Ben Shumate

There are enough good rivalries in college football that fans can get them as a treat starting early on in the season. Iowa-Iowa State this weekend won’t be a competitive game in all likelihood, but the beauty of rivalry games is that they don’t always need to be competitive to be intriguing. Wanting to get in on that action, other schools try to create new rivalry games or keep old ones relevant. Mostly forced by media or coaches, these rivalries are often openly mocked by fans and ignored by players.

The second “rivalry” game happening this weekend is Pitt-Penn State, and in honor of this fake big game, it’s time to give college football’s dumb rivalries their time in the spotlight.

Pitt-Penn State

Pitt’s weird 2016 season involved beating two teams that ended up in the top 10, including the first matchup against Pennsylvania counterpart Penn State since 2000. Before that, the schools were both independents and considered the other to be one of the most important games on their schedules. In total, they’ve played 97 times.

Penn State also showed off a weird superiority complex by demanding that Pitt play in Happy Valley three times every five years rather than just switching off like any of the actual rivalries in the sport. Predictably, Pitt responded by saying, “fuck that,” and we went 16 years without the game.

I’ve been something of a Penn State hype man on this site, but I’m going to call them out for sticking to a rule of playing only one Power 5 team in non-conference each year. Showing what they think of Pitt, they have scheduled other teams in that slot between 2019-2025.

Rather than calling out Penn State BS, Pitt athletic director Heather Lyke made a lame comment about making Pitt “as attractive as possible to fit into that scheduling philosophy.”

It’s pretty clear that neither school feels that strongly about this game. These two ought to either give up the petty politics and scheduling rules to play each year, or call this outdated rivalry quits and move on.

The Civil ConFLiCT

When conference realignment robbed us of certain great rivalries, some justified by saying that other new rivalries would pop up. I’m guessing that the “Civil Conflict” between UCF and UConn isn’t what these people had in mind.

In Bob Diaco’s eyes, all you need to start a rivalry is a countdown clock and a traveling trophy. Checking to make sure the other school actually cares isn’t a priority, apparently.

The New York Post named it the “worst rivalry in sports history,” mostly because UCF had absolutely no interest in any rivalry with the Huskies. My favorite quote comes from former UCF coach George O’Leary who said at the time about the new trophy: “I didn’t know anything about that.”

Apparently UCF either hadn’t learned or couldn’t bring themselves to care by the time 2016 came, leaving the trophy on the field and refusing to take it with them after a 24-16 win in Hartford. UCF’s freshman quarterback dunked on UConn in the post-game presser saying: “It was just another ballgame for us. Next week will be another ballgame for us and the week after that.”

UConn football is a sad state of affairs, but you can’t knock them for not trying.

Colorado State-Colorado

Being tuned in to Denver sports Twitter, I have a unique perspective on the Rocky Mountain Showdown. All you really need to know is that CSU fans get super mad about CU fans acting like they don’t care if they lost and acting like the game is below them if they win. A good parallel is how I act when the US Men’s Soccer team plays any soccer game ever.

Like Penn State-Pitt, these two can’t even figure out if they hate each other, despite having played for over a century — all the way back when CSU was called Colorado Agricultural and wore hideous orange and green uniforms. At least they could figure out a neutral site, drawing a healthy crowd at the Broncos’ Sports Authority Field last week.

But the current agreement to play annually will run out after the 2020 game, and indications are that the teams have no interest in renewing a deal to play each year, either at the individual schools or on a neutral field.

My Twitter feed might be more calm as a result, but it’s a shame that the two major schools in the state can’t just hate each other and agree to give up a meaningless cupcake game to play every year. The conversation has once again devolved into bickering about location, which ought to be your first cue to identifying a game as one of many dumb rivalries in the sport.

If you really hate a team, you’d agree to play them anywhere at any time. Maybe that is a naive take in today’s college football world, but it’s time to give up on calling a game a rivalry if you can’t agree to just play.