Will Tucson Ever Be a Football Town?

Arizona Football is only 75 days away until kickoff.  With Anu Solomon, Nick Wilson, a deep receiving core and Scooby Wright coming back, Tucson is in for another entertaining season.

Arizona Wildcats

Over the years I have talked to countless Tucsonans about Arizona Football. I’m always surprised when some of them tell me they love the men’s basketball program, but they don’t follow the Cats of the gridiron.

Tucson has awesome football fans. It just doesn’t have enough of them.

If you are a sports fan in America, chances are you LOVE football. That’s what makes some people in Tucson not supporting the football program so confusing to me. Especially when Arizona Athletics is the only game in town.  

Basketball is king in Tucson because it has had nearly 30 years of consecutive success. Football is a different story.

Arizona Football has toyed with Tucson for decades, giving fans numerous unfair reasons not to go to the stadium on Fall Saturday nights.

A lot of folks who actually go out to the games seem to find excuses to leave games early. It doesn’t matter if the game is tight, or going into overtime, some fans think that investing an entire night at Arizona Stadium is not worth their time.  

Zona Zoo has been a major guilty party of this.  The mass exodus of students during halftime has convinced Arizona brass to offer prizes to a handful of students who can make it to the end of games.

Every time I see the amazing ‘Hill Mary’ replay, I shake my head while cheering.  You can see empty spaces in the Zona Zoo right near where Austin Hill made one of the best plays in program history. Check out at about the 0:11 and 0:23 marks of the above video.

Pretty sad.

Props goes to the folks who were still there.

Bigger props goes to Austin Hill for making the catch.

Students are not the only ones not staying till the end of games. I’ve noticed it all over the stadium for many years. It hasn’t mattered if the last name of the head coach was Tomey, Mackovic, Stoops or Rodriguez. One thing that has been pretty consistent is lots of Arizona Football fans don’t like to stay until the clock strikes 0:00.

This probably happens all over the country at non-football tradition schools, but it’s discouraging to the players and staff.

Excuses for not going to watch the Wildcats at home and leaving early are running out.

In the past few years Arizona Stadium has transformed to what some called a glorified high school stadium, to a slick new car smell coliseum with retro charm. Have you seen the Jumbotron and the new north end zone addition to the stadium? It gives an entirely new feel to the Wildcats home.

Nov. 15, 2014: Lots of room to spread out on a perfect Fall day in Tucson at Arizona Stadium. Thousands of fans who stayed home, missed witnessing the Cats epic 27-26 victory over Washington at Arizona Stadium.

Another reason Arizona fans are running out of excuses is because Arizona Athletic Director, Greg Byrne, went out and got a big name football coach named Rich Rodriguez that runs a fun, explosive offense.

The Cats may have fallen flat the last two games of the season in 2014, but they won probably the biggest game in school history so far, when they beat their rival to win the Pac-12 South Title.

Over the years, the Cats had beaten hire ranked teams in big games, but since the Cats joined the Pac-10/12 they had never won a game that gave them a championship, like the one they got against the Sun Devils.

Nov 28, 2014; Tucson, AZ, USA; Arizona Wildcats running back Nick Wilson (28) celebrates following the game against the Arizona State Sun Devils during the 88th annual territorial cup at Arizona Stadium. The Wildcats defeated the Sun Devils 42-35 to win the Pac-12 south title. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

A few years ago I was watching a game on television.  UCLA was visiting Oregon.  It was the fourth quarter and The Ducks were destroying the Bruins in a rainy Autzen Stadium.  The crazy thing was, the stadium was still completely jam packed. No one had left. They wanted to be there.

I would  love to see that someday at Arizona Stadium every game.  In order for that to happen the Cats will probably have to have a few more seasons like they did last year, to make a majority of Tucson believe in its football program.

I hope it’s not too late by then.

If I were Rich Rod and looked up and saw thousands of empty seats for most games, I would be concerned and puzzled. Especially if I was winning games and taking my teams to bowl games every year.  

I was skeptical when the Cats hired Rich Rod, but after seeing what he has accomplished so far in three short years, I hope he never leaves. 

If Arizona Football ever wants to be mentioned in the same breath as USC, Alabama or Ohio State, Tucson needs to start packing Arizona Stadium.

The last few years, sell outs have been rare and it looks really bad on TV.    

It also wouldn’t hurt if people stayed until the end of the game to show the players and staff their support.

I’m sure when football fans in Gainesville and Austin are flipping through the channels late at night and they come across an Arizona home game, they probably laugh and are wondering why a team that is winning doesn’t have the stadium packed to the gills. Especially when it only holds around 56,000 people. 

Casey Sapio-USA TODAY Sports

If football schools Ohio State, Michigan, Texas, Alabama, Texas A & M, and LSU only had 56,000 people show up to their games at home, their stadiums would be about half full. These schools have monstrous stadiums that seat over 100,000 people. Fans of these schools show up in droves to be part of the game day atmosphere.

Tucson does not have the football tradition those schools have. What Tucson does have is about a million people living in its metropolitan area. Not to mention the thousands of Arizona alumni that live 100 miles to the North. One would think the Cats could sell out a game even when the opponent wasn’t USC or Arizona State.

One reason fans might not decide to attend college football games is the price. Going to games can be a very expensive hobby.  Even if you go for the cheapest ticket available, after wacky charges and fees, it can still be a major setback for you wallet. Just ask fans of these three Pac-12 football powers.

Casey Sapio-USA TODAY Sports

If you want the cheapest season ticket for the Oregon Ducks, it’s going to cost you about $65 a game.

At USC it will set you back around $45 a game, for the most affordable seat.  

Up at the Farm, Stanford’s most frugal season ticket holders can get in the gates for around $42 a game. 

The same ticket price at Arizona Stadium is about $19 a game. After a $10 charge and $2 in fees it’s around $111 to watch major college football inside Arizona Stadium for an entire 6-game season. If you want to get more than one season ticket you are only administered the $10 charge once, but you do have to pay the $2 in fees for every season ticket you buy.

$111 is still a lot of money but when you compare it to the ticket prices of these other Pac-12 football rich programs, it’s an extreme bargain.

If you are a casual Arizona Football fan I can see two things that might happen, that could affect you if you don’t go the stadium on Saturdays, and have the means and time to do so.

The first is if you wait too long there might not be room for you in Arizona Stadium when you get around to caring about Arizona Football. People are going to start to notice the potential of this program before you have a chance to snag up your tickets.

Casey Sapio-USA TODAY Sports

The second is Rich Rod might get tired of waiting for you to care, and decide he wants to go somewhere else where more people care about college football. I really hope I’m wrong about this. Please stick around Coach Rodriguez.

On paper it seems the Wildcats may be a year or two away from doing something really special. But last year’s team taught us that what’s on paper doesn’t matter.

If you live in Columbus, Ann Arbor, Norman or Baton Rouge every home game is an event.  It doesn’t matter to these folks if they are playing Alabama or Alabama State, the stadium is going to be packed.

Tucson is and will always be a basketball town, but it can also be a football town, if it is willing. 

Bear Down!