Minutes from destiny, few in Arizona Stadium know just how close Arizona is to it. The Wildcats are closing in on a Territorial Cup win over Arizona State, and that alone is enough to make the stadium sway. It’s been a few years, and Rich Rodriguez has never beaten those hated Sun Devils, so you get it.
But the clock ticks down in two games — one in Tucson, one in Pasadena — and on the line, in college football terms, is everything. In one game, Arizona controls its fate. In the other, Stanford must prevail over UCLA. A Cardinal win over the Bruins means that the winner of the Tucson contest will advance to the Pac-12 title game against North champion Oregon.
Finally, the clock hits zeros at Arizona Stadium, and the scoreboard flashes “Pac-12 South champs.” Stanford, 7-5 on the year, has defeated the Bruins, 31-10. It’s done. The place erupts.
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All week long, Rich Rodriguez wants his team to stay in the dark. He orders the UA game-day crew to keep the score off the video screen. Though in 2014, it’s not like everyone in the darn stadium doesn’t have his or her own personal scoreboard.
Rodriguez has spent the season pressing all the right buttons, but on Friday, only one matters.
The mute button.
“It was real important — if we had known, if they had showed the score — we wouldn’t have been as focused,” offensive lineman Mickey Baucus said. “It was a great move, a smart move. I guess it worked out for us.”
Of course, there were leaks. What is 2014 without leaks?
Stanford seized control midway through the second quarter, added a TD in the third quarter to go up three scores, then tacked on a fourth-quarter field goal.
Arizona and Arizona State, meanwhile, were still in the middle of a scrum. The players had to stay in the present.
Baucus said he found out about the score with roughly five minutes left to go in the game, though he didn’t share the source beyond saying, “A little bird told me.”
As Rodriguez feared, Baucus worried.
“My life got a whole lot more stressful during those last five minutes,” he said.
Baucus kept it quiet.
He certainly did not tell Rodriguez, who probably wished there was some kind of signal interruption coming out of Pasadena. Most of the players said they did not know, either.
“I didn’t know; I didn’t want to know,” linebacker Cody Ippolito said. “We had to take care of our job first.”
But Baucus was the bearer of good news for some.
Rodriguez may have found out the score from his son, Rhett, or his wife, he doesn’t remember. But otherwise, Baucus became the town crier on Friday.
“Coach just wanted us to play this game,” center Steven Gurrola said. “Go out, and go out right. The first person I saw was Mickey. He said, ‘We’re going! We’re going!’ I’m like, ‘All right, all right.’”
Not everyone was quite so patient. Fans kept tabs on sports news apps like they held the very key to life. Every time a whistle blew a play dead, they would hit reload.
B.J. McDaniel, a 15-year-old Marana High student, became the Dan Patrick for his little section in the stands. He took turns glancing at the field, then his phone, then the field, then his phone, only breaking the routine to leap to his feet as Nick Wilson busted a fourth-quarter run.
“Go Nick, go Nick!” he yelled, getting into the game.
Later, as the UCLA-Stanford game ended, a girl in the stands showed her friend a phone and said, “It’s final!”
Not everyone was so lucky.
You could’ve made a killing selling cellphone batteries outside Arizona Stadium on Friday. If the Wildcats want to make a few bucks, just open up a charging station next to the hot dog vendor.
Dead batteries were epidemic, leaving fans to scramble. New friendships were made.
And some fans, like the players and coaches, didn’t want to know.
Luckily, Jack Fijan’s phone died, or the UA graduate would’ve been tempted to look. Fate stepped in.
“I didn’t want to know the score at all,” Fijan said as the clock ticked down. “I thought it would be bad karma. I thought I would jinx it. I thought I would ruin everything.”
