The Bastardization of College Football

[Orangeyes]

As a kid growing up I always looked forward to beating the snot out of Penn State. There was a point in the history of this rivalry, where we defeated them three straight years and four out of five.

Oh yes, Syracuse was beating the mighty Nittany Lions in those days. After that, two consecutive wins by PSU interrupted four more straight Syracuse victories. Most of those wins were hard fought, close affairs. In that eleven year span the Orangemen, as we called them back then, with the Saltine Warrior, not Otto, running the sidelines, fairly dominated our not so happy friends from the valley.

After that period of time, starting in 1967, things swung in the other direction. Oh, we would beat them again, but, that was only once, in twenty contests. Syracuse still considered Penn State their rival, but Penn State only saw Syracuse as another game on their schedule. It was decided to put the series to rest once the Lions joined the Big Ten in 1990. Four more games were played before that happened with the teams splitting the contests. It would be eighteen long years before these two former rivals would take the field against each other once again.

During those eighteen years Syracuse more or less nurtured Boston College and West Virginia as pseudo-rivals. From 1991 to 2004 when BC left for the ACC the teams played 14 games with Syracuse winning nine of those. The last two games were emotional affairs, including the Eagles last Carrier Dome appearance in 2003 where everything that could go wrong, did go wrong for BC. The Orangemen pounded them that day 39-14, patted them on their heads and sent them on their way.

The next year, with a BCS bid just waiting for them, against a backfield depleted Syracuse squad, Boston College fell on their faces. Instead of eating Tostitos in Arizona, those Tostitos were smashed in their faces when Diamond Ferri dusted off his running back skills and beat them on both sides of the football. It would be six more years before they got their revenge against a rebuilding and a bit undersized Orange squad.

West Virginia and Syracuse played 20 contests from 1991 forward. Syracuse won eight of those first ten games and we didn't view the Mountaineers as much of a rival. Then West Virginia strung together eight straight wins until being upset at home by a score of 19-14 in 2010 as the 20th ranked team in the land. This year, with a national and BCS ranking of 15, the Eer's were crushed by an unranked and riled Syracuse team 49-23.

Before my time Cornell and Colgate were considered our rivals. The sport evolved, Syracuse evolved with it and Cornell & Colgate remained behind.

This was a slow process. Evolution was a slow process.

What is happeneing today is evolution at warp speed. Maybe it goes hand-in-hand with the times we live in? This day and age of instant this and instant that. Of computers capable of processing 200 million instructions per second.

Things change with time, evolution constantly challenges long held beliefs. What is going on right now in college football is a bastardization of the sport we love because of one simple rule change by the NCAA (as Scooch pointed out in an earlier thread.)

So in summing this up, screw rivalries, screw the home fans who liked to travel to away games.(Did you hear that West Virginia's shortest drive will now be over 800 miles) Screw logic, screw conference loyalty, screw it, screw it, screw it.

I just wonder what the great game of college football is going to look like in ten years?

 

[Rocco]

Great thoughts OE. I realize that Syracuse had rivalries back in the day that frankly aren't considered anything more than a regular opponent today (PSU; Colgate & Cornell aren't even FCS anymore). With that said, moving forward, we don't really have any true rivalries today. An argument can be made for BC, WVU, Pitt and ND. With us and Pitt leaving for the ACC, we will continue our rivalry with them. We will also rekindle our rivalry with BC. After that, who else would be even considered our rival?

It's a shame that we don't have a true go-to rival anymore. In BBall, we have GTown and UConn. In football, you can't say that about one certain team. With the way that the college landscape has changed/is changing, it will be interesting to see how our past rivalries begin to take form again. At this point, I would vote that Pitt is our #1 rival, followed by BC. I would love to renew something with ND, but it doesn't look like that will happen unless they follow our path to the ACC.

 

[sutomcat]

As a kid growing up I always looked forward to beating the snot out of Penn State. There was a point in the history of this rivalry, where we defeated them three straight years and four out of five.

Oh yes, Syracuse was beating the mighty Nittany Lions in those days. After that, two consecutive wins by PSU interrupted four more straight Syracuse victories. Most of those wins were hard fought, close affairs. In that eleven year span the Orangemen, as we called them back then, with the Saltine Warrior, not Otto, running the sidelines, fairly dominated our not so happy friends from the valley.

After that period of time, starting in 1967, things swung in the other direction. Oh, we would beat them again, but, that was only once, in twenty contests. Syracuse still considered Penn State their rival, but Penn State only saw Syracuse as another game on their schedule. It was decided to put the series to rest once the Lions joined the Big Ten in 1990. Four more games were played before that happened with the teams splitting the contests. It would be eighteen long years before these two former rivals would take the field against each other once again.

During those eighteen years Syracuse more or less nurtured Boston College and West Virginia as pseudo-rivals. From 1991 to 2004 when BC left for the ACC the teams played 14 games with Syracuse winning nine of those. The last two games were emotional affairs, including the Eagles last Carrier Dome appearance in 2003 where everything that could go wrong, did go wrong for BC. The Orangemen pounded them that day 39-14, patted them on their heads and sent them on their way.

The next year, with a BCS bid just waiting for them, against a backfield depleted Syracuse squad, Boston College fell on their faces. Instead of eating Tostitos in Arizona, those Tostitos were smashed in their faces when Diamond Ferri dusted off his running back skills and beat them on both sides of the football. It would be six more years before they got their revenge against a rebuilding and a bit undersized Orange squad.

West Virginia and Syracuse played 20 contests from 1991 forward. Syracuse won eight of those first ten games and we didn't view the Mountaineers as much of a rival. Then West Virginia strung together eight straight wins until being upset at home by a score of 19-14 in 2010 as the 20th ranked team in the land. This year, with a national and BCS ranking of 15, the Eer's were crushed by an unranked and riled Syracuse team 49-23.

Before my time Cornell and Colgate were considered our rivals. The sport evolved, Syracuse evolved with it and Cornell & Colgate remained behind.

This was a slow process. Evolution was a slow process.

What is happeneing today is evolution at warp speed. Maybe it goes hand-in-hand with the times we live in? This day and age of instant this and instant that. Of computers capable of processing 200 million instructions per second.

Things change with time, evolution constantly challenges long held beliefs. What is going on right now in college football is a bastardization of the sport we love because of one simple rule change by the NCAA (as Scooch pointed out in an earlier thread.)

So in summing this up, screw rivalries, screw the home fans who liked to travel to away games.(Did you hear that West Virginia's shortest drive will now be over 800 miles) Screw logic, screw conference loyalty, screw it, screw it, screw it.

I just wonder what the great game of college football is going to look like in ten years?

Nice post.

I enjoy watching games in the Dome a lot. College football is awesome.

But I might like attending away games even more. It is really interesting to me to see other campuses, other stadia, talk to other fans, see their traditions, how they do things, etc.

There is something really special about watching a game that has been played annually for 50 or more years. Tradition stands for something. Seeing games our parents and grandparents, and maybe even great grand parents watched, is pretty special.

All this movement is destroying tradition and the net effect of the changes makes it much harder to attend away games. Yes, Syracuse comes out a winner, I guess, in Conference Wars, but in the long term, I think the fans lose. A lot of money will be spent unneccessarily on travel and I suspect a bunch of old time programs are going to die or get downgraded.

It is a real shame.

 

[IthacaBarrel]

I think the ACC is a better spot for carryong on the tradition of Syracuse football is than the current BE, I don't see why people are complaining

 

[Millhouse]

I think the ACC is a better spot for carryong on the tradition of Syracuse football is than the current BE, I don't see why people are complaining

it all depends on how old people are. WVU is the rival to some people, BC to others.

it's all way overrated. during the wild VT games, no one cared about the lack of history. I want SU to be good and I want them to play good teams. I don't care nearly as much as whether those teams are teams i watched as a kid.

we keep pitt, regain miami, VT and restart maryland.

 

[IthacaBarrel]

it all depends on how old people are. WVU is the rival to some people, BC to others.

it's all way overrated. during the wild VT games, no one cared about the lack of history. I want SU to be good and I want them to play good teams. I don't care nearly as much as whether those teams are teams i watched as a kid.[/quote

Agreed, I just want to be good and play good teams and win games, dont care who when or where

 

[Rocco]

it all depends on how old people are. WVU is the rival to some people, BC to others.

it's all way overrated. during the wild VT games, no one cared about the lack of history. I want SU to be good and I want them to play good teams. I don't care nearly as much as whether those teams are teams i watched as a kid.

we keep pitt, regain miami, VT and restart maryland.

I am an example of that. I'm 29, don't really remember the hay days of SU vs PSU. What I do remember is SU vs. WVU, BC, Pitt, Miami and ND. Moving forward, we are going to create new rivalries within our new conference. Geographically, it makes sense that we will have natural rivalries with Maryland, BC, Pitt and VaTech. If we have a few really good games with a certain team during the first few years, it will begin to develop the rivalry feel to it. I would love to have a rival in Clemson, UNC or Miami (like back in the day).

It sucks for many who are holding on to SU's old traditions and old foes, but for me, being a younger guy, I look forward to the new rivalries that will develop in the ACC.

 

[Blood Orange]

The ACC doesn't have the presige of the SEC but the campus atmosphere's down there are much better than what is currently in the Big East. I feel SU is in a better situation than WVU. The Big 12 is still dysfunctional and with the albatross of the Texas Longhorn Network hanging over every team there will always be that looming fear of schools bolting. The ACC actually is a soft landing for SU I think.

 

[arbitragegls]

...great post by Orangeyes...one of his best actually from my perspective.
Rivalries do change over history and it seems like the invention of the web history is yesterday rather than a decade or two ago. As much as we down play the loss of Georgetown in basketball, or maybe even WVU in football...they are significant memories and history and present to most of us...they are teams we always want to get up for and to squash on the court or field...I believe that at a certain time Notre Dame was a rival...it was the biggest football games of the year...hopefully some of these rivalries can be renewed as we join the ACC...and thankfully, the ACC is where are new rivals will form...for how long, that is the question

 

[44cuse]

All this movement is destroying tradition and the net effect of the changes makes it much harder to attend away games. Yes, Syracuse comes out a winner, I guess, in Conference Wars, but in the long term, I think the fans lose. A lot of money will be spent unneccessarily on travel and I suspect a bunch of old time programs are going to die or get downgraded.

It is a real shame.

I think this says it perfectly. I'm not old enough (I don't think) to actually be writing this. Or, better said, to believe I am writing this or believe that it's true. But I can't get TippHill's post out of my head from a couple of weeks back.

I'm with you in that I like away games. I moved out of the area to get to a "bigger world" and it's been awesome. That said, come the Fall, I am tremendously envious of those of you who get to road trip in the car to Rutgers, UCONN, BC, etc. As a tradition, that is a super cool thing and, like you, I wonder what the future holds and whether or not that degree of nostalgia will remain.

But then I look at the Pac 10 (and now Pac 12) and see it a bit differently. The world is going faster and times change. Just look at the difference in this board from the AOL days to now. And in the Pac 12, the airports in Oakland, Eugene, Portland, Seattle, LA, and AZ are PACKED with people either flying out Friday night or Saturday and going to games. I-5 is loaded with cars driving north (to U of O and OSU) and south to USC or UCLA or teams coming to Cal and Stanford.

So I don't really know there is that much to fear. What I do know is that I would personally prefer a NE conference where car road trips were just what you did. But that reality went away when the TV money reached the levels it's currently at.

I view it like this: the best we can hope for and what5 we should expect is for the traditions on the campuses in our conference to grow and thrive so the "the experience" of college football is something greater than the game. I doubt it will, but if conference expansion changes that for the negative, we will all have lost something.

44cuse

 

[storange]

Agree OE The Long time die hards are the ones that lose

 

[cuseguy]

Agree OE The Long time die hards are the ones that lose

College sports are going to loose a lot of luster for me after we move to the ACC.

 

[OrangeOnions]

Great post OE.

I had the privilege to witness all of those rivalries with the exception of Colgate and Cornell. I really only miss Penn St. That was our Georgetown back in the day. I can still see Rob Moore catch that bomb to start the game. With the exception of Penn St. and WVU, most of our rivals are in the ACC. In a weird way I am more upset at how these rivals have been seperated as opposed to their seperation. We will maintain some rivals, renew old rivalries and form new ones. I guess it's the cycle of life.

 

[SmilinBob]

Should SU still be playing Colgate and Holy Cross then? SU evolved and grew apart from those schools athletically and if we didn't we may still be in the Patriot league ourselves instead of doing what we have been doing, growing and moving with the times. Colgate used to be thee game and the town was buzzing when we played as many of you know. I'm not thrilled with losing wv but overall I see the potential of new rivalries along with rekindling some old ones.

 

[Cusey]

Great thread and excellent discussion by all. As others have pointed out, geographic proximity rivalries have gone by the boards in favor of where you can generate the most TV revenue. For me, everything changed for NE football when PSU headed for the B-10.

The one plus (and it's a big one) is that those of us who live a long distance from either Syracuse or away-game locations can see more games on TV or on our computers. And given the current situation, the ACC is, by far, the best place for us to be. At least it's all in the east......until the next shoe drops anyway. :noidea: