The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/12984...all/page/6

And the most recent comments from AAMUs AD about the new stadium @ ASU has just made this year even more intense

@BamaState 33: Sports fans get territorial at times when it comes to rivalries from a geographical standpoint, everyone concerned thinks their favorite team belongs either on that "top 10" or "most underrated" list of this subject. If you read some of the responses to that article, you'll get a more vivid understanding, some readers are pretty hot at being left off.

That one word, as we have learned in recent weeks leading up to the regular season, "rivalry", seems to have a special meaning to different sports fans, some tend to feel that certain matchups with their favorite teams aren't worthy of the consideration or overrated, others tend to feel otherwise for a variety of reasons, personal effect is among them(KU & Mizzou may not mean a hill of beans on the east coast, but it sure as hell is a big deal to midwesterners). There is no way that Alabama State & Alabama A&M is not a rivalry in the true sense of the word, but given that you have attended one of the aforementioned, how high would you rate the level of intensity of this rivalry? Reason I asked that is because in my past encounters with the majority of fans of both schools, not nearly enough emphasis is put on the game or players, even if it has post season rammifications.

Help me to "see" it through the eyes of a Hornets fan. If it's okay, I'd like to post a list of my favorite rivalries (or those I percieve to be) in college football at some time this evening. I like a thread that stirs up a healthy debate. Good on you for bringing this up.

Oh, by the way...What did the AAMU AD say about y'all's new stadium? I can't wait to learn... (& I keep getting warnings before being able to post that your subject line is 2-3 characters too long. When you get a chance, do a "full edit" & please delete a couple of them. Tks.)

Expected it to be a BleacherReport link. Was not disappoint.

@BamaState33: My favorite/most underrated football rivalries:
UAB - Troy
UAB - Southern Miss
Utah - Utah State
Navy - Army

@ Matrix you're right the rivalry wasn't intense at all prior to 1998. For years due to the fact that Bama State was D-1AA(SWAC) and AAMU was D-2(SIAC) the MCC was nothing more than the best fashion show/class&family reunion at LF. For an 8-year stretch ASU dominated and won by 21the or more. What changed this and the MCC was first, AAMUs move to the SWAC which made the MCC not only a conference game but also a divisional game. But the intensity really picked up October 1998. During that season, we came into the game with a record of 1-6 while AAMU came into it with a surprising record of 4-3 in their first year in the SWAC. AAMU was predicted to beat the hell out of us and for 3 quarters they did. We went into the 4th quarter down 28-0, and the entire East side of LF was rocking and AAMUs entire fan bas was chanting "hit the road jack". But we went on to score 28 unanswered points in the 4th while our band played "Jesus Is Real" for what seemed like the entire 4th quarter. We pushed the game to OT and won 34-28. If you know anything about the MCC you know that tailgating lasts from Wednesday through Sunday but that night the entire East side of LF cleared out. That morning i remember waking up and turning to NBC to hear the announcement that AAMU had just fired their head coach. From that point forward the MCC took off. Attendance has jumped from 50,000 to 68,000-70,000 a year. It has gone from just another HBCU event to the premier HBCU event. It has surpassed the Bayou Classic and the Florida Classic as the number 1 HBCU football game in the country. And the rivalry is intense of the field, between the fans, and between the bands. Since 98 AAMU has had the upper hand but 9 games within the last 13 years have been decided by 6-points or less. There was a time you could go to the MCC and could hear a pin drop but now the stadium is rocking, crowd noise is deafening and add the bands to it, the atmosphere is electric to say the least.

(09-08-2012 07:12 PM)Matrix Wrote:  Oh, by the way...What did the AAMU AD say about y'all's new stadium? I can't wait to learn... (& I keep getting warnings before being able to post that your subject line is 2-3 characters too long. When you get a chance, do a "full edit" & please delete a couple of them. Tks.)

Well this bag of lard first bragged about the fact that AAMU has had their own OCS since 1997. Then he went on and said that a stadium wouldn't change the fact that they've beaten us 8 out of the last 10 years, and that we were late to the OCS stadium party. That really has our fanbase pi$$ed right now.

But to be honest I dont think we have the mist intense rivalry in our own conference. When you talk about HBCU football games Southern vs Jackson State is the game. I would have ranked them way ahead of us because their rivalry has always been intense. They sellout Jackson Memorial Stadium and for SU's home game they sellout the Independence Bowl.