Forget Joe Paterno for a second.

Let's go to Tucson, Arizona on April 2, 2001.

University of Arizona students were pissed. Duke had beaten Arizona 82-72 in the NCAA Championship game, and given an excuse to get drunk and angry, Arizona Wildcats fans took to the streets, setting fires, rioting -- you know, college kid things.

Some of them watched the game. Probably most of them knew why they were out there, damaging properties, acting like hooligans.

You know those ESPN "It's Just Sports" commercials? It was that, on a greater scale.

I was tweeting yesterday with a Duke fan who graduated in 2001. The Blue Devil fans rioted on April 2, 2001, too. School pride is a funny thing. Through thick and thin, every once in a while, a community has got to come together to burn some stuff down. That happened at Arizona and Duke that night. Dumb as it might be, it was all for a game.

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Bucky Badger, the Wisconsin Badgers' mascot, was caught Saturday morning at his Bristol, Conn., cubicle Facebook-creeping on Wilma Wildcat, the female mascot for the Arizona Wildcats.

"I was working on an article about left-handed athletes," Bucky said in a press release. "I have no other comment at this time."

Wilma Wildcat said in a exclusive interview with Arizona Desert Swarm that she has only met Bucky once -- at a mascot retreat in the Hamptons this summer -- but did not go into details on the pair's relationship.

"I am faithful to my husband, Wilbur," she said.

Wilbur T. Wildcat could not be reached for comment.

Rumors have swirled about a growing rift between Wilbur and Wilma on the University of Arizona campus. The pair has often gone separately to campus events and UA sponsored campaigns outside of campus.

The Arizona Athletic department has not released a statement regarding the status of either of its two mascots.

I try to avoid constant jabs at Arizona State here, but in the end, this is a fan blog. And if the national online media is taking shots at the Arizona Wildcats' rivals, well, we might as well roll with it.

The sports gossip blog Deadspin.com has a history of ragging on the Sun Devils. Apparently, they too agree that ASU has a reputation of being 1) not very smart and 2) kind of trashy. I'm not saying that's true but ... you know, there's a reason I grew up in the Phoenix area and decided to head south. Some of those reasons had nothing to do with getting away from my hometown, but I'll leave it at that.

Most recently, Deadspin pointed out how corny ASU quarterback Brock Osweiler's tattoo is. I guess he has two "motivational" bicep tatts.

One reads "Leave Your Legacy"; the other, "Live Life To It's Fullest."

Life life to it is fullest, indeed. I copied and pasted that before realizing that it's the wrong "its." But yeah, Brock's tattoo does say that, unless that picture has been tampered with. Sun Devils aren't keen on using correct grammar, I suppose.

It goes with the theme of this summer, when Deadspin's article breaking down one of the Pac-12's cool new branding videos was angled toward helping out illiterate Sun Devils fans. Anyway, all funny stuff, but all funny stuff we can understand here.

Deadspin also pointed out that going to SunDevils.com redirects to a nudist website, DiabloSunDevils.com. On a side note, I'm pretty sure that SunDevils.com used to redirect to ArizonaWildcats.com. Either way, clever if the address is owned by an Arizona fan, which I would say is a high probability considering these two examples.

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The new Pac-12 television deal is complete, reports Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury.

The deal is reported to be for over $3 billion and 12 years, and will include a Pac-12 television network. The television deal's primary partner is Fox, with ESPN also securing some rights. Fox's available platforms for broadcast include basic-cable Fox, FX, and the regional Fox Sports Net stations. 

Larry Scott has come through again for the conference.

The Pac-10 released a statement Tuesday announcing that Colorado will be joining the Pac-10 conference as of 2011.

Colorado and Utah will now join the conference together.  It was previously reported that Colorado would not join the conference until 2012 because of haggling over exit fees/withholding of conference revenue issues with the Big XII.  ESPN.com's Ted Miller reports that Colorado will surrender $6.863 million in Big XII revenue, in order to leap to the Pac-10 in 2011 (almost $3 million less than Nebraska gave up to jump ship to the Big Ten).  

The agreement will prevent Colorado from having to play an awkward 2011 season in the Big 12, where the Buffs would have starred as the girl who cheated on you, is dumping you for her new west-coast boyfriend, but just hasn't moved all her stuff out yet.  Nice to avoid moments like that. 

The 2011 move also allows the soon-to-be-changed Pac-12 to split into two divisions, and add a conference championship game.  Commence the division-split controversy.

Good afternoon, Cats fans.  Here are a few pieces of Arizona news to get you through this June 21, 2010.  And, no, there has been no division alignment news yet.

Only 74 days until Toledo.

Stoops and Co. picked up a verbal committment from 4-star middle linebacker, Rob Hankins, of Dallas, Texas.  Hankins is the #9 nationally rated middle linebacker, according to Rivals.com.

Cornerback Trevin Wade has been named to the Nagurski Watch list for the 2010 football season.  Wade is one of only nine Pac-10 players on the list.

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The Pac-10 has announced that Utah will be the 12th member of the Pac-10, Bruce Pascoe of the Arizona Daily Star, reports. 

Now, the division alignment debate begins. 

Everyone will be gunning to be included in the SoCal division, while I'm sure everyone would like to avoid the Utah/Colorado side.  Utah has a recent history of busting major BCS programs, and Colorado, well Colorado just has not been very good lately. 

This move paves the way for a Pac-10 television network ($$$) and a conference championship game ($$$).  But, this is the NCAA, and everything is about the athletes and the academics, right?  Right. 

All in all, this seems to be a good move for the Pac-10, after being spurned by Texas/Big 12 South.  The new alignment will allow the Pac-10 to compete with the Big Ten and SEC on the field and in the bank accounts.  The latter of which, the Pac-10 has failed at miserably as of late.