When the UA football team lines up against Arizona State Friday, I'll be on the edge of my seat, dressed in red and screaming like an idiot.
Only I'll be sitting on my parents' couch in San Diego because - like every out-of-state student on this campus - I think Thanksgiving takes priority over a football game that the powers-that-be have decided to play right in the middle of a school holiday.
And if you think I'm going to put down a turkey drumstick, pass on another slice of pie and drive six hours to see two teams battle for some 100-year old trophy, you've got another thing coming.
The timing of this game (what do we call it, anyway? The Civil War? The Un-Civil War? The Coyote Classic? The Saguaro Skirmish? The I-10 Iditarod?) stinks, and all the television money in the world can't convince me otherwise.
I figured I'd call the people that control this game, but I decided against it. They would just tell me the same old line: "Television pays us lots of money to hold out until that week, and it's a great recruiting tool because some kid eating a hot turkey sandwich in east Texas just might see us on Fox Sports and fall in love with the University of Arizona."
Maybe that's true for the players of the future. But what about the current Wildcats and Sun Devils?
For the 150 or so players and coaches on both sides, Thanksgiving week will consist of practicing, running sprints and watching film. Thanksgiving dinner will probably be a pumpkin PowerBar and a water bottle full of cider.
Whose fault is it that this game is being played at such a horrible time?
Nobody's, of course. ASU and UA are both probably doing the right thing from a public-relations standpoint. It's the same reason the Packers and Lions will kick off at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday. People, especially the male demographic that watches games, have nothing better to do while slicing carrots and defrosting the bird than watch football. And, come Friday, most people sitting on their butts at 1 p.m. would rather watch a football game than help Aunt Mary freeze all the leftovers.
The people who are getting screwed in all this are the fans. The schools have essentially forced out-of-state students, fans and alumni to choose between family and football. And to most students, free food and the chance that Uncle Ron might slip you a $20 bill between bites of stuffing is incentive enough to go home, no matter how good the game might be.
There's one easy solution - play the game a week earlier instead of taking a bye week.
By playing the game last weekend during the NCAA's "Rivalry Week" - the one that features USC vs. UCLA and Alabama vs. Auburn, among others - the schools could have filled Sun Devil Stadium to the brim, even though both teams are as unappetizing as Grandma's yams. You know, the gross ones with the marshmallows on top.
Nasty.
The Wildcats-Sun Devils rivalry could have been yet another great game on the best college football day of the year, instead of a holiday-season afterthought. Playing on Friday is like opening presents on Dec. 28.
If we think UA and ASU is one of the nation's best football rivalries - though it sure as hell isn't in basketball - we should play at a time when fans from both school can go.
Either that, or have them play a traditional Thanksgiving game - two-hand touch, next-one-to-score-wins.
