Saw the news that former Arizona coach Darrell Mudra passed away, but there wasn’t much background provided.
Mudra went heavy on the JC transfer route, and he was an old school defense/kicking game/field position/time of possession guy. Early in his first season at Arizona (1967), he made a splash, beating Woody Hayes and Ohio State in Columbus, which is probably the first really big national noise Arizona football had ever made. Some background is that Hayes just wanted to work on a handful of running plays and he figured he could get away with it against an Arizona. Arizona got wind of it, stuffed those plays, and came away with a stunning 14-7 win. Ohio State had a winning season and won the national championship the following year. But, with depth and injury issues, Arizona wound up with a losing record.
The following year, Arizona went 8-3, playing Auburn in the Sun Bowl on CBS TV. The game was tied at halftime, but it was played in a gale force wind storm. Arizona faced into the wind in the third quarter, and when a punt return for a TD and a pick six went against their low-scoring team, the game was over. But, that season has been most remembered, at least in media artifacts, for the circumstances surrounding the preceding Arizona State game. And, unfortunately, some people tend to mindlessly copy/paste that stuff with no further effort put into it.
Both teams were negotiating with the Sun Bowl committee, which sent representatives to both of their home games the week before the rivalry game. ASU had a cake-walk, running up the score against a bad San Jose State team. But Arizona had to play Jim Kiick and defending conference champion Wyoming, which had played LSU in the previous year’s Sugar Bowl. It was billed as the game to nail down the Sun Bowl, and several Wildcats were carted off the field. But, after ASU’s blowout, the Sun Bowl wanted to wait and take the ASU at Arizona winner.
Arizona had apparently had discussions with other bowls, like the Tangerine Bowl, about bids, but preferred the Sun Bowl. Mudra announced that if the Sun Bowl didn’t take them immediately, the Wildcats would accept another bowl bid. None of this seems so horrible in the more recent bowl environment. But ASU didn’t have those options, the Sun Bowl caved to Arizona, and the Phoenix media went absolutely apoplectic. ASU had gone all-in financially (and otherwise) on football, but with no bowls to date against any major college team. So this was too much, and also stoked concerns that Arizona had been showing some real signs of life. The game turned into ASU’s bowl and a revenge match against Arizona’s walking wounded, and the rivalry took a particularly nasty turn that has never let up.
Mudra asked Arizona President Richard Harvill (an ASU grad who liked to schmooze with state legislators over funding) for more resources for football, and was turned down flat and startlingly told he probably should look for employment elsewhere. He did, and he coached at Florida State and other smaller colleges and wound up in the College Football Hall of Fame. Meanwhile, Harvill (who staged a one-man boycott of the Sun Bowl) had the ugliest generic building on campus named in his memory.
It’s an illustration of state politics, and the lack of consistent funding and support that have plagued Arizona football. I gather Mudra was a flawed individual, and some people didn’t like him. But he achieved certain things and took Arizona football to levels previously not experienced. And there were some good coaches who followed him who also didn’t see an all-out effort to keep them here and to build up Arizona football.
Hopefully we’re getting closer to finally turning that corner.
