Brian Jeffries has had quite the week.
Excuse Jeffries — the longtime play-by-play voice of Arizona Wildcats football, basketball and baseball — if he’s a little jet-lagged.
Last week, on Saturday, Jeffries flew to Salt Lake City for Arizona’s game against Utah, which the Wildcats won 42-10. He flew back to Tucson, got back at 8 p.m.
The next morning, at 7:15, he had a flight from Tucson to Maui, with a layover in Los Angeles, and he arrived in Hawaii at 12:30.
After he relaxed by the beach, “goofed around,” he said, with a beer and a burger, he went to bed, woke up Monday, called Arizona’s Maui Invitational game against Missouri.
Arizona won, so he called the game on Tuesday against Kansas State.
The Wildcats won again, so on Wednesday, he called the championship game against San Diego State.
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When that was over, and the Wildcats were champions, on Thanksgiving he flew back to Tucson from Maui on a 9 a.m. flight, got home by 7 p.m., where his family waited for him with a fully cooked Thanksgiving meal, then woke up Friday morning at 6:30 a.m. for the Wildcats' afternoon game against the Sun Devils.
Got all that?
“I’ll admit," he said, smiling, “I’m tired.”
All in all, the Wildcats were 5-0 in those games, including the 42-35 win in the Territorial Cup against Arizona State, which clinched the Pac-12 South Championship for the UA.
“It’s fun because all the games have been exciting, and any time the team wins, you feel good,” Jeffries said. “Everybody around you is happy, so that kind of buoys your emotions. Sometimes it comes and goes so fast you don’t get to enjoy it. I didn’t have the chance to absorb a whole lot. Sometimes you like to sit back and say, ‘oh that’s good.’ ”
Up next for Jeffries?
Certainly, Santa Clara, Calif., for Friday’s Pac-12 Championship Game, and a re-match against Oregon.
"Awesome" experience
Mark Mellum is only 29, but he’s been coming to Arizona football games for, he estimates, the last 25 years.
Friday was a first for him, though.
Mellum won a fan contest to join in Arizona’s Wildcat Walk — in which coaches, players, Wilbur and the Pride of Arizona band walk through a crowd of fans by the stadium and pat the John “Button” Salmon statue on the head before heading into Arizona Stadium.
On Friday, Mellum waited at the beginning and shook hands with every player as they walked by, then jumped in at the end, behind defensive lineman Sani Fuimaono.
“It was awesome,” Mellum said. “It’s like you’re a part of the team, you’re right in the middle and getting high-fives from everybody, hearing the cheers, walking with the band. It’s awesome that I got to do that.”
Especially “awesome,” he said, because this one came during the Territorial Cup, against Arizona State.
Mellum remembers his first Territorial Cup, in the early 1990s, when his father took him up to Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe for the game.
“All of them are really special,” said Mellum, a UA and Salpointe Catholic grad. “The one that sticks out the most is when I went up to Tempe to go watch the cup and sat with my dad in the stands. I was a little kid, and he taught me how to say ‘Scum Devils.’ ”
Big number
59 — Pass attempts between touchdowns for Anu Solomon. Coming into Friday, he hadn’t passed for a touchdown since the Colorado game Nov. 8.
Tweet of the day
@KCarey25: “Bye bye asu muhahahahahhaahhha.” — Ka’Deem Carey, Arizona’s all-time leading rusher, after Nick Wilson ran for a 72-yard touchdown in the third quarter, giving Arizona a 35-21 lead. Carey is now a rookie for the Chicago Bears.
Pow-wow of power
Before the game, Arizona Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill and general manager Steve Keim were down on the field, chatting it up with UA athletic director Greg Byrne, and UA coach Rich Rodriguez.
The Wildcats have a good relationship with the Cardinals organization — last December, Sean Miller tweeted a photo of Cardinals garb sent to him by Keim and coach Bruce Arians.
Also at the game? New Arizona Diamondbacks manager, and UA alum, Chip Hale.
Pregame festivities
About 90 minutes before game time, a batch of 40 to 50 ASU fans, fully clad in yellow, paraded through the tailgate on the UA mall, chanting “A-S-U!” a bunch.
As you can imagine, that wasn’t received very well.
Their trek saw nicer Wildcats fans giving them a thumbs-up, some others flipping a different, less nice finger.
As they walked by, an Arizona fan wielding a cowboy whip started, well, whipping it in their general direction.
As of this writing, those ASU fans are believed to have made it out alive.
Bonus note: We also witnessed a UA fan, dressed as a Storm Trooper, doing the “Bernie” dance. Funny stuff.
A Richard-Richards dilemma
There is a D. Richard on ASU’s roster, and a D. Richards on Arizona’s roster.
One is Demario Richard, a Sun Devils running back. The other is David Richards, a Wildcats receiver.
There’s more: Both Richards, a redshirt junior, and Richard, a freshman, went to Palmdale (California) High School.
Local legend
Bob Moran covered every Territorial Cup from 1975 until 2003, 12 of those years with the Arizona Daily Star, and 17 with the East Valley Tribune.
He lost a battle with stomach cancer in 2008, at the age of 55. The MVP award for the Territorial Cup is named after him.
Big number
5:02 — Time left on the UA-ASU game clock when UCLA lost to Stanford 31-10, setting Arizona up, officially, with a shot to be Pac-12 South champio. This is when Mickey Baucus, a senior Arizona offensive lineman, heard the good news.
“My life got a whole lot more stressful for the last few minutes,” he said.
John Button Salmon, reincarnated
Friday, John Button Salmon made an appearance.
Or, at least, a fan dressed up like him pretended he came alive for the weekend, for this special game.
“I’ve come back through time,” he said. “I have a weekend pass from Heaven.”
This Button Salmon is actually Santiago Murillo, a UA and Pueblo High grad, and he loves the Territorial Cup.
So much that he recreated the Button Salmon uniform.
“This is an original 1912, U of A football uniform. With the helmet, the cleats, and of course my pads,” he said. “I went to the museum, and I had to replicate most of it.
“This is my Super Bowl,” he added, talking about the Cup, “I’m a Minnesota Vikings fan, so I’ll never get to the Super Bowl.”
He said it
“From my vantage point, he was hitting the circle button, the square button. It reminded me of a Nintendo Playstation game. I thought somebody would catch him eventually. That was huge.” — Rich Rodriguez, on Samajie Grant’s 69-yard touchdown catch in the first quarter, where he cut across the field and avoided at least three defenders before scoring.
Senior night
Before the game, Wildcats seniors walked out onto the field and were honored alongside close family members and friends.
Unsurprisingly, Jared Tevis — a Canyon del Oro grad — received the biggest cheers and had the biggest crew with him as he was rolling about 10-15 people deep.
During the game, this senior class was as impactful as ever.
Tra’Mayne Bondurant: 11 tackles, two for loss and a sack
Austin Hill: Four receptions, 45 yards
Tevis: Four tackles and a sack
Dan Pettinato: Three tackles, two sacks
Jourdon Grandon: Five tackles and an interception in the fourth quarter, which led to an Anu Solomon touchdown pass to Samajie Grant with 8:31 to go, giving Arizona a 42-28 lead. “I couldn’t go out in a better way,” Grandon said after the game.
Reunion
Early in the third quarter, UA tailback Nick Wilson was tackled by Tashon Smallwood, the ASU defensive linemen.
It was a reunion of sorts for them — Wilson and Smallwood, both freshmen, went to Central High School in Fresno, California, together.
Wilson fared a little better on Friday than his ex-teammate — Wilson was named the game’s MVP, rushing for 178 yards and three touchdowns. Smallwood had three tackles, and one for loss.
