If you were a Mormon kid growing up in Phoenix in the early 1970s, this was the game you dreaded.

Brigham Young vs. Arizona State.

One of your two favorite teams was going to lose, and in college football any loss could be devastating — potentially season ending.

College football fans dream of one thing — a national championship.

The smallest dent or blemish, such as a loss to ASU or to BYU, could keep your team from living the dream.

I was either going to bleed blue or bleed maroon, but I was going to bleed.

That’s why I hated this game.

We didn’t have a college football playoff in those days. We had those damnable AP writers who ranked the teams and handed out respectability by way of tickets to bowl games.

They’re still around, but they’ve been stripped of their rank and stuck in a corner. Today, we’ve got the College Football Playoff.

Back in the day, they were an East Coast mafia that didn’t pick dapper little teams from the Mountain Southwest and its WAC conference.

That’s WAC as in “Western Athletic Conference,” or in the eyes of all the Oscar Madisons who manned the sports desks at the New York Post and Daily News, WAC as in “Who Are these Clowns?”

Who are these clowns who play their games in the middle of the night?

I wish today’s young Arizonans could see ASU........

© Arizona Republic