Dear Mr. Football: How often does Arizona get to play in a brand new football stadium?
A: Twice every 99 years. The last time the Wildcats played in a brand new stadium — not one fully remodeled like Stanford in 2006 — was 1958 at ASU’s Sun Devil Stadium. Score: ASU 47, Arizona 0. Before that, Arizona played in the new Los Angeles Coliseum in 1923. How’d it go? USC won 69-9.
Not exactly a good omen for Arizona at the grand opening of Snapdragon Stadium.
Most college football stadiums are ancient, witness Arizona Stadium, born in 1929. The “new” Pac-12 stadiums are Washington State’s Martin Stadium, opened in 1972; Oregon’s Autzen Stadium, built in 1967; and Sun Devil Stadium, 1958.
San Diego State’s debut at Snapdragon Stadium is just the third new stadium in the FBS in the last decade. Colorado State, in 2017, and UAB, in 2021, are the others.
Don’t expect 93-year-old Arizona Stadium to be demolished and replaced anytime soon; the pandemic paused the much-overdue plan to rebuild the west side of Arizona Stadium.
“We’ll adjust that plan, get it back on track and see how to attack it,” Arizona athletic director Dave Heeke told me Thursday. “We need to look at it in a different way now, doing the remodeling in more phases for the shorter term.”
Dear Mr. Football: Who is Kolbe Cage, and why is he listed as a starting linebacker on Arizona’s depth chart?
A: The young Mr. Cage, a redshirt freshman, is a survivor of the crash and fall of the Kevin Sumlin years. Cage comes from the transfer portal generation.
He initially signed with Arizona in the Class of 2021 as the nation’s No. 1,269 overall prospect as ranked by Rivals.com. Cage was one of four Louisiana players who committed to former Arizona assistant coach Theron Aych, now an assistant at UTEP.
A reflection of Sumlin’s recruiting at Arizona, Cage’s other offers were South Alabama, Houston Baptist and Louisiana-Lafayette. But Cage has developed into what the UA believes will be a productive outside linebacker, taking advantage of a lack of depth on the Wildcats’ roster.
The other three Louisianans who committed to Arizona in 2020s are an example of the transient nature of college sports. Wide receiver Tyrese Johnson of New Orleans is now playing at Grambling after earlier signing with Memphis. Defensive end Ja’Marian Peterson of New Orleans now plays at Louisiana-Lafayette. And running back Montrell Johnson played last year with Louisiana-Lafayette and has since transferred to Florida.
Dear Mr. Football: How unpredictable is college football recruiting?
A: Two weeks before Arizona beat ASU in the epic 2014 Territorial Cup game, clinching the Pac-12 South division championship, 15-year-old San Diego prep quarterback Braxton Burmeister committed to Arizona. On a social media post, the four-star prospect wrote “Bear Down.”
Now Burmeister is San Diego State’s starting quarterback, a sixth-year double-transfer from Oregon and Virginia Tech who is 23 years old. He might’ve been the Ducks’ QB of the future, but his timing was all wrong. When he got to Oregon, he found future NFL first-round draft pick Justin Herbert of the Los Angeles Chargers on the roster. The only time Burmeister played as a Duck was when Herbert was injured for six weeks in 2017.
Burmeister actually played against then-UCLA quarterbacks coach Jedd Fisch in 2017, starting and completing eight passes and scoring on two short runs against the Bruins in 31-14 loss.
Dear Mr. Football: Is anyone confused by the 61 new players on Arizona’s 2022 football roster?
A: Put it this way: There are 23 players on the UA roster whose first names begin with J. The list: there are two Jacobs, two Jordans, two Jalens, two Joshes and one Jaden, Jaydin, Jayden, Jaxen, JT, Jerry, Jonah, Jeremy, Jamarye, Jashon, Jax, Joseph, John, Jermaine and Jeffrey.
But that’s not the end of the confusion. There are four Wildcats named Isaiah, another named Isiah and yet another named Issaiah.
Good luck to Brian Jeffries, Voice of the Wildcats.
Dear Mr. Football: Is this the most anticipated Arizona-San Diego State game ever played in San Diego?
A: Not even close. On Nov. 8, 1975, No. 15 Arizona met No. 13 San Diego State in a game so anticipated that Aztecs coach Don Coryell told the school’s booster group “It’s not a matter of life and death, it’s more important than that.”
The 8-0 Aztecs had never been ranked as high as No. 13 — and would never be again over the next 47 years.
Arizona won 31-24 before a then-record crowd of 53,611 at what was then called San Diego Stadium. The Wildcats finished 9-2 and rose to No. 11 in the AP poll before losing to ASU 24-21 in what went down in history as “The Catch” game in Tempe.
San Diego State didn’t recover from its ’75 loss to Arizona. The Aztecs were then upset by Long Beach State and San Jose State to finish the season 8-3.
Arizona held off San Diego State in a 1975 showdown at the old San Diego Stadium.
Dear Mr. Football: If San Diego State filled in for Arizona this season in the Pac-12, how would the Aztecs do?
A: They’d probably be picked to finish 11th of 12, just like the Wildcats. That’s the difference between the Mountain West and Pac-12 conferences.
But the biggest difference is, of course, money. MWC teams are paid an estimated $4 million per year in media rights revenue from CBS Sports Network and Fox Sports 1. Boise State gets a higher cut, about $2 million more per year, because it has a better national profile.
San Diego State has appeared in 51 games on the CBS Sports Network dating to 2012. They’ve played four times on ESPN, twice on CBS and once on ABC. Can you imagine how much Aztecs athletic director J.D. Wicker yearns to be added to the Pac-12 once UCLA and USC leave?
At minimum, the Aztecs could expect $25 to $30 million in annual media rights money. Beating Arizona would be ammunition to keep SDSU in mind when/if the Pac-12 adds a school or two.
Under coach Brady Hoke, San Diego State has earned a reputation for stout defense.
Dear Mr. Football: Is Brady Hoke a lot like Utah’s Kyle Whittingham — minus the muscle T-shirts, of course?
A: The Aztecs are the MWC’s Utes. They play defense and run the ball. In the last three years, SDSU has finished Nos. 17, 11 and 2 in scoring defense among 130 FBS schools. When Hoke was the head coach at Michigan in 2011, the Wolverines were No. 6 of 120 FBS teams in scoring defense.
If Arizona could score 27 points, or maybe even 24, it would likely open the season with a victory. It’s on QB Jayden de Laura to limit turnovers and get those 27 points.
Last season as a Washington State freshman, de Laura captained an offense that scored 44 to beat Washington, 34 to beat ASU, 34 to beat Stanford and 31 to beat Oregon State, all teams as good or better than the 2022 Aztecs.
He won’t be awed by the first-ever crowd at Snapdragon Stadium.
Arizona 31, San Diego State 27
