(05-19-2015 09:14 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(05-19-2015 08:58 AM)Seventyniner Wrote:  

(05-19-2015 08:27 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I never would give up wins. To me, the definition is this:

If you were to go 1-11, which team would you choose to be the 1?

I would go a step further and define a true rivalry as one where each of two teams/fan bases answer that question with the other.

So I wonder who is A$M's rival now? And UT's.

I think you forgot about Oklahoma for UT........ A&M, it's a little less clear, maybe LSU or Arkansas?

(05-19-2015 09:14 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(05-19-2015 08:58 AM)Seventyniner Wrote:  

(05-19-2015 08:27 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I never would give up wins. To me, the definition is this:

If you were to go 1-11, which team would you choose to be the 1?

I would go a step further and define a true rivalry as one where each of two teams/fan bases answer that question with the other.

So I wonder who is A$M's rival now? And UT's.

I imagine Texas and OK would still say each other.

I heard a report yesterday that A&M wants to schedule LSU for Thanksgiving.

(05-19-2015 09:20 AM)JSA Wrote:  

(05-19-2015 09:14 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(05-19-2015 08:58 AM)Seventyniner Wrote:  

(05-19-2015 08:27 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I never would give up wins. To me, the definition is this:

If you were to go 1-11, which team would you choose to be the 1?

I would go a step further and define a true rivalry as one where each of two teams/fan bases answer that question with the other.

So I wonder who is A$M's rival now? And UT's.

I imagine Texas and OK would still say each other.

I heard a report yesterday that A&M wants to schedule LSU for Thanksgiving.

I would think a lot of OU alums would put OSU ahead of UT. State braggin' rights are important

(05-19-2015 09:29 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(05-19-2015 09:20 AM)JSA Wrote:  

(05-19-2015 09:14 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(05-19-2015 08:58 AM)Seventyniner Wrote:  

(05-19-2015 08:27 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I never would give up wins. To me, the definition is this:

If you were to go 1-11, which team would you choose to be the 1?

I would go a step further and define a true rivalry as one where each of two teams/fan bases answer that question with the other.

So I wonder who is A$M's rival now? And UT's.

I imagine Texas and OK would still say each other.

I heard a report yesterday that A&M wants to schedule LSU for Thanksgiving.

I would think a lot of OU alums would put OSU ahead of UT. State braggin' rights are important

OSU would probably say OK.
I wonder if OK considers OSU a bigger rival than UT now.

(05-19-2015 09:38 AM)JSA Wrote:  

(05-19-2015 09:29 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(05-19-2015 09:20 AM)JSA Wrote:  

(05-19-2015 09:14 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(05-19-2015 08:58 AM)Seventyniner Wrote:  I would go a step further and define a true rivalry as one where each of two teams/fan bases answer that question with the other.

So I wonder who is A$M's rival now? And UT's.

I imagine Texas and OK would still say each other.

I heard a report yesterday that A&M wants to schedule LSU for Thanksgiving.

I would think a lot of OU alums would put OSU ahead of UT. State braggin' rights are important

OSU would probably say OK.
I wonder if OK considers OSU a bigger rival than UT now.

A lot of schools have more than one rival. I wonder who Oregon would list as rivals. Same for K-State and Iowa. Still, which one of several would most alums/fans of a given school list as the ONE game above all others they would want to win. I think for OU, there would be a split among UT, OSU, and maybe KSU.

But we don't really have a rivalry game, and in a lot of ways, never have. Who was our big rival in 1958? TCU? 1978? Baylor? 1998? BYU?

(05-19-2015 07:55 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I would say that UH is by miles and miles the closest thing we have to a "rival" today.

I wouldn't see anyone in CUSA as a rival today, or even anything remotely approaching one.

+1

(05-19-2015 09:29 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I would think a lot of OU alums would put OSU ahead of UT. State braggin' rights are important

No. OU doesn't like OSU when they play, but those schools have an in-state solidarity that is matched few other places. Rivals? Yes. Bitter rivals? Not so much, IMO.

OU wants to beat Texas. That's THE game for the Sooners, and it almost matters more than all of the others combined.

OU-Texas is one of the few truly special rivalries in college sports. OU-OSU and even UT-aTm pale significantly in comparison, albeit for different reasons.

I heard a story about a campaign manager in South Carolina. He told his candidate the first thing he had to do was declare for either Clemson or SC.
The fans of the school he did not choose would still respect him. But no one would if he waffled.

(05-19-2015 08:27 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I never would give up wins.

Nor would I. 11-1 is always better than 10-2. Might make an exception if the 11-1 was 7-1 in conference and the 10-2 was 8-0 in conference. But that's just a different permutation of the original thought. That's probably why I'm not that big into the whole rivalry thing.

In would prefer your formulation be stated slightly differently. If you go 11-1, who would you least like the 1 to be?

In football, the school I least want to lose to isn't a rival, it's whichever opponent is FCS or transitional. The loss to ODU rankles for that reason, not because of rivalry.

(05-19-2015 10:16 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  In would prefer your formulation be stated slightly differently. If you go 11-1, who would you least like the 1 to be?

Excellent question. For me, the answer would shift from UT to a conference rival, whoever would be our top competitor for the conference title. If we went 11-1, beat UT and BU, and did not win conference, that would leave a sour taste. Nobody likes a let down. It would also mean we lost a game we should have won, and I am tired of those.

Now let's rephrase one more time.

If you go 11-1, who would you prefer the 1 be?

I would think the choice would be between losing to the top-ranked OOC team, or an upset by an also-ran in the conference.

(05-19-2015 10:16 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I would prefer your formulation be stated slightly differently. If you go 11-1, who would you least like the 1 to be?

(05-19-2015 10:22 AM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  In football, the school I least want to lose to isn't a rival, it's whichever opponent is FCS or transitional. The loss to ODU rankles for that reason, not because of rivalry.

I'm with Frizzy. Nicholls State would top my answer list to Owl 69's question ... and I wouldn't consider them to be a true rival.

Ok then, a slight permutation on my earlier post. I think a true rivalry would involve each school being in the other's top 3 (at a minimum) of teams they most want to beat in any given year.

I agree that UH is Rice's biggest rival and there is no close 2nd. Rice is irrelevant to nearly every other school we would consider a "rival." Meanwhile, I saw a student on the UH campus with a red "Ruck Fice" shirt on just a few weeks ago.

Would Army rather go 1-11 and beat Navy or go 11-1 and lose to Navy (vice versa)?

(05-19-2015 11:20 AM)Seventyniner Wrote:  Ok then, a slight permutation on my earlier post. I think a true rivalry would involve each school being in the other's top 3 (at a minimum) of teams they most want to beat in any given year.

I agree that UH is Rice's biggest rival and there is no close 2nd. Rice is irrelevant to nearly every other school we would consider a "rival." Meanwhile, I saw a student on the UH campus with a red "Ruck Fice" shirt on just a few weeks ago.

You know it's a real rivalry because I saw those shirts at the UH/Temple game.

(05-19-2015 11:24 AM)JSA Wrote:  Would Army rather go 1-11 and beat Navy or go 11-1 and lose to Navy (vice versa)?

Here's an example:

In the mid 90's, OU was coached by John Blake. His first win at OU came against Texas. That single win guaranteed him three years on the job, even though his teams were otherwise quite obviously putrid.

That game is also what ultimately cost John Mackovic his job at Texas. At Texas, losing to OU is not acceptable; losing to perhaps the worst team OU has ever had was unthinkable, but it happened.

(05-19-2015 10:27 AM)Almadenmike Wrote:  

(05-19-2015 10:16 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I would prefer your formulation be stated slightly differently. If you go 11-1, who would you least like the 1 to be?

(05-19-2015 10:22 AM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  In football, the school I least want to lose to isn't a rival, it's whichever opponent is FCS or transitional. The loss to ODU rankles for that reason, not because of rivalry.

I'm with Frizzy. Nicholls State would top my answer list to Owl 69's question ... and I wouldn't consider them to be a true rival.

If we had gone 11-1 that year, I'd be perfectly happy for the 1 to have been Nicholls. Because that would have meant the we beat Baylor, Tech, Texas, Sou Miss, Houston, Memphis, Marshall, UTEP, SMU, Tulane, and of course Todd and Tulsa. I'd have been quite happy with that.

I'd probably prefer the 1 be a non-conference game, and probably not in a game that could be a signature win (whatever the hell that is). On that schedule, Nicholls is probably the best choice for the one loss.

Of course, we didn't go 11-1 that year. That is the problem.

(05-19-2015 10:27 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(05-19-2015 10:16 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  In would prefer your formulation be stated slightly differently. If you go 11-1, who would you least like the 1 to be?

Excellent question. For me, the answer would shift from UT to a conference rival, whoever would be our top competitor for the conference title. If we went 11-1, beat UT and BU, and did not win conference, that would leave a sour taste. Nobody likes a let down. It would also mean we lost a game we should have won, and I am tired of those.
Now let's rephrase one more time.
If you go 11-1, who would you prefer the 1 be?
I would think the choice would be between losing to the top-ranked OOC team, or an upset by an also-ran in the conference.

Would a fair summary be that we don't have a rival?

I answered your question separately but will recap here. Non-conference game rather than conference game. And not a potential signature win. Looking at 2007, that actually points to Nicholls as the game I would have preferred if there were only going to be one loss. Of course, the problem is that there were way more losses. Let's start going 11-1 before worrying too much who the 1 is.

One thing that pops into mind is losing to TSU in the baseball regional. We came back and had the lead late in the championship game but couldn't hold it. We didn't lose because we lost to TSU, we lost because we couldn't close out a win. As I was watching that championship game, I was thinking it would be the perfect story if we lost to TSU but then came back to win the regional, and go on to Omaha and win again there.

Rivalries can be multi-legged. For instance, aTm considered UT their biggest rival but UT probably had a bigger rivalry with OU. In the NFL, the Vikings consider the Packers their biggest rival and it's a bitter rivalry but the Packers would say their biggest rival is the Bears.

So if UH is probably our biggest rival, who would UH consider to be their biggest rival?

(05-19-2015 10:27 AM)Almadenmike Wrote:  

(05-19-2015 10:16 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I would prefer your formulation be stated slightly differently. If you go 11-1, who would you least like the 1 to be?

(05-19-2015 10:22 AM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  In football, the school I least want to lose to isn't a rival, it's whichever opponent is FCS or transitional. The loss to ODU rankles for that reason, not because of rivalry.

I'm with Frizzy. Nicholls State would top my answer list to Owl 69's question ... and I wouldn't consider them to be a true rival.

+1 exactly.