Growing rivalry between UCLA and Arizona State resumes Thursday

UCLA and Arizona State has become a thing.

Oh, there remain bigger football games for both teams. The Bruins will always loathe USC, first and foremost. And the Sun Devils aren’t allowed to lose the “Duel in the Desert” with Arizona, a rivalry that started in another century — the 19th (1899).

But UCLA and Arizona State has come to mean something: specifically, which team will represent the South Division in the Pac-12 Conference championship game.

The teams have gnawed at each other in wild games the last three seasons. Both brought in culture-changing coaches in 2012. Both have been to the Pac-12 championship game — UCLA twice and Arizona State once.

Neither team has advanced to the title game without winning this game.

This season, they meet earlier than usual — Thursday night in Tempe, Ariz. UCLA (3-0) comes in ranked No. 11 and Arizona (3-0 overall, 1-0 in Pac-12 play) is ranked No. 15.

The Bruins won in 2011 and 2012. The Sun Devils won last season.

Arizona State quarterback Mike Bercovici, who will be making his first college start, tried to stick to the party line this week, saying, “This is just another week where we’re breaking rocks.” But he also allowed, “When the schedule came out, this was the first game we circled.”

UCLA center Jake Brendel channeled Coach Jim Mora’s one-game-at-a-time mantra, saying, “Every game is the same to me. It’s just another chance to execute on the field.” But there was also this: “We’re talking about ASU. There is still a little bit of a sour taste because of what happened last year.”

Neither team is at full strength. There are issues with both at quarterback.

Arizona State’s Taylor Kelly, who terrorized the Bruins the last two seasons, suffered a foot injury and is out. The status of UCLA’s Brett Hundley is unknown; he suffered an injury to his left elbow against Texas on Sept. 13.

If Hundley can’t play, the Bruins are expected to go with Jerry Neuheisel, who led them to a win over Texas with two touchdown passes.

“This is what we live for,” UCLA linebacker Eric Kendricks said. “It’s high stakes any time we play Arizona State.”

That’s the recent history.

There was a time when the Bruins treated the Sun Devils like sand fleas. Arizona State joined the conference in 1979 and was winless in the first seven games in the series (0-6-1). A victory over the Bruins put the Sun Devils in the Rose Bowl after the 1986 season. They finished a half-game ahead of UCLA, which then won the next three meetings.

The series gained traction after the Pac-12 expanded in 2011 and split into divisions. Since then, one team or the other has played in the championship game.

“Every year this has been a dog fight,” Arizona State Coach Todd Graham said. “This game has come down to the last drive the last two years. … No other game on our schedule has been like that.”

It started in 2011, when NCAA penalties left USC ineligible to participate in the Pac-12 title game. The Sun Devils missed two late field-goal attempts, one on the game’s last play, and the Bruins danced on the Rose Bowl turf, celebrating a 29-28 victory. When Utah went paws up against Colorado in the season finale, UCLA was sent to the Pac-12 title game as USC’s proxy.

The UCLA-Arizona State game picked up speed when Mora and Graham — both edgy, defense-minded coaches — arrived on the scene in 2012.

UCLA won, 45-43, in 2012, when Ka’imi Fairbairn kicked a field goal on the last play. Arizona State got some payback last season, snuffing out the Bruins’ last drive in a 38-33 victory.

“That game could have changed a lot things around here,” UCLA linebacker Myles Jack said. “We could have gone to the Pac-12 championship game. We could have competed against Stanford. Yeah, I think about that game a lot. Every once in a while, I’ll go back and watch that game tape to see what I could have done better.”

This is UCLA’s Pac-12 opener, a big early step to getting back to the title game — and maybe beyond.

“You get into conference and the stakes get higher,” Jack said. “Not that any game is more important than any other game, but you got to win your division. After you win your division, you got to win your conference. And then, hopefully, you compete for the national title.”

chris.foster@latimes.com

Twitter: @cfosterlatimes