Greg Hansen: Regardless of their records, UA-ASU rivalry is the Pac-12's best

Two teams that have lost 15 games between them, couldn’t hold a high school team scoreless, and ran up 27 points between them last week while their opponents were scoring 62, meet Friday in the season’s final game.

What do we call it?

The Game of the Year.

The winner will receive the Territorial Cup, which is considered so sacred that 21 years ago Arizona and ASU signed a contract that specifies no one can handle the Cup unless they wear “white cotton gloves.”

Don’t you just love it? It’s the best rivalry in Pac-12 football. Better than the Apple Cup. Superior to whatever USC and UCLA call their rivalry. Better than what the Oregon schools used to call the Civil War.

If you thought the Territorial Cup was forever ruined when the Sun Devils toyed with Arizona 70-7 two years ago — prompting the most famous billboard in Interstate 10 history, the ingenious “No Pity For the Kitty” laugh-riot near Casa Grande — you are wrong.

That 70-7 game was the best thing that has happened to Arizona football since Chuck Cecil’s 106-yard interception return to beat the Sun Devils in the 1986 Territorial Cup, putting a painful and indelible smudge on ASU’s Rose Bowl resume.

It led to the firing of asleep-at-the-wheel UA coach Kevin Sumlin, which was worth, what, 10 victories itself to Wildcat fans hoping for a sign of hope?

One of the many reasons the Territorial Cup is the Pac-12’s most imperishable rivalry is that the Sumlin-loses-his-job-after-losing-by-63 was merely a repeat of the series’ fascinating history.

After the 1946 UA-ASU game, won 67-0 by the Wildcats, the Sun Devils (then known as Bulldogs) fired first-year coach Steve Coutchie, even though they had promised Coutchie a minimum of three years after wooing him away from Mesa High School, where he had been Phoenix’s most revered high school coach.

There was no freeway between Tucson and Tempe in 1946 — and no billboard — but the UA’s booster group, the Towncats, sent a telegram to ASU’s booster group, the Sun Angels, with three short words: “Enjoy your meal.” It was the 1940s equivalent of “up yours.”

The Territorial Cup doesn’t get any consistent national attention because Arizona and ASU have never met with the Rose Bowl at stake (for both teams). They have never met with both teams ranked in the AP top 10 — the closest was 1975, when ASU was No.8 and Arizona No. 12 — which throws it out of the Ohio State-Michigan and Alabama-Auburn class.

And, no, it can’t match the Army-Navy game.

But it’s the Pac-12’s most heated and historical rivalry and it’s not even close. Why? It’s the only Pac-12 rivalry that has been consistently competitive.

Arizona hangs to a 49-45-1 career lead over ASU.

USC has overwhelmed UCLA 51-33-7.

Washington owns WSU, 74-33-6.

Oregon toys with Oregon State, 67-48-10.

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Not only that, the average score of the Territorial Cup series, dating to 1899, is ASU 22.1, Arizona 21.6.

A week ago, Cal and Stanford drew just 51,892 for the “Big Game” at Cal. Capacity is 62,467. So much for a “can’t-miss” rivalry. Cal and Stanford are almost football twins, smart guys from cosmopolitan universities. It’s a one-week-a-year thing.

The UA-ASU rivalry goes 24/7, all week, all month, all year.

Oregon and Oregon State are separated by 40 miles of farmland, the Willamette Valley. The nouveau riche Ducks don’t like that image. They don’t like to be compared to the Beavers. That’s why Oregon’s football rivalry with Washington is often viewed as more important than the old Civil War showdown.

USC’s rivalry with Notre Dame has more appeal than its yearly game against UCLA, which doesn’t even have a catchy nickname.

The Apple Cup is the league’s most lopsided rivalry, and in many years Washington’s game against WSU is viewed as secondary to its game against Oregon. WSU and Washington often don’t seem as if they’re in the same state; WSU is only seven miles from Idaho and 251 from Seattle.

The intensity in Arizona goes beyond football. ASU views Tucson as a border town. They call it the “Dirty T.”

Arizona views Phoenix as too hot, too crowded and too big for its britches. The two disagree on everything. Tucsonans would rather be known as part of the state of Baja Arizona, in a league of their own instead of getting the hand-me-downs from Phoenix in everything from business opportunities to flight schedules.

Both sides view the other as “the school down south” or “the school up north,” as if saying “ASU” or “UA” would give the other relevance.

The most defining memory of the Territorial Cup series didn’t come from Frank Kush, “Jackrabbit” Joe Hernandez, Pat Tillman, Tedy Bruschi or from the 1968 “Ultimatum Bowl.”.

It came from 1982 Arizona All-Pac-10 offensive lineman Jeff Kiewel, who grew up in Tucson, played at Sabino High School and in his final game as a Wildcat, helped to knock the No. 6 Sun Devils out of the Rose Bowl, 28-18.

Two days before the 1982 Territorial Cup, I asked Kiewel what he thought of the UA-ASU rivalry.

“If you win, it’s a game you always remember,” he said. “If you lose, it’s a game you never forget.”

Someone should put on a pair of white cotton gloves and etch Kiewel's words to the surface of the holy Territorial Cup.

Photos: Every U of A vs. ASU football game since 1975