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I took a deeper look into all the schedules for the C-USA members looking at the last game of the season. Which is for 99% of college football deemed, "Rivalry Week", to see if C-USA put any emphasis on creating rivalries within the conference. Geography is probably the biggest natural factor that creates a rivalry.

Last games of the season. (Bold is teams in relative close proximity)
Rice at Stanford
La. Tech at Southern Miss
WKU at Marshall
FAU at MTSU
Charlotte at UTSA
North Texas at UTEP
FIU at ODU

Some games make sense, but why is ODU not playing Charlotte? FIU vs FAU? And I believe WKU has a natural rivalry with MTSU. I know it never works out perfectly but I feel like C-USA could have done a better job with this. No wonder the TV packages are dropping, if you think of it from a product standpoint its a sparse conference with no good rivalries and only a few good teams. And the league is not doing anything to fix this.

Unfortunately, we don't play Louisiana Tech in football this year. They are the nail to our hammer.

we've ended our season with one of the FLA schools each of the last 2 years and this one coming up. maybe CUSA is trying to cram them down our throat and force a rivalry. personally I hate having both of those schools in our conference.

How can you have a rivalry when the fans of the opposing school would not make the trip to the game?

After least season...It would not wound me to beat the living crap out of FAU.

Hate to say it, but we either need the AAC (ECU and Navy) or JMU if we are going to have a real rivalry. MAYBE Charlotte has some long term potential, but as someone said earlier, opposing fans and inane hatred are needed. As much as I hate Louisiana Tech, WKU, and MTSU, I know not a single person that went to any of those schools. I don't even know anyone that went to UNCC. Come to think of it, out of all the other schools in the conference I know a single person that went to Rice and she stayed in Houston.

I do not know anyone personally that went to any other CUSA school. I know a ton that went to VCU, JMU, VT and UVA as I 'm sure a lot of us do. I do have some friends that went to ECU and they would be a natural rivalry. other than them, I don't know anyone that went to any of the other AAC schools. that guy from temple that posts on here sometimes is really annoying so I kind of hate them a little.

(05-03-2016 09:27 AM)ODU_NYG Wrote:  I do not know anyone personally that went to any other CUSA school. I know a ton that went to VCU, JMU, VT and UVA as I 'm sure a lot of us do. I do have some friends that went to ECU and they would be a natural rivalry. other than them, I don't know anyone that went to any of the other AAC schools. that guy from temple that posts on here sometimes is really annoying so I kind of hate them a little.

You don't know anyone that went to Navy?

ODU and Navy will never be a rivalry. It's a service academy, they have there own rivals. Besides, who would feel good about hating the Naval Academy unless you are Army or Air Force?

"Hey guys, lets go beat the tar out of those guys that defend our country! Scumbags!"

(05-03-2016 09:37 AM)Gilesfan Wrote:  ODU and Navy will never be a rivalry. It's a service academy, they have there own rivals. Besides, who would feel good about hating the Naval Academy unless you are Army or Air Force?

"Hey guys, lets go beat the tar out of those guys that defend our country! Scumbags!"

you'd have to think it would be a big draw here for home games.

(05-03-2016 09:43 AM)ODU_NYG Wrote:  

(05-03-2016 09:37 AM)Gilesfan Wrote:  ODU and Navy will never be a rivalry. It's a service academy, they have there own rivals. Besides, who would feel good about hating the Naval Academy unless you are Army or Air Force?

"Hey guys, lets go beat the tar out of those guys that defend our country! Scumbags!"

you'd have to think it would be a big draw here for home games.

I don't know, maybe? I only know a couple guys that went to the Naval Academy and they don't care about football. The people that didn't go to the Academy certainly don't care. But, maybe there are some out there that do.

I assume drawing well and rivalry are two different things.

(05-03-2016 09:47 AM)Gilesfan Wrote:  

(05-03-2016 09:43 AM)ODU_NYG Wrote:  

(05-03-2016 09:37 AM)Gilesfan Wrote:  ODU and Navy will never be a rivalry. It's a service academy, they have there own rivals. Besides, who would feel good about hating the Naval Academy unless you are Army or Air Force?

"Hey guys, lets go beat the tar out of those guys that defend our country! Scumbags!"

you'd have to think it would be a big draw here for home games.

I don't know, maybe? I only know a couple guys that went to the Naval Academy and they don't care about football. The people that didn't go to the Academy certainly don't care. But, maybe there are some out there that do.

I assume drawing well and rivalry are two different things.

I'm going on the assumption that since there is a gigantic Navy base down the road plus a ton of military in general in the immediate area, it would drum up a lot of interest. I also am assuming that the Navy would want to have some sort of event planned for when the naval academy comes here. two big assumptions I guess...you're right in that it wouldn't automatically equal a rivalry. it would take an annual game against them for that to develop.

When we hosted Navy in wrestling at the Ted this year, their alumni association bought over 300 tickets and close to half the crowd was supporting Navy, and there were 1,200 in attendance. A rivalry, maybe or maybe not, but attendance from Navy supporters I think would be there if we ever host them in basketball or football. Sometimes rivalries happen naturally between the fans and not the players when the opponent has a large contingent at the game and the contest is competitive. So in that case it might be more likely to happen with an opponent like Navy that could have a couple thousand fans in the stands. The wrestling match got pretty heated a couple times just with a small portion of the Ted filled.

Rivalries take time to develop. We are just now beginning to feel some disdain towards MTSU, and rightfully so, but do they feel the same way about us? I wouldn't be too sure.

VCU has moved on to bigger and better things, and they view us the same way we view JMU. If JMU can catch up, then sure that would be a rivalry reborn. But until they are conference mates then I doubt it will be there. I also doubt JMU will be that significant of a rival if they join Sun Belt or some other conference we aren't in. Conference games count for so much more.

Marshall and Charlotte are our best bets at the moment - both being 6+ hours away unfortunately. Proximity would really help with a rival since seeing opposing fans can also garner some emotion. It's kind of tough to get excited about an FAU game that will have 100 of their fans in attendance.

Does moving to the AAC really change much? We would get ECU again, and being 2 hours away would help with the intermingling of fans that we need. I don't really see how any other team in that conference would become our rival if Marshall and Charlotte haven't done it for us yet either.

I could easily see a rivalry with Temple flare up, especially if it's a good back-and-forth series. The drive to Temple is similar to a drive to UNCC/Marshall anyways.

Also, as said before, the ODU/Navy games would generate a ton of local interest, at least in Norfolk. Might generate more interest than the VT@ODU games if you ask me.

After that, who knows. We've got a budding rivalry with La Tech of all schools, so it's anyone's guess what could happen.

(05-03-2016 11:22 AM)odu09 Wrote:  Rivalries take time to develop. We are just now beginning to feel some disdain towards MTSU, and rightfully so, but do they feel the same way about us? I wouldn't be too sure.

VCU has moved on to bigger and better things, and they view us the same way we view JMU. If JMU can catch up, then sure that would be a rivalry reborn. But until they are conference mates then I doubt it will be there. I also doubt JMU will be that significant of a rival if they join Sun Belt or some other conference we aren't in. Conference games count for so much more.

Marshall and Charlotte are our best bets at the moment - both being 6+ hours away unfortunately. Proximity would really help with a rival since seeing opposing fans can also garner some emotion. It's kind of tough to get excited about an FAU game that will have 100 of their fans in attendance.

Does moving to the AAC really change much? We would get ECU again, and being 2 hours away would help with the intermingling of fans that we need. I don't really see how any other team in that conference would become our rival if Marshall and Charlotte haven't done it for us yet either.

Somebody tried to get the flames going last year on Reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/3d...?limit=500

(05-03-2016 11:50 AM)GhentFan Wrote:  

(05-03-2016 11:22 AM)odu09 Wrote:  Rivalries take time to develop. We are just now beginning to feel some disdain towards MTSU, and rightfully so, but do they feel the same way about us? I wouldn't be too sure.

VCU has moved on to bigger and better things, and they view us the same way we view JMU. If JMU can catch up, then sure that would be a rivalry reborn. But until they are conference mates then I doubt it will be there. I also doubt JMU will be that significant of a rival if they join Sun Belt or some other conference we aren't in. Conference games count for so much more.

Marshall and Charlotte are our best bets at the moment - both being 6+ hours away unfortunately. Proximity would really help with a rival since seeing opposing fans can also garner some emotion. It's kind of tough to get excited about an FAU game that will have 100 of their fans in attendance.

Does moving to the AAC really change much? We would get ECU again, and being 2 hours away would help with the intermingling of fans that we need. I don't really see how any other team in that conference would become our rival if Marshall and Charlotte haven't done it for us yet either.

Somebody tried to get the flames going last year on Reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/3d...?limit=500

Wow that was beautiful. I've seen that guy pop in on the college basketball sub quite a bit and I've always thought he was pretty funny. Good stuff.

from a geographic standpoint, charlotte makes the most sense as a rival, but i don't hate any c-usa school...yet

(05-03-2016 01:29 PM)CHI-NARX Wrote:  from a geographic standpoint, charlotte makes the most sense as a rival, but i don't hate any c-usa school...yet

I hate Middle Tennessee enough

(05-03-2016 05:05 PM)ODUMONARCHZ1 Wrote:  

(05-03-2016 01:29 PM)CHI-NARX Wrote:  from a geographic standpoint, charlotte makes the most sense as a rival, but i don't hate any c-usa school...yet

I hate Middle Tennessee enough

Times ten! And I don't much care for UTEP either -- not since that guy threw an elbow into Heinicke's jaw.