Arizona and the Normal School met on November 30, 1899, for a Thanksgiving Day match at Carrillo Gardens in Tucson.

[7] Contemporary newspaper stories indicate that this was the first game for the university squad, while the Normal team was comparatively more experienced and better trained.

The "Normals", as they were called, won the game 11–2; as they had previously defeated the other schools, they were declared champions and received the Territorial Cup.

After the tournament the trophy's whereabouts were unknown until 1980 when it was rediscovered in the VAULT (NOT BASEMENT SEE & CORRECT: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5072068/2023/11/22/arizona-state-arizona-territorial-cup-trophy-untold-story/ ) of a church adjacent to Arizona State's campus.

[17] It was later authenticated as the original cup by the NCAA, making it the oldest rivalry game trophy in college football.

[17][18] The cup is silver plate over Britannia base metal and was manufactured by Reed & Barton of Taunton, Massachusetts.

In the early part of the rivalry series, the games were played in Tucson due to the fact that ASU's home stadium held very few fans.

Arizona dominated the early portion of the series, winning 20 of the first 22 meetings, by having more physical and better-trained players than ASU.

The Sun Devils had a reign of dominance from 1949 to 1981, winning 24 of 33, including a 13–2 stretch from 1965 to 1979, under the leadership of ASU's legendary coach Frank Kush.

The Wildcats got the best of ASU from 1982 to 1998, going 13–3–1 (with the tie occurring in 1987) under the guidance of coaches Larry Smith and Dick Tomey and a dominant defensive unit that was one of the nation's best in the early 1990s.

ASU had a five-game winning streak from 2017 until 2021 (including a 70-7 blowout in 2020), though it was reduced to four, as their 2021 victory was vacated in 2024 due to NCAA violations including tampering, recruiting inducements, and impermissible tryouts (the game still existed as a loss on the Arizona side to it being played on field).

With both teams leaving the Pac-12 Conference for the Big 12 prior to the start of the 2024 football season, the Wildcats won the series in the Pac-10/12 era, 23–21–1 (officially 21–23–1 on the Arizona State side due their vacated 2021 win).