The ASU vs. UA football game is more than two weeks away but the rivalry traditions are already underway.
Students on the ASU campus woke up Monday morning with the A on "A" Mountain painted red and blue.
It’s an annual tradition. About a week before Thanksgiving, groups of ASU students take turns staying up all night to guard and protect the A on Tempe's Hayden Butte.
That’s because it's a decades-old tradition for UA students try to sneak up and paint it Wildcat colors. It’s done as part of the annual rivalry game between the two state universities.
This year UA students not only succeeded in painting the A blue and red, but they did it unprecedentedly early.
“If it’s about the game, it really loses its luster when it’s this far in advance. I mean, it’s really fun when it’s during rivalry week and we’re up there guarding it. You know it, means something," said Dan Turbyfill from the ASU alumni association.
Turbyfill says about five years ago charges were brought against two ASU students for attempting to paint the A in Tucson, but were then dropped. Still, Tempe students have been discouraged from exercising the tradition down south since then.
The ASU vs. UA game is set for Friday, Nov. 28.
