ahoelsken
Well-Known Member
That was also the case in the Big 8 for most of CU's history until McCartney decided to circle Nebraska. It took several years until that caught on.
I don't know what the answer is. Unfortunately, CU is just damn isolated from natural geographic rivalries. Every other P5 is a 7 hour drive from Boulder or farther. Unless CSU is added to the conference, no one is really all that drivable.
What I could see is CU developing something like Washington has for rivalries. In-state against Washington State is a big game where they look down on their opponent while packing the stadium. Regional supremacy rival is Oregon -- those schools are even a little farther away from each other than Boulder & Salt Lake City so there's no reason that CU-Utah couldn't be like UW-UO. Then they've got the general rivalry feel from their side for USC as that program they circle, with a win just meaning more.
I think CU can have that same thing with less happening on the in-state side but with the added benefit of what we can do in the non-conference by playing our old Big 8/12 mates on a semi-regular basis as we've seen from the recent scheduling. Program really needs to start doing more to pump up that Utah game, though.
Just give me Nebraska as much as we can play them and I'm happy-It'll be fun to play K-State in 8 years.......but they're nowhere near as fun to hate as the corn is.