Cleaning out the Inbox: Football Rivalry Edition

     The end of the college football season usually brings rivalry games and The Athletic took a week-long look at some of the rivalry stories that make the game so great.

We begin with the Slab of Bacon, a trophy fought for between Wisconsin and Minnesota from 1930 and 1942 but disappeared in 1943 before being found in a Wisconsin storage closet in 1994.

The odd thing about the disappearance was that when the slab was found, the scores on the trophy had been filled in up to the 1970 season.

To this day, no one knows how the trophy disappeared in 1943, who filled in the scores in 1970, or how the trophy wound up in the storage closet in the Wisconsin Sports Information Department.

This article covers the Iowa Hawkeyes' various football rivalries (and the Hawkeyes certainly seem to lead the nation in legitimate rivalries) with one Iowa memory or note for each school in their wheelhouse.

For my money, the Floyd of Rosedale trophy between Iowa and Minnesota is the best in the game with the Paul Bunyan's Axe between Wisconsin and Minnesota a close second.

One rivalry that is especially fierce but doesn't always come up as one of the more bitter battles is between Arizona and Arizona State, which will be taking its rivalry to its fourth conference next year when both schools join the Big 12.

The battle for the Territorial Cup started in 1899 between the Wildcats and Sun Devils but had been missing from 1970 until being found in a church vault in 1983.

The Cup still didn't become the official trophy until 2001 and even today, the actual cup is delivered quietly to the winning trophy a few days after the game.

A same-size replica is awarded to the winning team for the post-game celebrations.

You don't really think of Houston and Central Florida as rivals but the deeper that you dig into the common history of the space program, Houston and Orlando (the home of UCF) have been rivals for a long time.

This ESPN article goes over the facts and history of NASA and how it could eventually be part of a rivalry between the two Big 12 schools.

After reading this article, the potential for a rivalry seems strong as it seems that the space folks have some legitimate disdain for the other from each side.

And it wouldn't be a TRS post on trophies without mentioning the Civil Conflict trophy, the much-derided rivalry idea of former UConn head coach Bob Diaco for the Huskies and Central Florida, which the Knights had literally no interest in fighting over.

The trophy that UCF abandoned on the field after a 2016 win in the rain, has rarely been seen again but there is what some claim to be the trophy but it has some differences in font and wood, which has been attributed to the rain damage needing to be repaired from the 2016 "Conflict".

The article tells the story of how the trophy was acquired and kept by UCF, the school that wanted nothing to do with the trophy and rivalry in the first place!  

Pac 12 Collapses! Oregon, Washington to Big 10

   The family picture to the left is suddenly outdated as "Black Friday" hit the Pac-12 conference in one day the elite conference in the Western United States lost five of its members as Oregon and Washington agreed to join the Big 10 and Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah decided to leave to become the newest additions to the Big 12.

These moves combined with USC and UCLA's Big 10 relocation to the Big 10 that was announced last year for a 2024 arrival and the recent decision of Colorado to defect to the Big 12 leaves the Pac 12 with only California, Oregon State, Stanford, and Washington State as members in good standing past the 2023-24 athletic season.

One of the requests by USC, when they joined the Big 10, was that Oregon not receive a future invitation to the league but clearly either the Trojans were pacified or reluctantly pushed into tolerating the Ducks entry into the conference.

I'm not sure if I'm thrilled with the Ducks and Huskies entering the Big 10 and while I do think it is ridiculous for travel and especially for the non-revenue sports, in the current climate it was a move that the Big 10 almost had to make.

The Pac-12's two most recent commissioners have made mistake after mistake with their television contracts and have basically sat the conference on a ticking time bomb that would eventually blow up.

I understand why the Big 10 wanted Oregon and Washington as the game continues down a path of two conferences that essentially separates the sport between North (Big 10) and South (SEC) with the Big 12 and ACC as fun lesser leagues with a few notable schools that can compete at the national level.

And while I don't either team will struggle in the Big Ten, I'm not sure that Washington will be more than a middle to occasional upper level such as Iowa in the league, I could see Oregon with their Nike money behind them becoming a top five league presence, although not perhaps a title contender every season.

It is a bit ironic that after dumping divisional play in the conference for next year, the Big 10 may have to return to divisions before they were even phased out.

Eighteen is a very clumsy number and doesn't fit well into a full league or schedule setup, so it is very possible the league could be forced into a two-division/nine-team alignment, which might be more to my liking anyway when you consider the four Pac 12 newcomers would bolster the western division.

My divisional setup;

East: Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, Maryland, Rutgers, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois

West: Wisconsin, Iowa, Northwestern, Minnesota, Nebraska, USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington

I actually kinda like that and if you really wanted to make the Big 10 title game worthwhile, there is a way to do so.

Play eight games in your division and play the ninth against a team that finished in the same place as your team did in the previous season in the other division.

Or use the ninth game as a semi-final for the Big 10 title game with the other teams playing 3rd vs 3rd, 4th vs 4th, and so on.

Using this setup, only one rivalry would be lost (Illinois vs Northwestern) and if you really pushed creatively, you could make sure they played much as possible (perhaps making that game automatic, if the two teams were within two or three places of each other in the standings) and you would save the special aspect for the traditionalist, along with the different matchups on the next to last week of the season.

The Big Ten likely has an end game of twenty teams and while they would love the academic cache' that Stanford would bring, California would be a Rutgers-like drag on the conference, and taking both would also take away the long-term pining that eventually they would land Notre Dame.

As for the Big 12, well they did very well for themselves as they grabbed some gold for their league.

Utah brings a solid top-twenty program and returns their rivalry game with BYU to a conference battle,

Arizona offers an elite-level basketball school to what is arguably the best basketball conference in the country.

Arizona State is always thought of as a potential giant with the right coach and commitment and Colorado will add lots of attention as long as Deion Sanders is the coach there.

All four make the Big 12 stronger and while they lack a top-of-the-league power such as Clemson or potentially Florida State and Miami, what they possess is many schools with breakout potential and what I think is the most competitive league in the nation, top to bottom.

As for the remaining four Pac-12 schools, Oregon State and Washington State appear to be headed for the Mountain West unless the American decides to make a move but even so, the Mountain West is a better geographic fit with Boise State as a built-in immediate rival for both schools.

Hopefully, both schools will be able to keep their in-state rivalry games intact and it does seem that there is a willingness to do so.

Stanford and Cal are different cases.

Stanford as noted earlier would have some appeal to the Big 10 but not at the cost of adding Cal and I could see them trying out independence in hopes of the Big 10 adding down the road.

As for Cal, I could see Cal deciding to de-emphasize athletics and dropping down to a lower level or at least maybe 1-AA for football only. 

In neither of those schools, do I see them going to the Mountain West (academics) or the American (same and travel), if the Big 10 wanted them, a bid would have been offered already, and the Big 12 isn't a fit on many fronts.

The ACC could make sense in theory with Stanford and Cal academic-wise but just imagine the travel costs for those two schools.

Does the logistics of adding those two add up to being worth either party's while?

Only the grant of rights held by the ACC is holding that league together as the ACC would love North Carolina and Virginia with Georgia Tech, Miami, and Duke as possibilities and the SEC would covet Clemson, Florida State, and North Carolina, although I could see the SEC picking up N.C. State in the event that North Carolina would be unavailable.

The real certainty is that college football is changing to a national sport rather than a regional sport with occasional national interests and while the sport continues to evolve, its changes aren't going to stop anytime soon.

15 College Football Games that should be happening! 11-15

Today on conference championship
Saturday, I wanted to start our three-part series on games in college football that should be happening, but are not on a consistent basis.

A few parameters:
First, some of these games are actually scheduled or even have happened in the last year or so.
However, our argument is that they should be on schedules every year or at least every other year and either home and home or at a neutral site that would make sense.

Second, there are some schools that either are playing would be rivals already or simply don't have a suitable school in line to play, but some have multiples that would make sense.
For the purposes of this series, a school can be only used twice on the list.

11) Arkansas vs Arkansas State
A rivalry that has the potential to be a great one, but has never happened because of a long-standing policy by the Razorbacks to refuse to play in-state opponents in any sport.
The Red Wolves have become a perennial powerhouse in the Sun Belt with a parade of coaches that move up to the next level with success such as Gus Malzahn, Bryan Harsin, Hugh Freeze, and their current coach Blake Anderson is likely to join that list soon.
Arkansas is a small state that could gain by these two teams playing each other and I get the Razorbacks would have more to lose in the short term, but in the long run, this game could be a huge help to both schools.
Added bonus points, if they play the game in the above pictured (somewhat ) neutral field in Little Rock!

12) Cincinnati vs Louisville
These two schools have played each other often through the years, 53 times in fact, and played for a trophy as well- the Keg of Nails.
These teams moved together through four conferences through the years, building a great rivalry with the cities connected by I-71 and it ended by one thing-conference realignment.
Both the Bearcats and Cardinals tried to get into the ACC after the Big East breakup (the football schools formed the American Athletic with the basketball schools staying in the Big East), but only Louisville managed to get there and the series was last played in 2013 in the last season before the Cardinals joined the ACC.
I know Louisville has one rivalry in non-conference play (Kentucky), but Cincinnati doesn't- this one really needs to return...

13) Akron-Youngstown State
The only all smaller school game on the list, these teams used to be heated rivals from nearby cities and also played for a trophy- the Steel Tire incorporating the two manufacturing items that the cities were known for.
There is, even more reason for heat between the schools dating back to the late '90s (the last game between the two was 1995) when Youngstown State applied for MAC membership and was denied in favor of Marshall ( who left after a few years) and Buffalo.
Perception is that Akron and Kent State were involved to keep 1-AA Youngstown State from moving to D-I for recruiting reasons adds to the discontent and the resulting decision by the MAC to refuse to have their schools play road games at 1-AA schools to keep 1-AA schools from appearing to be at the same level killed the series.
Either with YSU in Division One or not (and there really isn't a lot of difference between the MAC and the better 1-AA schools other than depth), these teams should be playing each other.

14) Arizona-New Mexico
The neighboring Wildcats and the Lobos hooked it up every year for the Kit Carson Rifle from 1920-77 until Arizona joined the then Pac 10.
The two have played just six times (two of the six were bowl games) since then, most recently a 45-37 Arizona win in the 2015 New Mexico Bowl, haven't played in the regular season since 2008 and neither appear on each other's schedule in the future.
This article tells more about the history of the rivalry that was and should be again.
Each though has options for a cool non-conference rivalry if they REALLY don't want to play each other.
Arizona could establish a series against San Diego State (recruiting hotbed) or UNLV (neighboring state), while New Mexico could try Arizona State or go to their state to the east and try Texas Tech or even better- former WAC rival UTEP in what could be a fun series of games.

15) Tennessee-Virginia Tech
The Vols and the Hokies played just last year inside the Bristol Motor Speedway and it was a huge success.
I'm not sure if the speedway would want to make this an annual thing, but it would be a great thing to have these two play a schedule where every three years, each team gets a home game and Bristol gets the third game.
Bristol is halfway between both schools, neither has a non-conference rival (VT had rivals become conference games when they joined the ACC and they do have a game with West Virginia, but I have other plans for the Mountaineers later), it boosts the power rating with a Power five team every year.
This works all the way around...

These games just missed, so here are some honorable mention games in no particular order
Miami vs Florida- They do play each other every few years and it seems possible they could play even more in the future.

Nebraska-Colorado- Former Big 8/12 rivals renew a rivalry that was quite torrid in the Bill McCartney years in Boulder.

Notre Dame-Purdue- The battle for the Shillelagh Trophy was a casualty of the Irish's deal with the ACC to play five ACC opponents a year.

California-San Jose State or Fresno State-  Cal played San Jose all the time from 1962-1996, but the northern California schools haven't played since despite being just 45 minutes away from each other.
Fresno State is under three hours away, but yet have only played the Golden Bears three times and if they played now, it would be quite interesting with former Cal coach Jeff Tedford turning the Bulldog program around.

Houston-TCU- Former SWC rivals and former group of five bullies (TCU formerly, Houston currently) from the two biggest cities in Texas (TCU is in Fort Worth, but I'll still count it!) would make an interesting series and could incorporate their games against SMU into some type of three-game series for a trophy...

I'll have the Big Ten title game coverage later and look for part two of this later this week!