Arizona football: Pac-12 approached Wildcats with possibility of playing a conference game in Australia

Could we see Arizona play in Australia in the future? It's been talked about

The Arizona Wildcats are preparing to host the Hawaii Warriors this Saturday — the same Hawaii team that has seemingly traveled the entire globe to start its season.

If you recall, one of Hawaii's lengthy trips was over 5,000 miles to Sydney, Australia, where it opened the college football season against the California Golden Bears.

It was the first college football game played in Australia since 1987, and there’s a strong chance we’ll be seeing more held there in the future.

In fact, according to UA head coach Rich Rodriguez, the Pac-12 approached Arizona about playing a conference game in Sydney.

"I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say this or not...[the Pac-12] approached us about playing a game either next year or the year after with a league opponent — I think it was maybe Colorado — in Australia to open up [the season] kind of like Cal did," Rodriguez said Monday at his weekly press conference.

There are a lot of benefits involved with playing in Australia — including recruiting benefits, television exposure, and revenue opportunities — but Rodriguez doesn't think he'd be up for a lengthy trip like that and made it clear that it's not in the cards moving forward.

"I didn't want to give up a home game and then I heard it was a 16-hour flight and I was like 'eh, maybe not,'" Rodriguez said. "That's a long flight. I'll talk to Hawaii coaches and see what they thought of it. I think it probably was a neat venue and from what I understand they did a great job of hosting the two teams and it was a pretty neat environment."

"But we don't have anything planned in the future."

What do you think? Should Arizona entertain the idea of playing a game in Australia?

You can follow this author on Twitter at @RKelapireUA

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