Opinion: It’s a bad idea to have Arizona Football open against ASU

With 2020 getting wilder, perhaps nothing could be more wild than seeing the Pac-12 move up the Arizona Football – ASU game to the first game of the season.

In case you needed any more reasons to hate 2020, how about throwing another wrench into it all to make us Arizona Football fans even more upset.

As I’m sure you saw, it was just announced days ago that the Pac-12 would be moving around a few games to accommodate a 10-game season. However, having the Arizona-ASU Football game happen in week one is absolutely ridiculous!

Arizona Wildcats

In case you read that wrong, you did not, the Territorial Cup is moving up to the first week of the season, which again is absolutely foolish in my opinion.

Larry Scott and the Pac-12 presumably moved this game to be the first game of the season in case it needs to be moved or rescheduled due to Covid postponements.

Now granted, it’s an unprecedented year, and college football may not happen on time to where this point becomes moot anyways, but if there was any sense of normalcy in 2020, perhaps it would be having the Territorial Cup happen in November, and for the last game of the season.

It’s a rivalry that is severely underrated, and the outcome in some cases makes or breaks the season depending on your perception of what makes a successful season. For Arizona, a team that has gone 9-15 the last two years, and doesn’t have much promise of putting together a winning season this year, this game means everything… especially to us fans.

Now it seems as if the Pac-12 is lessening the importance and meaning of this game. If anything, save and cherish the tradition of it by pushing it out to later in the year.

To me, the first game of the season is always the measuring stick of how your are as a team, and it usually spent getting the kinks out in a tune-up game.

This year, there is no tune-up game, just conference games. So for a rivalry game, which is usually where players give everything they got, it seems inappropriate to have players who may be rusty coming in as they battle getting conditioned during a rather unprecedented off-season in which they may not receive quite the same preparation. Seems like we could see higher injuries in that first game.

Anyways, this is just how I see it. What’s your thoughts? Let us know on Twitter and Facebook! As always, Bear Down, Arizona!