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Greg Hansen Sunday Notebook : Black learns golf's secret Greg Hansen : Tubac's 'Triangle' a 'Wreck' for golfers Greg Hansen : First stop Indianapolis Greg Hansen : Historically, 44th draft picks have brief or no NBA history Greg Hansen Sunday Notebook : USC, O'Neill a good fit Greg Hansen : For Miller, hard work is a legacy from father Greg Hansen: El Rio's No. 8 tee shot is intimidating Greg Hansen : ASU's Tucson pipeline pumps as rich as ever Greg Hansen : Tucson's Tyler appears calm before the storm at Bethpage Greg Hansen : Friends for life reunite

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At the beginning of business hours Thursday, the UA had sold 47,048 tickets to Saturday's provocative Arizona-Oregon State football game. That's 10,000 unsold seats. That's both sad and absurd.

The same principal that has led to the demise of minor-league baseball, spring training, the Copper Bowl and Tucson's LPGA event applies.

Tucson is not going to fully support Wildcat football until the Wildcats are far better than 6-4 or unless the marquee says USC or ASU.

It is the same sort of I'm-not-going-to-get-involved approach that got Dick Tomey canned and led to a decade of losing football.

This game should be sold out, and you know it. It is not going to rain, and the game-time temperature is predicted to be 72 degrees. Heaven.

Our community offers a group shrug.

The two best stories in all of college football are Texas Tech vying for the national championship and Oregon State contending — leading — for the Rose Bowl.

Moreover, for the first time since 1998, Arizona is positioned to return to relevancy in college football. Beating the No. 21 Beavers springs open the door to all manner of long-awaited opportunity.

We are responding to it like the UA-Toledo game.

"With our fans, brand equity plays a big role,'' said UA senior associate athletic director Scott Mackenzie. "Oregon State's a much better football team than UCLA, but if we were playing UCLA this week we'd sell another 5,000 tickets.''

There is a sad parallel in Albuquerque.

Arizona conqueror Rocky Long resigned as New Mexico's football coach on Monday, eschewing a five-year, $4million contract, departing his alma mater and a program that went 9-4 last year and has played in five bowl games since 2002.

"If you want to compete with the big boys," he said, "you've got to act like it."

Long cited the lack of community support in Albuquerque, and for good reason; the Lobos played to just 74 percent capacity at University Stadium this year, averaging 29,713 fans in a metro area of about 800,000 people.

The UA can feel Rocky's pain. Albuquerque, meet Tucson. Apathy times two.

"It's hard to figure out why we don't get more support,'' said standout UA left tackle Eben Britton. "But people are a lot more excited than they were four years ago.''

Saturday's game is the culmination of Mike Stoops' five-year project. It is final exam time. If the Wildcats win, they are over the hump. Ticket scalpers should be overwhelmed.

Arizona ranks 40th nationally in attendance at 51,975 per game. That is a distant 51st overall in percentage of capacity (89.9 percent). Those are not attractive numbers in a valley that holds almost 1.1 million people.

"I assume they'll have a big crowd because it's a big game,'' Oregon State safety Greg Laybourn told the Oregonian newspaper.

News travels more s-l-o-w-l-y in the Old Pueblo.

MacKenzie and the UA marketing/ticket staff have applied unusually aggressive steps to grow a bigger crowd. They have discounted tickets to $15 and $9. They have offered an unprecedented $61 two-game package — with the ASU game, no less — that includes a $22 voucher for food and drink. They have even launched a telemarketing campaign.

They are treating it like a Sidewinders series against the Salt Lake Bees.

And yet 10,000 tickets remain.

"Our fans have hung in there with us,'' MacKenzie says. "We'd like to take it to the next level and sell it out, but realistically we might first have to go to a bowl game and win seven, eight, nine games a year.''

Cal was ranked in the Top 25 when it played here Oct. 18. Arizona was 4-2 and reaching for bigger things. The sun shone. A passing circus was in the forecast. A mere 48,372 attended.

This year, 32 Division I schools have experienced season sellouts; 100 percent capacity. Not all of them are big (or traditional) winners: East Carolina, Wake Forest, Rutgers, Arkansas.

Tucsonans have not exhibited staying power or patience. In 2000, the Wildcats returned home Nov. 11 to play 10th-ranked Oregon State. At 5-4, the Wildcats had spent part of the year in the Top 25; their losses were to No. 18 Ohio State, No. 7 Oregon, No. 8 Washington and UCLA by differentials of 3, 3, 4 and 10.

Only 44,109 attended that Oregon State game; the feeling was that the Wildcats could not score enough points to attract interest. So they forced Tomey to resign.

Today, Arizona is averaging a school-record 39.7 points. It is ranked No. 11 nationally in points.

And 10,000 seats remain unsold.

"Fans in Tucson finally have something to cheer for,'' wrote Paul Buker of the Oregonian.

And some of them might actually show up to do so.