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Tailgate Guru

Joined: 01/05/2001 Posts: 9457
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With rare exception, rivalries are necessarily regional


Proximity, as you suggest, is the key to a rivalry. When you hear about your rival regularly, whether through friends, family, co-workers or the media, the rivalry builds. When you compete regularly and across multiple sports, the rivalry builds. But one without the other doesn't grow the rivalry.

This is why Tech has few serious rivalries in the ACC to this point. The proximity factor has been satisfied for generations, but the pattern of regular competition in prominent sports has not. We're getting there, but it will take a long time for Tech-UNC to be on par with Clemson-NC State. Virginia Tech-Georgia Tech is farthest along in becoming a pretty good rivalry because the division crown has been on the line more often than not.

WVU will never have serious rivalries in the Big 12. The Big 12 is a great conference across a number of sports. Big 12 football is great; outside of Kansas, every program is very competitive. The fans of other schools are excellent. There are some great traditions. With Texas and OU, you have iconic brands that stand toe-to-toe with anything any other conference has to offer.

I'll skip the Tech-Duke game and go to West Virginia-Oklahoma State this weekend. (As some know, I'm a Mountaineer by birth and Hokie by choice, and I've got two stepsons in school at WVU.) The game should be close and exciting. I'm looking forward to it. But I don't think I know a single soul who attended Okie State - or most other Big 12 schools. I've never been to Stillwater or, for that matter, any other Big 12 city -- and unless I make a special trip to go see a game or go there for a deposition someday, I'll never have a reason to visit a Big 12 city. I don't drive past Lawrence, Kansas on the way to the beach or go to Austin for a long weekend. So the Big 12, its schools and its fans have been nothing but great to WVU and its fans, but it's almost the equivalent of Tech playing a set of continuous non-conference series against Michigan and Minnesota.

WVU is really the ultimate victim of conference realignment. Kansas lost Missouri. Texas lost A&M. Nebraska lost OU. Maryland lost Virginia and Carolina. But WVU lost all of the rivalries that matter. No matter how many times the Mountaineers beat Kansas in basketball, no matter how sweet it will be when the Mountaineers finally beat Oklahoma in a conference football game, it will never compare to beating the crap out Pitt in any sport, taking Penn State to the wire in football or knocking Syracuse down a peg on the hardwood. My wife's family went to Pitt. My next door neighbor went to Penn State. My boys' soccer coach has a daughter who attended Syracuse. I went to Tech. The connections and the competition make the rivalry.
[Post edited by Tailgate Guru at 10/25/2017 10:24AM]

(In response to this post by HOO86)

Posted: 10/25/2017 at 10:24AM



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Current Thread:
 
  
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