and where we could use some help and he came in and said ‘Coach, I want to help.’ … He definitely was very selfless and put the team in front of himself.”
— Arizona offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone on QB-turned-receiver Jamarye Joiner of Cienega High School
Joiner is also getting a look as a kickoff and punt returner.
At Cienega, he caught one pass for 20 yards as a junior on a trick play. He also had an interception return of 44 yards when he was a senior with the Bobcats. Very small sample size but big-play numbers.
By the numbers
18
Number of players from Texas listed on Arizona’s fall camp roster. On Rich Rodriguez’s last Arizona roster in 2017, there were only four players listed from the talent-rich state. Mike Stoops had only 10 from Texas on his last roster of 2011.
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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon.
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