Alan said:
I wasn't trying to make the question Montana-centric. Only that if you play teams in Portland only once every four years you don't have an opportunity to build strong rivalries.
I think making this a Montana-centric question is a good one to make, given their history in the conference.
So that being said... Have we built strong rivalries versus EWU and ISU since they're our protected football rivalries? I'd say, EWU, yes, it seems like that rivalry has become stronger (Dam Cup has helped, but could it be that they have seen recent success on the field? Perhaps both?). ISU, eh, not so much in my opinion.
I miss seeing UM and MSU at home every other year. Not such a rivalry per se (well, probably less on the UM MSU side of things), but I think deep down inside UM & MSU fans liked to play here every other year. Easy city to get into, easy to get to the stadium (if you know what you're doing), and a big alumni base in close proximity. It's easy for UM and MSU to stick their noses up at us since we're "New Sky," but I honestly think that when we've had good teams on the field, they want to play against the top of the conference to prove themselves.
pdxfan mentioned conference titles and playoffs. If we can approach that year in and year out, the rivalries will naturally form themselves, especially with the UM and MSU, regardless of how often we play...
