Edit to add - TLDR summary is - I'm old school, I have fond memories of the rivalries of the Big 8, I'm hoping Pods will bring that feeling of rivalry back.
So, background, I'm in my early 40s, I grew up in CoMo, attended Mizzou in the late 90s. My family's been in CoMo since the University was founded, some of my ancestors donated some of the original land for the university. My dad was on Mizzou's faculty for almost 40 years, but beyond that, he grew up a Mizzou fan, even as a kid. He tells me about everybody getting together to watch the 1960 Orange Bowl on TV, and of listening to Sparky Stalcup basketball games on the radio. I went to Mizzou basketball and football games growing up, sat with other Mizzou faculty and their families. I even went to a fair number of Mizzou baseball games. Even though I went on to go to other schools (Michigan and Northwestern) and I follow those teams to some extent, and even though I moved away from Missouri almost 20 years ago and I only visit once every few years, I was raised to be a Mizzou tiger fan and to this day that's were the bulk of my sports attention goes.
To me, the Big 8 schools were all rivals and that was a huge part of the experience of being a Mizzou fan. Even K-State, Iowa State, and Oklahoma State felt like rivals to me because I've watched us play them so many times in football, basketball and baseball.
But to me the big 3 rivals were kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. kansas is obvious. They've been our sworn enemy for over 100 years. Even though they're better than us in basketball and we're better than them in football, every game was a war and really brought out the passions. On places like tigerboard we'd flame back and forth daily all year long. It was a true rivalry and all the fans bought into it. It's good that we're going to start playing them again, but it won't be every year and it'll be non-conference games, so it won't be the same, but better than nothing.
Nebraska beat us something like 20 times in a row, but once we started catching up to them under Larry Smith and then Gary Pinkel, that rivalry blew up in a hurry. I still have a bing chunk of the goal post from the 2003 game. The energy of those games was crazy. It's a real shame that that rivalry seems to be dead indefinitely, as there are no plans whatsoever for these teams to play. That seems like it's gone forever and it feels like a loss to me.
Oklahoma, to me, was more of a basketball rivalry than a football rivalry. We basically couldn't beat them at football, but in basketball the all time record was pretty close to .500. And there were a lot of great games, as both teams were similarly good, and were often in the hunt for the conference title. But when we did have a chance to beat them in football, people sure did show up and get excited. It didn't work out that often. But in 2010, in what might have been the greatest crowd in Faurot Field history, we beat them when they were ranked #1. That had the makings of the beginning of a good football rivalry, one that could replace the one we had just lost in Nebraska. But then we left and that ended it.
And I'm not saying we shouldn't have left. Obviously history has proven that it was the right move. But it was a shame to lose the rivalries.
Going forward, with the new setup in the SEC, 12 out of the 15 other schools we're probably not even going to play every year. That's not conducive to a rivalry. But on top of that we don't really have a lot of history with these schools. We can say we're rivals with South Carolina and Tennessee, and even give out trophies for the games, but are we really true rivals?
But our pod is set up perfect to create some legit rivalries. It sounds like it's going to be Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas.
Oklahoma we've already played about 150 times in basketball and 96 times in football. Basketball will be a rivalry right away with them. Football we're going to have to make them care. If we can beat them a few times, we'll get their attention like we got Nebraska's, and then we'll have a good rivalry going. We'll be one of only 3 teams they play every year, and we're directly competing with them for a pod championship. This really has a lot of potential to be fun.
Arkansas we've only ever played 12 times in football, and we lead the series 9-3. But this has a lot of potential, with us competing directly in a pod. It's going to take a while but I could see this turning into a Big 8 type rivalry eventually.
Texas, I don't know. They're easy to hate, that's for sure. But will they ever care about playing us? I think just the fact that we're in the same pod together they kind of have to. We haven't had much luck with them in the past, but in the last 20 years K-State is 10-9 against Texas. I'm sure Texas noticed that. We need to do what K-State did to them, or better. That would be a hell of a lot of fun.
I guess to sum it up, I think rivalries are a lot of the fun of college sports. Leaving the old Big 8 schools was kind of a drag in that we lost our rivalries. But this new pod setup could work out well for us in that it should lead us to get some pretty good rivalries going, just as long as we can win a decent share of the games.
So, background, I'm in my early 40s, I grew up in CoMo, attended Mizzou in the late 90s. My family's been in CoMo since the University was founded, some of my ancestors donated some of the original land for the university. My dad was on Mizzou's faculty for almost 40 years, but beyond that, he grew up a Mizzou fan, even as a kid. He tells me about everybody getting together to watch the 1960 Orange Bowl on TV, and of listening to Sparky Stalcup basketball games on the radio. I went to Mizzou basketball and football games growing up, sat with other Mizzou faculty and their families. I even went to a fair number of Mizzou baseball games. Even though I went on to go to other schools (Michigan and Northwestern) and I follow those teams to some extent, and even though I moved away from Missouri almost 20 years ago and I only visit once every few years, I was raised to be a Mizzou tiger fan and to this day that's were the bulk of my sports attention goes.
To me, the Big 8 schools were all rivals and that was a huge part of the experience of being a Mizzou fan. Even K-State, Iowa State, and Oklahoma State felt like rivals to me because I've watched us play them so many times in football, basketball and baseball.
But to me the big 3 rivals were kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. kansas is obvious. They've been our sworn enemy for over 100 years. Even though they're better than us in basketball and we're better than them in football, every game was a war and really brought out the passions. On places like tigerboard we'd flame back and forth daily all year long. It was a true rivalry and all the fans bought into it. It's good that we're going to start playing them again, but it won't be every year and it'll be non-conference games, so it won't be the same, but better than nothing.
Nebraska beat us something like 20 times in a row, but once we started catching up to them under Larry Smith and then Gary Pinkel, that rivalry blew up in a hurry. I still have a bing chunk of the goal post from the 2003 game. The energy of those games was crazy. It's a real shame that that rivalry seems to be dead indefinitely, as there are no plans whatsoever for these teams to play. That seems like it's gone forever and it feels like a loss to me.
Oklahoma, to me, was more of a basketball rivalry than a football rivalry. We basically couldn't beat them at football, but in basketball the all time record was pretty close to .500. And there were a lot of great games, as both teams were similarly good, and were often in the hunt for the conference title. But when we did have a chance to beat them in football, people sure did show up and get excited. It didn't work out that often. But in 2010, in what might have been the greatest crowd in Faurot Field history, we beat them when they were ranked #1. That had the makings of the beginning of a good football rivalry, one that could replace the one we had just lost in Nebraska. But then we left and that ended it.
And I'm not saying we shouldn't have left. Obviously history has proven that it was the right move. But it was a shame to lose the rivalries.
Going forward, with the new setup in the SEC, 12 out of the 15 other schools we're probably not even going to play every year. That's not conducive to a rivalry. But on top of that we don't really have a lot of history with these schools. We can say we're rivals with South Carolina and Tennessee, and even give out trophies for the games, but are we really true rivals?
But our pod is set up perfect to create some legit rivalries. It sounds like it's going to be Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas.
Oklahoma we've already played about 150 times in basketball and 96 times in football. Basketball will be a rivalry right away with them. Football we're going to have to make them care. If we can beat them a few times, we'll get their attention like we got Nebraska's, and then we'll have a good rivalry going. We'll be one of only 3 teams they play every year, and we're directly competing with them for a pod championship. This really has a lot of potential to be fun.
Arkansas we've only ever played 12 times in football, and we lead the series 9-3. But this has a lot of potential, with us competing directly in a pod. It's going to take a while but I could see this turning into a Big 8 type rivalry eventually.
Texas, I don't know. They're easy to hate, that's for sure. But will they ever care about playing us? I think just the fact that we're in the same pod together they kind of have to. We haven't had much luck with them in the past, but in the last 20 years K-State is 10-9 against Texas. I'm sure Texas noticed that. We need to do what K-State did to them, or better. That would be a hell of a lot of fun.
I guess to sum it up, I think rivalries are a lot of the fun of college sports. Leaving the old Big 8 schools was kind of a drag in that we lost our rivalries. But this new pod setup could work out well for us in that it should lead us to get some pretty good rivalries going, just as long as we can win a decent share of the games.
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