‘Awesome’ experience
Mark Mellum is only 29, but he’s still been coming to Arizona football games for, he estimates, the last 25 years.
Friday was a first for him, though.
Mellum won a fan contest to join in Arizona’s Wildcat Walk — in which coaches, players, Wilbur and the Pride of Arizona band walk through a crowd of fans by the stadium and pat the John “Button” Salmon statue on the head before heading into Arizona Stadium.
On Friday, Mellum waited at the beginning and shook hands with every player as they walked by, then jumped in at the end, behind defensive lineman Sani Fuimaono.
“It was awesome,” Mellum said. “It’s like you’re a part of the team, you’re right in the middle and getting high-fives from everybody, hearing the cheers, walking with the band. It’s awesome that I got to do that.”
Especially “awesome,” he said, because this one came during the Territorial Cup, against Arizona State.
Mellum remembers his first Territorial Cup, in the early 1990s, when his father took him up to Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe for the game.
“All of them are really special,” said Mellum, a UA and Salpointe Catholic grad. “The one that sticks out the most is when I went up to Tempe to go watch the cup and sat with my dad in the stands. I was a little kid, and he taught me how to say ‘Scum Devils.’ ”
Big number
59 Pass attempts between touchdowns for Anu Solomon. Coming into Friday, he hadn’t passed for a touchdown since the Colorado game Nov. 8.
Tweet of the day
@KCarey25: “Bye bye asu muhahahahahhaahhha.” — Ka’Deem Carey, Arizona’s all-time leading rusher, after Nick Wilson ran for a 72-yard touchdown in the third quarter, giving Arizona a 35-21 lead. Carey is now a rookie for the Chicago Bears.
Pow-wow of power
Before the game, Arizona Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill and general manager Steve Keim were down on the field, chatting it up with UA athletic director Greg Byrne, and UA coach Rich Rodriguez.
The Wildcats have a good relationship with the Cardinals organization — last December, Sean Miller tweeted a photo of Cardinals garb sent to him by Keim and coach Bruce Arians.
Also at the game? New Arizona Diamondbacks manager, and UA alum, Chip Hale.
Pregame festivities
About 90 minutes before game time, a batch of 40 to 50 ASU fans, fully clad in yellow, paraded through the tailgate on the UA mall, chanting “A-S-U!” a bunch.
As you can imagine, that wasn’t received very well.
Their trek saw nicer Wildcats fans giving them a thumbs-up, some others flipping a different, less nice finger.
As they walked by, an Arizona fan wielding a cowboy whip started, well, whipping it in their general direction.
As of this writing, those ASU fans are believed to have made it out alive.
Bonus note: We also witnessed a UA fan, dressed as a Storm Trooper, doing the “Bernie” dance. Funny stuff.
A Richard-Richards dilemma
There is a D. Richard on ASU’s roster, and a D. Richards on Arizona’s roster.
One is Demario Richard, a Sun Devils running back. The other is David Richards, a Wildcats receiver.
There’s more: Both Richards, a redshirt junior, and Richard, a freshman, went to Palmdale (California) High School.
Local legend
Bob Moran covered every Territorial Cup from 1975 until 2003, 12 of those years with the Arizona Daily Star, and 17 with the East Valley Tribune.
He lost a battle with stomach cancer in 2008, at the age of 55. The MVP award for the Territorial Cup is named after him.
Zack Rosenblatt
