Let's be honest, alright? No one actually goes to a football game, whatever the level, in hopes of seeing a bunch of zeros on the scoreboard. Believe me, I've been there, having done my best to block out the memories of covering a 3-0 triple overtime game between Marana and Palo Verde in the late 1990s.

We all prefer a bunch of scoring, it's what makes for an exciting night out.

So, unless you just have an aversion to offense, the place to be tonight is Ironwood Ridge High School. The defending Division II champs are 3-1 on the season, winning games by an average score of 37-29, which isn't that explosive.

• Mark Levy• Herald/Review
• Buena defensive tackle Sidney Malauulu warms up at Wednesday’s Colts practice at the high school athletic field. For the 6-foot-3, 280-pound senior, this is his first chance to play high school football stateside.

But the Nighthawks are hosting Sierra Vista Buena (1-2), which so far this year is redefining the term shootout. The Colts are scoring almost 44 per game ... and giving up just under 63 a night. That includes a 78-57 loss last week at Tempe Marcos de Niza — which happens to be coming to Tucson next week to face Salpointe Catholic.

If this game has under 100 points I'll be shocked.

Southern Arizona's most explosive team, Salpointe, is off this week. But another high-scoring outfit, Tucson High, has scored 67 and 52 in back-to-back wins heading into a game at Sunnyside (2-1). A win for the Badgers would be their third straight over the Blue Devils.

The other top games this week are at the lowel levels, where upstart Catalina Foothills (2-1) hosts Sahuarita (3-1) and three Division IV squads: Palo Verde, Rio Rico and Santa Rita have chances to get off to unexpected 4-0 starts.

Palo Verde, with Todd Mayfield back at the helm, hosts Amphitheater (2-1) in a sectional game, while Rio Rico visits Safford (2-1) and Santa Rita hosts Phoenix's Arizona Lutheran Academy (3-0).

Ken Brazzle attended most of the biggest sports events in Tucson during the last 20 or so years that the print version of the Tucson Citizen existed. But you'd never know it unless you read the paper the next day.

Brazz, as most everyone knew him, was one of those blend-into-the-background media types. He was there to cover the story, not be a part of it. He had no biases—except maybe to have those late-summer Tucson Sidewinders games end a little earlier, and without causing him to have to change his lede—and would cover pretty much whatever you wanted him to.

Ken Brazzle passed away last week, right around his 63rd birthday. Word of his death didn't start spreading until the weekend, when former Citizen sports editor Mike Chesnick posted the news and the remembrances from ex-Citizen staffers started flooding in.

Brazz was just finishing up a six-month stint with USA Today when I started my journalism career in Tucson, back in 1995 at the Citizen as a high school football "correspondent." He'd been the prep editor before that, and was glad to pass on guidance and advice for covering high school kids. Though I moved over to the morning daily in 1999, I still saw Brazz all over, and loved every moment of it.

Brazz, a native Texan, left the business when the Citizen folded but remained in Tucson, where among other things he served as a deacon in his church.

A memorial service for Brazzle is set for 11 a.m. Saturday at Grace Temple Baptist Church, 1018 E. 31st St.

It's official! The #RedBlue Game is sold out! Fastest R/B sellout ever and third in a row! Thanks to our great fans! pic.twitter.com/TttnRpe2T4
— Arizona Basketball (@APlayersProgram) September 16, 2013

Arizona's football team is off to its second straight 3-0 start, albeit against a lineup of opponents this year's Salpointe Catholic varsity team might contend with.

But even with that strong start that hasn't stopped the annual September ritual of UA sports fans eagerly anticipating the start of the men's basketball season. This year is no different, considering how quickly the Wildcats' instrasquad scrimmage has sold out.

That's right, all 14,545 seats in McKale Center have been sold for the Oct. 12 game, which is the unofficial start of five months' worth of hoops obsession in Southern Arizona. Granted, the tickets were only $8 for adults and $5 for kids, but that's pretty damn impressive.

Good news, though, for all you ticket-buying stragglers: There are still season tickets available, including ones in the "non-priority" areas (read: you can touch the McKale ceiling), for the low, low price of $421 apiece. There's also spots left in priority areas; that is, if you first donate at least $5,000 toward the school's latest capital improvement plan ... and that's before you pay the $421-$607 per-seat amount and the $100 to $1,500 "priority" surcharge.

(Hey, you want Arizona athletics to remain self-sufficient and not have to rely on funding that's controlled by our Legislature, right? Then pay up!)

For those a little less ... financially solvent, there's always the single-game route. Those tickets run between $21 and $130, depending on the location and opponent.

Meanwhile, it appears that PLENTY of seats remain for Arizona's remaining four football home games, considering the vast amounts of empty seats at Saturday's game. And for all you complainers that get mad at having games at 7:30 p.m. ... and then again when they're at 11 a.m. or 12:30 p.m., think about that when you fork over big bucks for hoops games that tip off at 8 p.m. On a weeknight.

And it ain't good ol' Girls Gone Wild University and Casino, our good friends to the north.

Twice in the past week, when meaning to reference Arizona State, either the Pac-12 Network (really, boys?!?!?) and ESPN has instead written or shown Arizona on screen.

The first instance was rather innocuous, something I happened to catch when I took a moment to watch some of ASU's game last Thursday against Sacramento State (and made sure to capture for posterity, thanks to my handy-dandy Droid 4 cell phone camera):

Eh, not that big of a deal. Someone just left off the (oh so important) St. Call it a typo.

Using the wrong helmet on your college football show's set, and having it pop up on screen several times, that's a different story. Seems ESPN thinks Arizona is hosting Wisconsin this weekend, not UTSA. Even though ESPN has already started setting up its camera crew at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, somehow the Worldwide Leader of Sports thinks the game will feature the Wildcats instead of the Sun Devils.

Not sure how ASU's students are taking the news, but the UA student fan base is none too pleased:

DEAR @ESPN, WE ARE NOT PLAYING WISCONSIN THIS WEEK! STOP CONFUSING US WITH ARIZONA STATE! WE ARE INSULTED! -ZonaZoo pic.twitter.com/5tstsLakpo
— ZonaZoo (@ZonaZooOfficial) September 12, 2013

If you check out fellow Weekly columnist Tom Danehy's latest cry for help rant in this week's issue, you'll see his topics include displeasure at how football games don't seem to stick to their traditional days anymore. College football, specifically.

But I doubt even Danehy can find fault with the reason that the majority of the high school football games in Arizona this week are being played tonight, a Thursday, instead of the normal Friday.

Friday is the start of Yom Kippur, considered in the Jewish faith as the holiest of days, and one that involves fasting and other activities that would make playing in (or watching) football impossible tomorrow night.

Most years either Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) falls on a Friday, but it wasn't until about 10 years ago or so that anything was done to adjust prep football schedules to accommodate the holy day. And the changes weren't done out of sympathy; rather, it was to avoid litigation.

In 1999 the parents of Sahuaro High School player Isaac Greenberg threatened to sue TUSD — shocking, I know: TUSD involved in a lawsuit — if their son's game against Cottonwood Mingus wasn't moved to Thursday. The change occurred, and within a few years nearly every Tucson-area game during the applicable week each season was shifted to Thursday. Other parts of the state have followed suit, to where about 60 percent of this week's games statewide are happening tonight instead of Friday.

The exceptions are usually related to schools in small towns in far corners of the state, who often travel long distances for games and, as such, want to avoid kids getting home at 2 a.m. on a school night.

State census information notes only about 1.6 percent of Arizonans are Jewish, which you'd think wouldn't be enough to make motivate such a massive scheduling change. But considering this state's heavy devotion to other religions (do you really think prep sports can't occur on Sundays in Arizona for any other reason?) the once-a-football-season shift isn't that big of a deal.

As a result, local prep football fans get two nights of game choices. Among the better ones:

Tonight

Ironwood Ridge (1-1) at Canyon del Oro (2-0): The Battle for Oro Valley has been all IRHS of late. Might that change this year?

Catalina Foothills (2-0) at Cienega (0-2): Foothills hasn't started 3-0 in more than a decade. Cienega has never started 0-3. This is the first real test for the Falcons under new coach Jeff Scurran, who gets to match wits with old nemesis Nemer Hassey, coaching foes from their days at Sabino and Sahuaro, respectively.

Sunnyside (2-0) at Salpointe Catholic (3-0): Sunnyside has opened with quality wins over a pair of Phoenix-area schools, while Salpointe has a trio of blowout victories won in three different states (Arizona, California and Nevada).

Friday

Empire (0-2) at Walden Grove (0-2): This will be the first-ever game in Walden Grove's own stadium, which has been carved out of and built around a chunk of the adjacent Sahuarita Park.

Before the soapbox comes out, here's the news: Arizona football coach Rich Rodriguez announced today the unsurprising fact that the NCAA denied transfer receiver DaVonte' Neal's hardship appeal to be able to play this season, instead of sitting out until 2014.

Now, for the opining.

The standard rule in college football and basketball is simple: you want to transfer schools, you've gotta sit out a year. Seems fair, right?

Well, like with anything else in this world, there are plenty of exceptions to the NCAA's transfer rule. The most notable of which is the ability for a player who has earned his undergraduate degree from one school—but whom still has a year of eligibility left—can go somewhere else for that least season and play right away. Provided, that is, the school they're leaving doesn't offer the Master's program the school they're going to happens to have.

It's how Arizona's basketball team got Mark Lyons for one season after he graduated from Xavier with eligibility remaining. And why there's probably a lot of former college athletes with incomplete Master's degrees roaming the streets.

Beyond that, the most common transfer exception is one related to hardships: be it economic or demographic, sometimes the NCAA lets a player switch schools and play right away if the perceived hardships are good enough. This is how former UA hoops star MoMo Jones left Tucson not long after the Wildcats reached the Elite Eight in 2011, then the following November he was starting for Iona College.

Neal, who in 2011 made his much ballyhooed decision to go to Notre Dame instead of Arizona at a press conference held at, of all places, his elementary school in Phoenix, played in all 13 games last season for the Fighting Irish. His stats were minimal, though, and he's probably most remembered for effing up a punt in Notre Dame's beatdown loss to Alabama in the BCS title game.

The speedy wideout's appeal was based on wanting to play closer to home so he could be nearer to his girlfriend and newborn daughter. It was also very likely because he didn't see himself getting much playing time at Notre Dame, hence the decision to transfer. The NCAA, though not saying specifically why it's denied Neal his wish to skip the sit-out season, probably thought the playing time issue was more a factor than the baby-daddy scenario.

When MoMo left, his decision wasn't based as much on playing time (though the impending arrival of uber-recruit-turned-super-flameout Josiah Turner was going to cut down on his minutes) as the fact he had an ailing family member he said he needed to help care for. And the NCAA took that to heart, resulting in Jones leading Iona to the NCAA tournament in both his seasons there.

Neal wasn't so lucky, which is too bad for Arizona, because he's supposedly quite fast. At this point, though, what the Wildcats really need isn't another person to catch the ball but one who can throw it more effectively. Though the rushing game has been awesome in the first two games, quarterback B.J. Denker has completed just 16 of 34 passes and has just 162 yards passing.

Them numbers ain't gonna fly in the Pac-12. Don't be surprised to see, if Denker struggles with his throws against Texas-San Antonio on Saturday, we see JaValle Allen or even someone like Jesse Scroggins getting in there and being asked to let it fly. After UTSA the Wildcats have two weeks before going to Washington, and a lot can happen to the starting lineup in that time.

Okay, rant over. If you want to read a much less colorful (read: boring) version of the Neal situation, check out the version I was not paid to write for online sports site Bleacher Report.

A year ago, the football teams from Catalina Foothills and Cholla High School each went 0-10. And they were both far worse than those records would indicate.

Now, each team has a chance to start 2-0, all but wiping away the memories of a lost 2012 season.

For Catalina Foothills, it's 34-28 overtime victory over Desert View came about a lot harder than most associated with the Falcons' program would have expected, especially after the school landed uber-resurrectionist Jeff Scurran as coach. Scurran previously turned Santa Rita from an 0-10 team to a state semifinalist in his first season.

Foothills should have much less trouble tonight against Walden Grove (0-1), mostly because no one on the Red Wolves is likely to put up the rushing numbers (305 yards, two touchdowns) that Desert View senior Jarratt White had against the Falcons.

At Cholla, its 48-28 stomping of Flowing Wells in Week 1 was its first win since Sept. 30, 2011, snapping the longest active losing streak in Tucson at 15 games. Now, the Chargers could have their first 2-0 start in more than a decade (they've won two games in a single season just once in the past six years) if they beat Amphitheater (0-1) tonight.

On the other end of the spectrum tonight are some schools not accustomed to starting off slowly. Both Cienega and Sabino are 0-1 heading into challenging road games: Cienega visits Mountain View (0-1), a week after falling to defending Division II champ Ironwood Ridge, while Sabino hopes to rebound from a thumping by Salpointe Catholic with a win at east side rival Sahuaro (1-0).

To put things in perspective, Cienega and Sabino have each had two or fewer regular season losses in the same season four times in the last nine years, so if either were to fall tonight it would be significant.

The apparel choices for the discerning UA football fan are many, as long as it involves red or blue.

For students, you can go with the standard-issue Zona Zoo shirts provided as part of your club membership (but remember that, if you walk out of Arizona Stadium early while wearing a tee that states "Zona Zoo Stays The Entire Game" on the back is like having your back bedazzled with a Kick Me sign) or you can try to be a fashionista and turn said shirt into a dress, a skirt, a tube top — still waiting for the homemade thong to pop up at some point — to show your support for the Wildcats.

It's a little more simple for us adults, though. The choices usually are just a matter of which of our many red or blue UA-themed tops clog our closets.

But thanks to the almighty Nike, you can also include "dress like head coach Rich Rodriguez and his stable of like-dressed assistants and interns do on the sidelines" in your options.

As long as you're willing to cough over the ridiculous prices quoted for what's basically a polo and an adjustable hat:

I'm sure there are some nice perks to donning these swanky threads on game day. Maybe you'll be mistaken for a graduate assistant — assuming you're wearing the requisite khakis, which amazingly haven't been co-opted by Nike and released for sale — and get to roam the sidelines with RichRod and his band of ">merry Hard edge cowboy coaches.

You might also get to help influence the color choice of the man himself, since apparently (Fake) RichRod is notoriously uncertain about whether to go red, blue or white and often takes to Twitter to gauge public opinion:

Happy shopping, folks! Pardon me while I abstain, partly for the desire to not have to wear polos unless absolutely necessary and also as part of my ongoing protest due to the ridiculous fact that the red UA baseball jerseys still aren't for sale.

For most people, last Friday's UA football season opener against Northern Arizona was about seeing what the second season under Rich Rodriguez would bring for the Wildcats' long-suffering, Rose Bowl-less fan base. How would RichRod replace the versatile Matt Scott at quarterback? Would the defense continue to resemble a gold sifting pan with oversized holes?

In that respect, the 35-0 win over NAU went at least part of the way toward allaying some of these concerns, although not to the point that flights to and hotels in Pasadena for Jan. 1 are being booked. Yet.

For me, though, Friday night was much less about the on-field performance and far more about the gamenight experience. Namely, how would my butt and elbows enjoy the seatbacks and armrests that I paid extra for by upgrading to the new North End Zone seating.

The price tag for two seats in the lower half of Arizona Stadium's $72 million upgrade cost me $100 more than the just-fine seats in the northeast corner of the mezzanine I had in 2012 (despite getting two less uses of the seats this year, thanks to only six home games compared to eight last year), so I have been anxiously waiting for the chance to truly sample the merchandise.

And, despite the annoying-as-f*ck light rain that fell throughout the game — resulting in copious amounts of spilled food on the stairway just to my right — I give the overall enjoyment of the new seating situation an A-minus. But the seats themselves contributed to only a fraction of this rating.

I'd previously done a quick walkthru of the North End Zone project in August, but at that time only the seats were complete. The concession areas were still under construction, so I didn't know for certain what to expect. And boy was I surprised.

There's an expansive area for lines to build up as you wait for the main food/drink windows, where the standard plain hot dogs, nachos and sodas are complimented with a varied menu that includes several different weiner options (get your mind out of the gutter, people), including Sonoran and Chicago-style varieties. There's also sweet potato fries, if regular ol' freedom fries don't do it for you.

The real surprises came from the ancillary concessions, though. Around the corner from the main food spot is a Pinkberry frozen yogurt outfit, which appeared to do a brisk business Friday. Whether that was influenced by people trying to stay out of the rain or just because Tucsonans love them some fruit-covered frozen treats, I'm not sure. I was too in awe of what, after I first noticed it, I considered my own private mini-mart.

The Red-Blue Market, tucked into a little hole in the concrete foundation holding up the club-level suites and ultra-elite Sands Club that is the North End Zone's main cash cow, is like an oasis of simpletude in a desert of ballpark food. There's pre-packaged sandwiches, salads, sushi (!) and fruit and yogurt parfaits, not to mention a selection of fancy beverages like Fruit Water and coconut milk.

Until Friday I didn't know that some strawberries, granola and yogurt was all it took to make the World's First (and only) Alternative Marching Band sound interesting.

Add in the openness of the concourse and you've got yourself a nice, relaxing, all-inclusive game experience. The seats, themselves, are cool, too.

It's worth noting that more than 8,000 people came out to Kino Stadium last Thursday for what most certainly will be the final minor league baseball game in Tucson in quite some time. It was a nice gesture from the local baseball faithful, although a backhanded compliment all the same because the attendance figure was nearly thrice the average turnout for this final season.

But the Tucson Padres now officially are a part of this community's sad professional sports history after they wrapped up the 2013 regular season earlier today, scoring twice in the top of the ninth to beat division champ Las Vegas 4-3 in Sin City.

Miles Mikolas closes out the 9th! Padres win 5-4!
— TucsonPadres (@TucsonPadres) September 2, 2013

The game drew nearly 5,100 fans for a day game in a city with at least 438 better things to do at that point in time (sleeping in not included).

It's unclear at this point if Jay Zucker, a one-time owner of Tucson's Triple-A franchise, will resurrect his independent league Tucson Toros club after the hiatus it took during the T-Pads' tenure at Kino Stadium (not to mention the University of Arizona's takeover of Hi Corbett Field as it's own). If that happens, we will technically be a pro sports city again. Technically.

The better bet is that, sometime in the next five to 10 years, the currently amateur level FC Tucson soccer club will ascend to a level of U.S. Soccer that includes professionals. Keep your fingers crossed, pro sports fans.