Geography and history make those others rivals, and they manage to schedule annual games. There has to be annual games for any real rivalry to exist. Not sure either schools, especially ECU, wants that, thus we are not their rivals no matter how much we may want to be.
Both ECU and App have agreed to schedule us.
Iām not going to argue with you. The facts are there and I think youāll find you are in an extreme minority with your opinion.
We have 1, ONE, home and home series with both schools in the next 7 years, the App one is done next year and wonāt conceivably return until 2025 at the earliest.
That is not an ON THE FIELD rivalry, but then some of us guys still think Cincy is our rival soā¦
We can all stroke it when we win a game against them or pull in a recruit, but they are not our rivals till we play each other at least more than 4 times in a decade.
By your definition above the Tarholes and Duke are our football rivals too now.
We arenāt scheduled to play App or ECU that much. Ok, great.
Iāve been at both App AND ECU basketball games where they rushed the court for beating us. While the football rivalry might be in its infancy, weāve been playing them (read: OWNING THEM) in basketball for decades. The geographic overlap NA mentions is huge, since most of them have to come to CLT to get jobs.
There are a lot of their fans here, they have traditionally shown well for athletic competition in other sports, and for some reason, App is obsessed with us, and ECU still has some little brother syndrome of its own. They are much more natural rivalries than ODU. If you want to obsess over ODU, have at it, but NA is right, you are in an extreme minority. The fact that our infantile football program has only had limited interactions with the programs does not make them any less likely to be long term true rivals as opposed to something manufactured because it suits your fancy.
Just wait until ODU beats the crap out of us and leaves the ātrophyā on the field. We will look like real winners then.
OK, f*** a trophy, seems this has devolved into just rivalry talk anyway and weāre all too cool for rivalry trophies anyway these days even though the UConn/UCF trophy thing is mind-boggling in the first place, got it.
Again, we practically play ECU every year in menās basketball, but do WE consider them our basketball rivals? You guys complain when no one comes to our conference games but when we try to come up with ways to juice it up itās āmanufacturingā a conference rival.
You donāt want to be ODUās rivals, thatās fine. Who in CUSA do you aspire to beat every year then? Make that your rivalry focus. Some of you think the AAC has us on speed dial and CUSA is a layover. Weāll see in 20 years if thatās the case or not. I hope not, but Iām not a betting man and the odds are too long. I think youāre going to be seeing the same schools we are now in the 2039 football season and weād all better hope those games begin to mean something to the fans.
I donāt think a rivalry with App or ECU can be real until we beat them. Sure there is mutual dislike, but not the seething, it hurts in your bones kind of hate that comes from living with the knowledge that we sent them home to their hillbilly/swine farming campuses with nothing but a Bojangleās voucher for dinner. That is when it will be real.
Nugget is right. Thatās how rivalries start. Iām not saying App or ECU is our rival now.
And Iād be fine being rivals with ODU, but it has to be organic. If we had a couple of years where we snatched bowl opportunities away from one another in a tit for tat type back and forth, I think it would happen. Thatās how this stuff works.
If we are going to pick a team out of a hat, So. Miss is probably a better pick since we are .500 against them. But even at that, I donāt think we feel like there is much of a rivalry there and neither do they.
We donāt play So.Miss every year in conference play though. We may not see them on the schedule again for 6 years.
Weāve been playing football in CUSA for only a few years and it is a different conference then when we had rivals in basketball.
I think the more competitive the program gets you will start to see rivalries unfold. Fact of the matter in the grand scheme of things MTSU, WKU, Marshall, and ODU could all be considered geographical rivals. When your driving 5 hours to Marshall and ODU whats another 1.5-2 hours for MTSU and WKU. Thereās no point in forcing one over the other. Just let the program and conference develop and I think you will see some of these rivalries unfold.
Better if in same state and close by. No thanks on ODU.
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I think if youāve got to ask the question āwho should our rival be?ā then we shouldnāt (yet) have a ārivalā. Picking a nearby CUSA team just for the sake of calling them a rival is asinine. You have to let those things occur organically.
To me, the 2 closest things weāve had happen to help stoke the burgeoning embers of a rivalry (in football) is MTSU doing beer-league stunts to run the score up on us a couple years back and us knocking FAU out of bowl eligibility this year after Kiffin said he didnāt even watch tape on us to prep for last years game.
Both those kinds of disrespectful moves can help create a rivalry, but it remains to be seen if either of those turn into anything. You canāt actively make a decision of ā[X] is our rival now.ā
If we are gonna pick a rival, can we at least choose a top 5 team? Clemson seems like a natural rivalry. Letās do that and start this upcoming year.
Sorry, Clemson is not qualified, they are out-of-state and nearly in Georgia.
I can overlook that when choosing rivalries.
Is a Clemson rivalry better than an ODU rivalry?
Doesnāt matter, they are out-of-state and too far away, but Gardner-Webb is pretty close and weāre currently .500 with them. Plus we are about to play them in a third game soā¦ORGANIC RIVAL!
No thanks. I choose Clemson.
Good luck getting the reciprocation on that relationship.
Not their choice
All this dialogue tells me is we gotta get outta this league and into a league that has some other schools that offers some hate to our fan base.
This is silly. You donāt āselectā a team you want to be rivals with and ācreateā a rivalry.
Rivalries grow from a common hatred of each other on the field. And YESā¦proximity plays a HUGE factor. What are the biggest rivalries in sports at every level? AL Brown vs Concordā¦Duke vs UNCā¦Kentucky vs Louisvilleā¦Boston vs New Yorkā¦Clemson vs South Carolinaā¦Alabama vs Auburnā¦
The proximity makes it personal. The hatred comes from the need for bragging rights over that personal rival.
Location matters just as much as the hatred in developing a rivalryā¦it does not come from someone just being on the schedule every year. Is FAU our rival? We play them every year, right?
You schedule a rival thatās not on the schedule to play every year because of the rivalry itself(see Davidson in basketball). You donāt find someone that you play every year and just call it a rivalry out of convenience.
Like it or notā¦App hates us for starting football and getting a D1 invite before them and before we ever played a down. We hate App because they have a sh!t ton of history and success that we feel we could have had if we had started football earlier. We HATE each other. They are close to us in proximity. Itās city vs country. Itās small school vs big school. Itās EVERYTHING a rivalry comes fromā¦so we should schedule them as such. Just like we do Davidson. There is some dislike for ECU and vice versa but nothing like the vitriol with the Appys.
If you have to create a rivalry that is not what a rivalry is about. A rivalry evolves. ECU could evolveā¦but I donāt see anything evolving in CUSA. THatās the problem with being in this conference. No one cares about any of the other teams. Literally.
In the early 2000ās out of nowhere the Cincy rivalry evolved in hoops because of hatredā¦and the fact that we didnāt let them bully us and we punked them a few timesā¦it also had the Queen city vs Queen city angle. If another one evolvesā¦fineā¦weāll see it when it does. Until thenā¦itās App in football without question.
Itās ridiculous to try to plan out and create a faux rivalry otherwise.