Yes to Prop. 200, no to predictability. ASU, Arizona rivalry has it all

Roller coaster runs, exceeded expectations and heart-stopping wins are the perfect way to describe the 2025 seasons for the Territorial Cup opponents. When No. 20 Arizona State and No. 25 Arizona meet in the 99th version of this game, look for it to be one of the most competitive in years.

Both teams enter the final week of the regular season ranked for the first time since 2014. The Sun Devils hope to keep their College Football Playoff hopes alive, needing a win to stay in the mix for a spot in the Big 12 championship game.

The Wildcats do not have a road to the conference title game due to three Big 12 losses, but the possibility of beating their state rival and securing a better postseason bowl is motivation enough.

“Rivalry games have so much to them,” Arizona coach Brent Brennan said. “That makes them so exciting, but when you have two teams coming together that are both playing good football, it adds a little extra juice to it.”

ASU coach Kenny Dillingham knows what’s at stake, not just to each team, but to the state as a whole.

“Your neighbor could have gone to either school,” Dillingham said. “I think that’s what makes this rivalry fun. People are friends on both sides of this rivalry. … You always want to beat your brother the best. You will hear about it for a year if he beats you.”

The last time both sides entered the game above .500 was 2017, when the Sun Devils won 42-30.

The last-ranked matchup between the two came in 2014, when No. 11 Arizona survived two fourth-quarter touchdowns from ASU to win 42-35.

Sun Devils quarterback Jeff Sims is playing in his final college home game on Friday, Nov. 28, and will lead ASU into one of the biggest rivalry games in recent history.

“It's going to mean a lot to this team,” Sims said. “It's a rivalry week, a big rivalry, but we’re just ready to go out there and perform.”

Follow our live coverage: ASU football vs Arizona 2025 Territorial Cup updates

To fully appreciate just how deep this rivalry goes, start on Thanksgiving Day of 1899, when the Arizona Territorial Normal School football team, now known as ASU, won the original trophy, beating Arizona 11-2.

This makes it the oldest trophy in college football, older than “The Little Brown Jug” awarded to the Michigan-Minnesota winner, and “The Old Oaken Bucket,” awarded to the winner of Purdue-Indiana.

The Wildcats hold the series lead, 54-45-1, although the Sun Devils have won seven of the last 10 matchups, including a five-game winning streak stretching from 2017 to 2021. That 2021 win, though, was vacated due to NCAA violations.

A rich rivalry is bound to feature some of the best lore in college sports, and this one has the “No on Prop 200” storyline.

In 1958, Proposition 200 was introduced. A yes vote supported changing the official name of Arizona State College at Tempe to Arizona State University. The University of Arizona opposed the move as it hoped to remain the only university in the state.

The Sun Devils won convincingly, and ahead of the first game for the newly named Arizona State, Wildcats students broke into then-Sun Devil Stadium and burned “No on 200” into the grass field.

Later that season, when ASU traveled to Tucson, the Sun Devils steamrolled the Wildcats 47-0, securing revenge for the early-season antics.

One of the most iconic moments for the Wildcats in this rivalry came in 1986 when Chuck Cecil, a defensive back at the time and now a senior defensive assistant for Arizona, took an interception 106 yards for a touchdown.

Arizona State came into the game 9-0-1 with a spot in the Rose Bowl clinched. Its hopes of fighting for a national championship were crushed after losing 34-17 in Tucson in its final regular-season game.

Cecil’s interception helped seal the Wildcats’ fifth series win in a row and still stands as the longest interception return in program history.

Over the years, the rivalry has done nothing but grow in intensity, often reflected by the passion of the student body as the end of the fall semester approaches and signs of the Territorial Cup begin to reveal themselves.

“We’re all pretty hyped over here,” said Wyatt Fay, a senior studying physiology at Arizona. “Morale is really high going into the rivalry game. We played a great game last weekend. … It’s all friendly competition, at least that’s the way it seems to me.”

Miranda Weber, a junior at ASU focused on business law, has seen the buzz make its way across the Tempe campus.

“It's exciting with all the events going on,” she said. “All the promotions for the football game this week are awesome.

“Everybody is really excited.”

So, too, are the players, who are well aware of what’s at stake.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona State, Arizona Territorial Cup rivalry has it all