|
For the first time, and second time, in as long as I can remember, I felt bored at the last two UD games. Versus D2 St Joes and East Tenn St. We won both games fairly comfortably, and with little knowledge or emotional ties to either program, it was just kind of blah. It wasn't even like they had some undersized guard from Ohio scoring buckets (like Winthrop), where you think to yourself, 'I wonder what this kid was like in HS and if we ever even looked at him.'
For all those saying a rivalry simply can't be scheduled and started, I would beg to differ. As an example, I think St Mary's would be a great rivalry if both would agree to extend the series beyond a 2 year commitment. They are a 'like-minded school' facing similar scheduling issues as us, and with a quality program. In 10 years from now, if we have played them every year for the last 10, I would think most would agree a rivalry has been started with a comparable catholic program on the west coast.
Also, I recognize that with the exception of UL, UD, X, UC, OSU and maybe Butler, UD would have no interest in starting a home and home in the attempt to create or revive a 'rivalry' game with a D1 school like Northern Kentucky, Toledo, Miami, IPFW, etc. HOWEVER, to ignore playing all local schools all together is where my frustration lies.
So to somewhat edit my initial comment, I would love to see a rivalry started (St Mary, Butler, Whichita St, etc) or revived (UC, UL, X). And regardless if they start one or not, play some local schools. Plain and simple. I think almost everyone would rather see us play a comparable local school instead of a team we know nothing about.
As an example, look at these comprable schools versus teams on our schedule: Schedule OU (projected RPI 84) instead of East Tenn St (projected RPI 77). Or Akron (projected RPI 90) instead of Winthrop (projected RPI 100). Youngstown State (projected RPI 264) over Austin Peay (projected RPI 256). Or literally anyone over RPI anchor VMI (projected 346). Miami is projected at 286, would you rather not play them?
I'm not lobbying to play all these schools and all local games, as I recognize there is more that goes into scheduling, I.e. scheduling conflicts, recruiting, maybe a team wants a home nd home, politics, etc. But to tell me we couldn't have made even 1 of these games work? I don't like it.
|
