The Science of Rivalries

There are certain things that can’t be considered from a rationale perspective. Relationships. Political debates after the 4th drink of the evening. Religion. Art. Sarah Palin. Rivalries.

That last one is new to me as I’ve always thought that rivalries should rationale. The traditional thought is that a rivalry needs three basic elements; geographic proximity, regular match-ups and an evenly matched opposition. If you got doses of those three, you probably have a rivalry. But I don’t think that’s the case anymore. Let me illustrate using my alma mater the Harvard of the Midwest*, aka The University of Iowa.

* This is a joke people… I realize that Iowa is at best the Harvard of Iowa. Years ago on a recruiting visit to Miami (OH) the tour guide actually referred to the school as the Harvard of the Midwest without a trace of sarcasm. This one sentence ended my desire to attend Miami (OH). That and the fact it was located in Ohio.

Geographic proximity used to be a must-have – after all, familiarity breeds contempt. But the explosion of ESPN and the rise of the Internet and social media, you no longer have to share a fence with someone to develop a deep-seeded dislike of someone. Twenty years ago I could have cared less about the relative merits of the various conferences… it has no discernable impact on the performance of my team. But this debate on the SEC as the nation’s premier college football conference has subjected me to an endless string of articles, comment posts, radio shows, etc that spend hours upon hours exploring the “SEC rules, the Big Ten sucks” story line.

At first I took the “who gives a shit” defense. But after three years they’ve successfully annoyed me to the point where I have an irrational hatred of the SEC in general and point out that Iowa has beaten LSU and Florida in their own backyard in the past five years. That and no SEC team has played a regular season game outside of the confederacy since the Wing-T offense fell out of favor. And given the admission standards of some of those schools I’m guessing that the next time an SEC player has to play in the snow he would attempt to bottle up some snow to take it back to campus… and then be given an A+ in advanced chemistry for proving that it can’t snow in 75 degree weather.

Regular encounters used to be a must, and it still is. But because college teams compete for the same recruits and pro teams go after the same free agents that competition now comes in the form of the offseason team building. Back in the day you had no idea what type of recruits you were getting, the only way I judged a recruit was by the schools Iowa beat out. And let’s just say you could see the end of the Hayden Fry era ending poorly when we’d routinely get recruits to choose Iowa over Kent State, Western Michigan and the rest of the sisters of the MAC.

Nowadays the Internet scrutinizes these kids closer than the IRS reviewing Willie Nelson’s tax returns. Everyone gets attached to these kids as the next savior of the program. Call it the backup quarterback syndrome, because these kids have never cost their team a game and some recruiting “expert” compares them to Eddie George complete strangers now take an 18 year-old’s decision way-to-personally. And when some random school beats your team for the services of some kid, you decry his decision like he’s making the worst mistake of his life and resent the kid, and his school, for no reason.

The most seemingly rationale element is the last, evenly matched opposition. What do Yankees v. Red Sox, Michigan v. Ohio State, and Packers v. Bears have in common? They’re all relatively even teams that have routinely met in high stakes games over a long period of time. But how do you explain the Cubs and the Cardinals? They have played about 12 times per year for the last 75 years but when have those games meant something in the standings? The few times that the Cubs have been in the pennant race over the past several decades have coincided with down years for the Cards.

From a rationale perspective, the Cubs should not be considered anyone’s rival. It’s simply impossible to hate a team that routinely lets you take the season series. But Brewers and Cards fans hate the Cubs. Is there a rationale reason for that? Wouldn’t they be angry if you dropped the Cubs off their schedules and brought in the Yankees? But this might be an exception, I think the hatred has more to do with the fact that those fans reside in Milwaukee and St. Louis. If I lived there I’d be bitter too.

So I come to the Iowa v. Iowa State rivalry. I should have no reason to hate Iowa State, the Pittsburgh Pirates of the Big 12. This is a team that might struggle to win the Illinois High School 4A title… they’ve essentially been taking Iowa’s recruiting leftovers for years… their idea of a meaningful bowl game takes place during the second Saturday in September… Ames is just a bit more enticing that downtown Gary… the campus is a living embodiment of the term “sausagefest.” And yet, I still can’t stand the sight of those red and yellow uniforms slowly chasing the opposition down the field and throwing their hands in the air as the opposition crosses the goal line again… and again… and again, in the first quarter.

It just goes to show that there are some things you can’t rationalize. I hate Iowa State.