In summer 2001, officials at Arizona and Arizona State received NCAA Division I-A designation for the 1899 Territorial Cup as the oldest trophy for a rivalry game in America. The annual Arizona-Arizona State winner obtains possession of the Cup for its hall of fame, a replica goes to the winning school’s president’s office, and two later trophies used over the years in the hard-fought rivalry are awarded to the winning coach and the Most Valuable Player.

On Thanksgiving Day in 1899, then Arizona Territorial Normal School defeated Arizona 11-2 in front of a reported 300 fans, and the Cup had its first curator. But over the years, the silver-plated antique prize was misplaced and supplanted by various other awards for the Big Game ?- the Governor’s Trophy (1953-1979), a ?'Victory” sculpture by artist Ben Goo, and a Saguaro Trophy, among others. To ensure the safety of the original trophy, the actual Territorial Cup will be moved from one school to the other only under escort and the supervision of gloved archivists. The Ben Goo Trophy, awarded from 1979 to 1998 as the game trophy, has become the Big Game Most Valuable Player award. The Saguaro Trophy, a smaller bronze piece commissioned from artist Dora Perry in 1998, is presented and kept each year by the winning coach.

As UA athletics director Jim Livengood puts it, “Arizona is fortunate to have one of the greatest in-state football rivalries in the nation and it’s fitting that the two schools have rediscovered the early roots of that tradition.”  The games themselves have assumed various proportions in the last century depending on the annual success of both teams, but always they’ve been a matter of pride more than hardware. Now, it’s the oldest intercollegiate rivalry trophy game in America with a century-old silver award.