T-Cup showdown looming for Wildcats and Sun Devils

With 11 days remaining before the Territorial Cup, Arizona and Arizona State have the same win total and equivalent momentum.

That wasn’t on our Big 12 bingo card for 2025, but perhaps it should have been, for the Wildcats and Sun Devils have reversed fortunes in expert fashion in recent years.

In 2023, Arizona came from nowhere to win 10 games while ASU floundered at the bottom of the Pac-12.

In 2024, ASU rose from ash to win the Big 12 while Arizona, with lofty expectations, unraveled completely.

There was no reason to expect comparable seasons in 2025 — not with ASU retaining so many key pieces from its championship run and Arizona facing a daunting climb to mere respectability.

But the Wildcats (7-3/4-3) have replicated the late-season energy from their 2023 run with a defense that has improved exponentially under first-year coordinator Danny Gonzales and quarterback Noah Fifita leading a balanced offense.

As they did in 2023, the Wildcats lost two close games in the middle of the season (back then: USC and Washington; now: BYU and Houston) but assimilated the pieces in time for a sizzling stretch run.

They thumped Colorado, rallied to beat Kansas (to secure a bowl berth), upset then-No. 25 Cincinnati and are rapidly ascending the bowl ladder.

The surprise along I-10 is that ASU hasn’t imploded in a fashion akin to Arizona’s 2024 demise.

For that, coach Kenny Dillingham deserves substantial credit. The Sun Devils (7-3/5-2) lost quarterback Sam Leavitt for the season (foot surgery) and have been without star receiver Jordyn Tyson for three games. Yet they continue to find new and creative ways to snatch victory from apparent defeat.

ASU’s five conference victories have come by a total of 17 points. Whatever the configuration of their lineup, it seems, the Sun Devils are comfortable on the edge.

For that reason, they are smack in the middle of the Big 12 race.

Well, maybe not in the middle. ASU needs help to reach Arlington. But if BYU loses this weekend at Cincinnati and the Sun Devils win out, the tiebreaker just might shift in their favor.

Granted, winning out means winning the Territorial Cup, which appears vastly more difficult than it did before the Sun Devils lost Leavitt and Arizona found its footing.

Regardless of the results this week, when the Wildcats host struggling Baylor and the Sun Devils visit floundering Colorado, the matchup in Tempe on Black Friday will be one of the most anticipated — and impactful — in years.

It marks the first time both teams have at least seven wins at the time of kickoff since 2014 — and if form holds this week, both will have eight.

ASU could be playing for a spot in Arlington.

Arizona could be playing for a spot in the Holiday Bowl (and to derail ASU’s title charge).

And both teams could be ranked, just as they were for the 2014 showdown.

With the Pac-12 South division title on the line, the Wildcats broke open a tie game in the third quarter, then held off the Sun Devils with a defensive stand in the final minutes for a 42-35 victory.

Given where the teams stood relative to each other in 2023 (Arizona up, ASU down) and 2024 (Arizona down, ASU up), an evenly matched thriller of a finale would be exactly the unexpected endgame that we probably should have expected.