Originally Posted by ruechalgrin
Too bad Ohio cannot have the Buckeye Classic like Indiana.
Ohio St., Cincy, Xavier, and Dayton is comparable to Indiana, Purdue, Butler, and ND.
Xavier will not play Dayton (but Dayton would play Xavier). Cincy is the really odd one for me as they will not play Dayton as well in home and home. Sorry but AAC and A-10 are the same and both schools need to upgrade their OOC schedules ...
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I agree. If you added a fifth team to that and played a round robin, you could count it as an exempt tournament. And, it doesn't mean that you can't play in other exempt tournaments. It just means that in the years that you don't, you could count this as an exempt tournament and play 31 regular season games.
This thread has made me realize something. The more of a hardcore fan you are, the more likely it is that you underestimate and under-appreciate rivalries. Hardcore fans care about everything and are used to caring about everything. They don't understand that the vast majority of people out there are not hardcore fans. They don't care about everything, but they do care about rivalries. The fact that so many of them have gone away (not just with UD, but across the entire landscape of college sports) has really alienated the casual fan and made them even less interested.
Texas and Texas A&M can come up with all the reasons in the world of why they don't need to play each other. And, not one of those reasons will make any sense to the casual fan. Their arenas are half empty for most of the OOC games. If they scheduled each other, it would sell out in an hour. Bringing the football game back would mean more viewers as well. Not everyone is a diehard fan, but everyone is highly interested in that match-up.
You want to know why rivalries are important?? Ask the people that aren't diehard fans and that don't watch every game what games they do watch. Or, sadly, USED to watch. If you don't care about preserving and/or restoring rivalries then you should, and unfortunately the people in charge don't seem to think that way.
