Bickley: The rivalry between UA and ASU has never been hotter or better

Rivalry spices competition. At the moment, the feud between Arizona State and Arizona is cayenne pepper.

Red hot.

The two football coaches, ASU's Todd Graham and Arizona's Rich Rodriguez, don't like one another.

After losing another shot at the Final Four, Arizona coach Sean Miller reacted to critics and trolls by blasting the ASU basketball program on Twitter.

"Finally to the people that try to make us feel like our season was a failure. Go cheer for ASU!"

And at the Bobby Hurley introductory press conference, an Arizona Daily Star reporter asked the former Duke star about the rivalry he just inherited, triggering some serious trash talk from ASU President Michael Crow.

The transcript:

Crow: "You may not know that newspaper is in Tucson. He's sort of baiting you."

Hurley: "I've got a feel for it already. Just the brief amount of time I've been in town, you get a taste for it. I've been in a few of those myself in my day, just with Duke and (North) Carolina and what that means. So it's going to be a lot of fun, and it takes two to tango … "

Crow: "Just ask him how it's been going lately."

Laughter.

Hurley: "You can just take over."

Crow: "No, no. These are just facts you might not know. I think they're hoping to get above .500 soon."

Crow was clearly playing the room, gleefully pointing out that ASU's basketball team had won nine of the previous 17 games against Arizona, giving them a recent edge in head-to-head competition. Of course, those numbers only tell a part of the story.

It's also rare for an esteemed university president to take a swipe at a rival program in a public setting, especially one that has been far superior to ASU's program for the better part of three decades.

And maybe it was perfectly warranted after Miller's gratuitous shot at the Sun Devils.

Bottom line: While this mutual dislike is nothing new, things are clearly escalating. Arizona's expanded presence in the Valley has prompting something like a turf battle in recent years, featuring an array of billboards that read, "This is Wildcat Country."

ASU countered with its own billboard campaign tied directly to athletics, featuring pictures of former athletes and slogans like "Stay True" and "ASU Football: Where Arizona stars become Legends."

More recently, Arizona went to great lengths to capitalize on Super Bowl traffic in downtown Phoenix. It hung an enormous, 25-foot version of the school logo – the block 'A' – on the façade of its College of Medicine, a building that opened directly across the street from ASU's downtown campus.

The giant "A" is still there, as unmistakable as the T-Rex fronting a car dealership.

Behind the scenes, there are Sun Devils that believe Arizona has an inferiority complex, a community that has lost its Cactus League presence, lost its beloved Lute, and constantly fears losing its top coaches to greener pastures. It's happening again this offseason, where potential openings at Kentucky and Florida are making Wildcats fans nervous over the future of the brooding Miller.

Flip the perspective, and there are Wildcats who believe the Sun Devils are full of bluster, playing fast and loose with the truth. They hear claims that ASU donors are rallying like never before to fund and refurbish athletic venues, yet the accounting looks a little different in Tempe:

ASU is raising over $10 million annually on a student athletic fee; their most celebrated donors are Graham and athletic director Ray Anderson, who pledged a combined $1 million; while the ASU Foundation 2014 Performance Review lists three $10 million gifts awarded to Sun Devil Athletics from a donor that's "to be announced."

In the game of college sports funding, most whales don't wait to be announced. Yet Crow scoffs at the idea that his students are being gouged, stuck with the bill of donor apathy. To the contrary, he says they now feel a part of the dramatic campus makeover, fully vested in their athletic future.

Crow's maneuver might look brilliant in retrospect, especially with a floundering Pac-12 Network that's soon to put its member schools at a serious financial disadvantage compared to the SEC and Big Ten. And it's no more creative than Arizona's attempt to secure its top performers – athletic director Greg Byrne, Rodriguez and Miller – with a huge stock payout if they don't flee for better jobs.

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"Our budget is in balance right now for athletics," Crow said. "We're feeling really good about where we're going. We're raising a lot of money for athletics … the football stadium, the hockey team, we have other things going on.

"Our concerns are not financial. Our concerns are changing the mindset of college basketball, playing college basketball the way it's supposed to be played, filling the arena, with people excited about the play that's going on, and connecting with the students. They're all doable things."

So, to recap: Byrne is considered one of the best AD's in the country, while Anderson has quickly made his presence felt. The hiring of Hurley gives ASU a real fighter in basketball, enough to make Crow crow. Meanwhile, Rodriguez and Graham are polar opposites yet two of a kind, which is why the former once hired the latter.

Now, they strain to recognize one another. Now, they are in each other's way, each bringing a 9-2 football team to the last Territorial Cup.

In the past, the blood feud between these two schools usually manifested itself in the sophomoric behavior of students and spectators. Now, it's the marquee names that are throwing shade, making headlines, setting the stage for some very interesting athletic battles ahead.

Maybe this fabled rivalry has burned hotter. But it's never been better.

Reach Bickley at dan.bickley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8253. Follow him at twitter.com/danbickley. Listen to "Bickley and Marotta," weekdays from 12-2 p.m. on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM.