Behind all the sweat, blood, tears and jubilation of the ASU and UA football game is the mastermind of the operations, the head honcho, the head coach.
Besides a bowl game there is no bigger game for these two teams than that of this rivalry game. As a matter of fact this single game has played dividends on the outcome of past seasons.
"All rivalry games are very important to that school, to our fans and I take every game very seriously and I get lots of emails from people telling me how important this game is," ASU head coach Dirk Koetter said. "They don't tell me how to help us play better they tell me how important it is and basically if we lose too many of them, I'm not going to be the coach here anymore so I try to spend not a whole lot of time talking about it and try to spend my time in preparation for things I can control that help us play better."
In 1986 under head coach John Cooper the Sun Devils were well on their way to an undefeated season until they had to make the trip south to Tucson to play the last game of the regular season. ASU was upset 34-17, spoiling the first undefeated season since the Frank Kush era when he led ASU to a 12-0 record in 1975.
In the past two weeks Wildcats head coach John Mackovic has been under some scrutiny. Forty players from the team went to University president Pete Likins to complain about the manner that Mackovic conducts himself to his players. But this game has such a large bearing on both teams season that if the Wildcats were to pull off the upset, the turmoil behind Mackovic might be forgotten and his job may be saved.
In the over 100 years of Sun Devil football there have been 21 coaches that have compiled an impressive record of 494-298-24 up to this season.
From the 1955-57 seasons head coach Dan Devine led the Sun Devils to a 27-3-1 record compiling the best winning percentage in school history at .887. But one of the three losses came in 1955 when ASU lost in a low scoring affair to visiting UA 6-7.
Devine's successor Frank Kush, who was Devine's assistant, took the helm for his first ever head coaching job in 1958. In his 21 years and 231 games, Kush compiled 176 wins; he had 19 winning seasons, 9 conference championships and a 6-1 bowl-game record.
Kush also had undefeated seasons in 1970 and 1975 and in 1975 was voted the coach of the year. He sported a 21 game unbeaten and untied winning streak and 129 of his players made it to the professional level. Kush's .764 winning percentage is in the top 20 all time. On December 12, 1995 Kush joined his mentor Devine in the College Football Hall of Fame.
Despite ASU's heralded success, the Sun Devils trail the series 31-43-1 but this rivalry proves that with such a heated battle, records don't mean a thing.
