Obligatory "Is Iowa a Rival" Thread

Is Iowa a Rivalry for Nebraska?

  • Total voters
    193
I think we need to start by defining what constitutes a rivalry because no one even agrees on that. Some people seem to think both teams have to be good and you battle it out every year to decide who wins the west. In my opinion NO. I think a rival is just someone you butt heads with, you look forward to the game every year, you feel a little bit extra juice because you want to take them down. 

Iowa dislikes us because they are jealous of our history. We dislike Iowa because they are smartasses and always mock us because of their jealousy. Just the additional pure emotion and angst involved playing these guys and wanting to win makes it close to a rival. Or on its way to a rivalry. 

Alot of rivalries are born in bad blood. Seeing Chryst's comments on the sideline "f#&% them motherf#&%ers" makes me dislike wisconsin a little more and that makes me want to beat their a$$ next year. That makes it start to feel like a little bit of a rivalry.

 
I hate these Hawkeyes so much!

Meh I tried, just not feeling it. Maybe marinate a few more years.

Wanting a win Friday to confirm that the program is heading in the right direction is more motivation than squawkeye hatred. Hopefully the Iowa game reverts back to just a game we play to rack up another W.

 
4skers89 said:
I hate these Hawkeyes so much!

Meh I tried, just not feeling it. Maybe marinate a few more years.

Wanting a win Friday to confirm that the program is heading in the right direction is more motivation than squawkeye hatred. Hopefully the Iowa game reverts back to just a game we play to rack up another W.
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It just requires knowing an Iowa fan and talking to them about football. Then you will hate them. 

 
teachercd said:
Iowa is Nebraska's rival because Nebraska has sucked as of late.  
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That's what I was getting at too verbosely.  It's settling to call them a rival.  I'm stuck on teams having one rival, though.  If we're going to say a team can have multiple rivals, well, that's just cheating the meaning of the word when you really have one...  In my Husker-watching lifetime, there has really only been Oklahoma.  Texas was "getting there" but that path ended abruptly.

 
Funny thing is, typical Nebraska fan only wants to claim OU as a meaningful rival. But OU fan will tell you their biggest rival is Texas and it's been that way for a long time.

I figure people can consider any team they want a rival. Makes sense that people living adjacent to or in Iowa might have stronger feelings about it. Just like I do living in Colorado. I resisted it and it annoyed me....until they beat us 3 times in a row, then it was on. Anybody denying a past rivalry with CU just doesn't understand our history with them.

 
JJ Husker said:
I figure people can consider any team they want a rival. Makes sense that people living adjacent to or in Iowa might have stronger feelings about it. Just like I do living in Colorado. I resisted it and it annoyed me....until they beat us 3 times in a row, then it was on. Anybody denying a past rivalry with CU just doesn't understand our history with them.
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I think the CU rivalry is a good backdrop for this conversation. We did not consider the Buffs a rival when they considered us a rival. That took years, and that's despite a long history of playing every year.  That's not snobbery, it's just that playing Colorado was no different than playing Kansas. Suddenly they just decided it was THE rivalry, and we weren't having it.

It became our main rivalry after 1) they won a national championship, 2) they beat us a bunch, 3) the Big XII ended our yearly game with Oklahoma, and 4) when we reciprocated the feeling.

You know it's a rivalry when, after not playing for long enough that two recruiting cycles have passed, both teams' fans still wanted to win this year's game with a passion.

Most Nebraska fans don't currently feel that way about Iowa. For them, it's about Colorado around 1989-level hate toward Iowa. CU had already declared we were their rivals, we didn't feel it, but we wanted to beat them every year. And we hated them.

We just have to wait and let this thing with Iowa percolate.  I think it will definitely get to where every Husker fan thinks it's a rivalry. 

 
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BigRedBuster said:
Teams have multiple rivals.
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I can accept that.  I don't accept that all teams do.

BigRedBuster said:
This myth that a team only has one rival is just.......plain.......not so.
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So, a myth...is....a....myth?  ;)

JJ Husker said:
Funny thing is, typical Nebraska fan only wants to claim OU as a meaningful rival. But OU fan will tell you their biggest rival is Texas and it's been that way for a long time.
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It doesn't change the fit for this "typical" Nebraska fan.  The fact we don't play anymore is another story, of course.  I brought them up to explain my concept of rivalry as it applies to the Nebraska football program.

 
Landlord said:
That doesn't answer the question. Unless you think that there is some rule where everyone is only allowed one rival.
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I have no attachment to any of the programs you mentioned so I answered accordingly.  Would it matter to you if some Northwestern fan thinks NU and Iowa are rivals?  The answers I gave you also jived with what I had written about Nebraska and Oklahoma.  Elite programs are just not going to have lots of rivals because a rival is going to be having comparable success and taking something meaningful from you on a regular basis to earn that level of recognition.  p.s. - I don't think there are rules as to how many rivals a team has but I think a rivalry should be allowed to develop naturally and feel that calling any heated series a rivalry cheats the meaning of the term.  Having one rival is pretty common besides.  Look at Celtic and Rangers, Barcelona and Real Madrid, River Plate and Boca Juniors, Chivas and America, etc.  To be fair, Chivas have a local rivalry/clasico with Atlas but the super clasico is with America.  Liverpool might call Manchester United their rival but that doesn't mean the derby with Everton isn't special.  I don't know that American football has the same kind of history, though, partly because there's not enough play outside the conferences.

 
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beorach said:
I have no attachment to any of the programs you mentioned so I answered accordingly.  Would it matter to you if some Northwestern fan thinks NU and Iowa are rivals?  The answers I gave you also jived with what I had written about Nebraska and Oklahoma.  Elite programs are just not going to have lots of rivals because a rival is going to be having comparable success and taking something meaningful from you on a regular basis to earn that level of recognition.  p.s. - I don't think there are rules as to how many rivals a team has but I think a rivalry should be allowed to develop naturally and feel that calling any heated series a rivalry cheats the meaning of the term.  Having one rival is pretty common besides.  Look at Celtic and Rangers, Barcelona and Real Madrid, River Plate and Boca Juniors, Chivas and America, etc.  To be fair, Chivas have a local rivalry/clasico with Atlas but the super clasico is with America.  Liverpool might call Manchester United their rival but that doesn't mean the derby with Everton isn't special.  I don't know that American football has the same kind of history, though, partly because there's not enough play outside the conferences.
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No

 
beorach said:
The joke's on you.  Had you answered with, "[n]ope," I'd have surely conceded.  I'd say you were missing your period, maybe, but...
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Statistically speaking, there is a significant amount of rivalries in sports where the two teams do not have the same amount of success.

 
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