TUCSON - The "A" Mountain here kept its red, white and blue colors. Two rival marching bands played side by side.
By all accounts, it was a relatively peaceful football game between UA and ASU Saturday.
Throngs of red-and-blue-clad Wildcat fans left the stadium early, ducking out just in time to miss ASU beating UA 28-14 in this year's battle for the historic Territorial Cup.
The fight for the Territorial Cup between the two universities is the oldest registered rivalry in the NCAA since the two teams first met in 1899.
ASU, then the Territorial Normal School, beat UA 11-2, for the trophy.
Since then, the game has become a state tradition.
Tucsonans Gordon and Kathy VanCamp have attended the game for the last eight years.
Gordon was a UA student nearly 30 years ago, but at this game, proudly sported a gold ASU T-shirt. Called a traitor by some of his Tucson friends, he said he roots for ASU in support of his two children who attended the University.
"I've spent way more on ASU than on UA, and it's nice to see us beat UA in their own house," he said.
The VanCamps sat next to the UA marching band, amongst a predominantly Wildcat crowd. They,
along with a group of about 20 other Sun Devil fans, chanted "A-S-U" as
the band yelled "sucks" in return.
Occasionally, fans from both sides flipped each other off; one ASU fan yelling, "It's your IQ, baby!"
Otherwise, the rivalry mainly stuck to verbal insults in jest. UA police reported no unusual activity at the game.
There was a higher number of ejections from the stadium than usual, said spokesman Eugene Mejia, but that was probably because of the higher number of people in attendance at this game - about 58,000. Most of the incidents were likely unruly conduct or alcohol-related, Mejia said.
Anthony Barringer, a business sophomore, said he heard some unique jokes while walking around the UA campus prior to the game.
"It looks like a baby puked on your shirt," one fan yelled, motioning to Barringer's old gold ASU T-shirt.
Another, he said, yelled, "Choose a career! Go to a real school!"
"That one was funny," Barringer said. "I thought ASU was a real school."
Seven-year-old Sean Mitchell from Chicago also got into the spirit of the rivalry.
"I chose [to cheer for] ASU because my dad went to UA," he said, standing on his tiptoes to view the game.
"Plus, they're scoring lots of touchdowns," he said, smiling, jumping up and down and motioning to the field.
By halftime, ASU was ahead 21-14.
That didn't deter the marching bands from both universities from playing together, in a halftime rendition of "Dani California" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, for which many of the nearly 58,000 people in the stadium cheered.
"This is a great tradition," said Veda Kettigna, an undeclared freshman at ASU. "Rivalries are about hatred - and the good old fun."
Reach the reporter at: annalyn.censky@asu.edu.
