Week 9 Open Thread

[BoylenOver]

Who is your rival? I thought rivalries generally had some sort of history behind them. When was the last time Utah played Colorado?

Larry Scott says our rival is Colorado. That's all I need to know.

Go Utah! Beat CU!!!

[UtahJazzFan88]

Colorado was just one of those manufactured rivalries, just like how the Big 12 tried to manufacture Colorado-Nebraska into a Black Friday Rivalry even though Nebraska blew them out 75% of the time. Now Nebraska and Iowa are having a Black Friday Rivalry that actually makes sense. Colorado's been a joke of a team since the Kordell Stewart days from what I recall. I hope it does become a nice little rivalry, but I don't consider it one until Colorado proves they are at least somewhat competitive, because they haven't since like 2003.

At least it's a guaranteed nationally televised game on FSN I guess.

[Paperback Writer]

Colorado was just one of those manufactured rivalries, just like how the Big 12 tried to manufacture Colorado-Nebraska into a Black Friday Rivalry even though Nebraska blew them out 75% of the time. Now Nebraska and Iowa are having a Black Friday Rivalry that actually makes sense. Colorado's been a joke of a team since the Kordell Stewart days from what I recall. I hope it does become a nice little rivalry, but I don't consider it one until Colorado proves they are at least somewhat competitive, because they haven't since like 2003.

At least it's a guaranteed nationally televised game on FSN I guess.

Colorado-Nebraska was a manufactured rivalry but it wasn't that lopsided in the Big 12 as far as blowouts. In fact, during the 15-years of Big 12 play where Nebraska went 11-4 against Colorado, there were only four blowouts and one of those belong to Colorado (see table). More importantly, Nebraska fans didn't embrace the new rivalry because they lost one of the better rivalries in College Football in Oklahoma-Nebraska. Also, Colorado fans were the worst, by far, in the Big 12 while Nebraska fans were congenial for the most part.

Utah being labeled a rival by Colorado is not a good position for the Utes. Maybe it was just hatred bred by losing too often to Nebraska, but Colorado played Nebraska tough. Many seasons, Colorado looked for redemption against Nebraska since it was their last game of the season and winning would somehow shed some light on an otherwise dismal season. So a bad Buffalo team would play a ranked Cornhusker team tough and the pollsters were left wondering on how to vote Nebraska going into Bowl Season given that Nebraska should have won by 3+ TDs but managed a slim victory. Not sure if Utah would suffer the same fate but as a Husker fan I saw plenty of irrational Buff hate that I never quite understood.