That should be stressed every year.
And if necessary, after so stressing, we give the SEC all our middle fingers.
And if necessary, after so stressing, we give the SEC all our middle fingers.
The South's Oldest Rivalry
- Thread starter WoadBlue
- Start date
I say this every year so I'll say it again. You could randomly select 100 current UNC students and no more than 25 would be able to correctly name the two schools that participate in the South's Oldest Rivalry.
And that needs to end. Right now, that is our greatest claim to fame in football. We need to trumpet it.
To be fair, only 30 or so would know there was a UNC football team.
I would say our current success is a much bigger claim to fame than an old rivalry that no one under the age of 45 cares about.
Maybe if we had a better dance partner in this rivalry, but we don't. Virginia is just not a sexy program and never will be. Compared to UVA Football, Carolina Football is like an LSU or a Michigan State in how much coverage / notoriety we have.
Well yeah, thanks to you and all your Billy Yank buddies that come down
Idk, it's a cool factoid but with both teams being largely irrelevant nationally for most of their history, I don't think it's that big of a deal.
Exactly. Carolina - Virginia would be third on my list of UNC's rivalries that I want to preserve during any future expansion / divisional realignment.
UNC - State, yes.
UNC - Duke, yes.
UNC - Virginia... meh but sure
UNC - Wake ... zzzzzz
It doesn't matter. That long history matters.
We have the most played rivalry in all the South. That is worth trumpeting.
It matters to whom? Politically, North Carolina and Virginia are hardly even Southern states any more. Except for the SW part of the state, Virginia ain't even part of the South anymore.
But beyond that, it just ain't a meaningful game. Georgia - Auburn isn't quite as old, but it's way, way more appealing because both -- or at least one -- of those squads is usually ranked in the Top 25 or Top 15 or better, when they meet.
Having the South's Oldest Rivalry doesn't help recruiting or help anything really. It's just a nice little tidbit that Carolina and UVA alums can feel good about. Trust me, I want it to matter....but it doesn't.
Yep, I think it's a neat bit of football trivia, but not one that has much bearing on anything due to the relative mediocrity of both teams during that long history. I think we're starting to change that at UNC, at least I hope we are.
Well yeah, thanks to you and all your Billy Yank buddies that come down
I'm not their buddy, guy.
I don't know aboot that. Quality reference though.
My mom is born and raised in Gastonia -- I'm very familiar with Gaston County as well. I'm also familiar with some of the most country places you can get in N.C.
I'm just telling you the national perception of North Carolina is starting to change. It already has for Virginia. No one thinks of Virginia as a Southern state any more.
UVa. left the Southern Conference and was an independent until joining the new ACC in 1953. Virginia's faculty hated football more than UNC's. Excerpts on UVa's FB history.
Support for UVA football had become spasmodic—even fraternity brothers were betting openly against the Cavaliers—around 1930, but in 1931, a dynamic new coach named Fred Dawson buoyed spirits. Losing seasons and a lack of athletic scholarships took a toll on Dawson's enthusiasm, however, and he quit after 1933 and was succeeded by Gus Tebell.
Just as frustrated at the dearth of notable wins was University President Edwin Anderson Alderman, who impaneled a committee to study the situation. Virginia decided in 1936 to resign from the Southern Conference, which prohibited players from being paid, in order to be able to offer sports scholarships.
Tebell bowed out after three losing seasons, succeeded in 1937 by Frank Murray. Although the Cavaliers went 2–7 during Murray's first year, the team produced a state championship and near hysteria in the student body in 1938 with a 4–4–1 record.
The Guepe years ended after the 1952 season, when the coach was wooed away by Vanderbilt in the wake of University President Colgate Darden's refusal to allow Virginia to participate in any postseason football play. Virginia had just escaped being banned permanently from the NCAA for granting athletic scholarships to student athletes, which was illegal at that time. The NCAA's "Sanity Rules" mandated that college athletes were required to work for their tuition, though this rule was often openly flouted (for instance, prior to the 1950 Rose Bowl, it was revealed that at least 16 Ohio State Buckeye football players had cushy jobs with the state of Ohio, including a running back on the payroll of the state’s transportation department as a tire inspector[19]).
President Darden made a principled argument against the statute, noting the example of teams such as Ohio State, and stated unequivocally that his school had no intention of following the Code as it enabled the powerhouse schools of the Big Ten and SEC to ignore academics and essentially pay to retain football talent. While UVA (along with traditional UVA rivals Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Maryland, and Boston College) escaped being banned from NCAA play, President Darden was concerned about the effect of "big time football" on the academical status of the University. After the 1951 football season, in which UVA only lost one game, the Virginia Cavaliers found themselves invited to the Cotton Bowl, which President Darden promptly declined, setting a precedent not broken for thirty years.[19]
Also in 1951, professor Robert Gooch wrote the "Gooch Report", which requested that UVA abolish its football program and discontinue giving athletic scholarships. While President Darden was opposed to entirely abolishing the football program or athletic scholarships, he did diminish the number of athletic scholarships given by 80%. This resulted in the departure of Coach Guepe and a series of losing seasons by the football team.[20]
Heated arguments ensued about whether Virginia should join the Atlantic Coast Conference. Athletic Director and former football coach Gus Tebell and President Darden differed sharply—Tebell in favor, Darden worried about the league's academic standards and the belief that Virginia should only align with other Virginia schools—and the Board of Visitors backed Tebell. Virginia was admitted into the ACC on December 4, 1953.[21] The first 9 years in the ACC brought 9 losing seasons and a 28-game losing streak (the second worst in NCAA FBS history), lasting from the third game of 1958 until the opening game of 1961. The streak ended in front of 18,000 fans in Scott Stadium on opening day of the 1961 season. Virginia beat William & Mary 21–6.
Support for UVA football had become spasmodic—even fraternity brothers were betting openly against the Cavaliers—around 1930, but in 1931, a dynamic new coach named Fred Dawson buoyed spirits. Losing seasons and a lack of athletic scholarships took a toll on Dawson's enthusiasm, however, and he quit after 1933 and was succeeded by Gus Tebell.
Just as frustrated at the dearth of notable wins was University President Edwin Anderson Alderman, who impaneled a committee to study the situation. Virginia decided in 1936 to resign from the Southern Conference, which prohibited players from being paid, in order to be able to offer sports scholarships.
Tebell bowed out after three losing seasons, succeeded in 1937 by Frank Murray. Although the Cavaliers went 2–7 during Murray's first year, the team produced a state championship and near hysteria in the student body in 1938 with a 4–4–1 record.
The Guepe years ended after the 1952 season, when the coach was wooed away by Vanderbilt in the wake of University President Colgate Darden's refusal to allow Virginia to participate in any postseason football play. Virginia had just escaped being banned permanently from the NCAA for granting athletic scholarships to student athletes, which was illegal at that time. The NCAA's "Sanity Rules" mandated that college athletes were required to work for their tuition, though this rule was often openly flouted (for instance, prior to the 1950 Rose Bowl, it was revealed that at least 16 Ohio State Buckeye football players had cushy jobs with the state of Ohio, including a running back on the payroll of the state’s transportation department as a tire inspector[19]).
President Darden made a principled argument against the statute, noting the example of teams such as Ohio State, and stated unequivocally that his school had no intention of following the Code as it enabled the powerhouse schools of the Big Ten and SEC to ignore academics and essentially pay to retain football talent. While UVA (along with traditional UVA rivals Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Maryland, and Boston College) escaped being banned from NCAA play, President Darden was concerned about the effect of "big time football" on the academical status of the University. After the 1951 football season, in which UVA only lost one game, the Virginia Cavaliers found themselves invited to the Cotton Bowl, which President Darden promptly declined, setting a precedent not broken for thirty years.[19]
Also in 1951, professor Robert Gooch wrote the "Gooch Report", which requested that UVA abolish its football program and discontinue giving athletic scholarships. While President Darden was opposed to entirely abolishing the football program or athletic scholarships, he did diminish the number of athletic scholarships given by 80%. This resulted in the departure of Coach Guepe and a series of losing seasons by the football team.[20]
Heated arguments ensued about whether Virginia should join the Atlantic Coast Conference. Athletic Director and former football coach Gus Tebell and President Darden differed sharply—Tebell in favor, Darden worried about the league's academic standards and the belief that Virginia should only align with other Virginia schools—and the Board of Visitors backed Tebell. Virginia was admitted into the ACC on December 4, 1953.[21] The first 9 years in the ACC brought 9 losing seasons and a 28-game losing streak (the second worst in NCAA FBS history), lasting from the third game of 1958 until the opening game of 1961. The streak ended in front of 18,000 fans in Scott Stadium on opening day of the 1961 season. Virginia beat William & Mary 21–6.
History maters simply because it is history.
I can assure that if Vanderbilt and UK played in The South's Oldest Rivalry, which now is the 2nd most played game in D1 football, that both schools and the SEC would blast that fact every year around the game.
Perhaps if a few more UNC basketball types know the UVA history, they will move a wee bit out of their inability to believe that the UNC administration held similar anti-football attitudes and acted on them.
The main difference between UNC and UVA in the anti-football stance to try to prevent the 'professionalism' of college sports is that UVA held back its basketball the same way while UNC, responding to Everett Case at MooU, decided to hire the 3rd or 4th best known coach in the country, who ran no less than the 3rd most 'professional' college basketball program of the day (behind Kansas and Kentucky: Frank McGuire of St. John's.
Woad, sometimes you are so far off base...
Most of the UNC fans I am aware of enjoy almost all of the UNC sports, they like to see successful student/athletes in academics and athletics, makes for a well rounded person.
Small sample but I don't know any UNC fans that focus on any one sport to the exclusion of all others, they may have a favorite sport, but typically enjoy most of our sports including non-revenue/Olympic...
Most of the UNC fans I am aware of enjoy almost all of the UNC sports, they like to see successful student/athletes in academics and athletics, makes for a well rounded person.
Small sample but I don't know any UNC fans that focus on any one sport to the exclusion of all others, they may have a favorite sport, but typically enjoy most of our sports including non-revenue/Olympic...
Count the number of guys who only post on Radar.....just saying
Most of the posters here have no clue that the ACC in it's original membership of seven universities in/from the old southern conference then got together and made up the ACC from southern schools/southern conf were charter members of the ACC: Clemson, Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina, and Wake Forest. UVa was added later in 1953, IIRC.
I'd also like to thank '11 for declaring Virginia a non-southern state ( I understand the modern reference as to general population makeup), although it falls south of the Mason-Dixon line.
And yes, as stated above, it is the oldest rivalry game in the region.
I'd also like to thank '11 for declaring Virginia a non-southern state ( I understand the modern reference as to general population makeup), although it falls south of the Mason-Dixon line.
And yes, as stated above, it is the oldest rivalry game in the region.
When you listed the ACC charter members , you should of left dook out just for fun.
Yeah, if a school has sustained success in a particular sport for decades, and moderate success in others, you are going to have fans of that school who mainly follow the successful sports program. Ergo, UNC has quite a few fans who mainly follow our basketball program. In the same manner how many Alabama basketball fans do you know? How many dook football fans do you know? And while the vast majority of the UNC fans I know pull just as hard for the football team as the basketball team, I understand there are quite a few who don't. I also understand why that is.
Success builds a fan base. If we continue to post double digit win seasons in football and legitimately have a chance to win our conference, the fan base will grow. And those who traditionally follow UNC basketball only will be drawn to the football scene. If Alabama started winning 30+ games in basketball every year, their basketball attendance would grow too. People like to follow winners. That's why you see dook alumni who root for dook in basketball, 'Bama in football, etc... In other words, build it and they will come.
I'd love to see the time when UNC football generated as much excitement as UNC basketball and if we continue to improve and become a perennial top 20 team, I think we will. But don't forget, fans arrive late and leave early at basketball games too so we don't have the most rabid fans by any stretch of the imagination.
Success builds a fan base. If we continue to post double digit win seasons in football and legitimately have a chance to win our conference, the fan base will grow. And those who traditionally follow UNC basketball only will be drawn to the football scene. If Alabama started winning 30+ games in basketball every year, their basketball attendance would grow too. People like to follow winners. That's why you see dook alumni who root for dook in basketball, 'Bama in football, etc... In other words, build it and they will come.
I'd love to see the time when UNC football generated as much excitement as UNC basketball and if we continue to improve and become a perennial top 20 team, I think we will. But don't forget, fans arrive late and leave early at basketball games too so we don't have the most rabid fans by any stretch of the imagination.
Lets just hope it doesn't feel like rain tomorrow
Buddy Guy is one of my heroes
Buddy is OK.
But I really like this guy...
So by that logic 99% of the posters on THI hate the baseball team and want to hold them down to help the other sports since they don't post on the baseball board.
The % of UNC football-first fans who have a deep interest in at least one other UNC sport is much higher than that of UNC basketball-first fans who have a deep interest in at least one other UNC sport. Denying that is rather like a BLM protestor in Charlotte denying his crowd pulled people from cars to beat them and tried to burn a journalist/photographer in a trash bin, because he KNOWS his movement is all about peace and tolerance.
Over the years, I have posted reminders by the many dozens on UNC basketball boards about other UNC sports being televised. A number of those reminders I turned into game threads, allowing the basketball-firsters to stay on a basketball board and still be able to follow UNC lacrosse or baseball. Almost all of those threads have featured smart ass shots at me from UNC baskektball-firsters.
When I have started lacrosse or baseball or soccer threads here, nobody makes a stink about how the sacred 1sport board is not for trouble makers. And people always join in and show support. Always. Last year, we had people here commenting on women's lacrosse.
And it's worse than that. Last year during the season of Sacred Cow sport, after I had decided that posting about basketball on a basketball board is a waste of time because UNC internet hoops posters tend to be an inbred group incapable of discerning anything they don't already assume, a moderator came to this board to threaten to ban me for posting a link here to yet another article showing that football is at least 4 times more valuable than basketball.
Truth is not something the basketball-onlys and basektball-firsters of any fan base will stomach as long as they can silence those who fail to worship with them.
Years ago, when the football program was hapless under Bunting and later when it showed real possibility under Davis, I spent some time trying to persuade UNC basketball-onlys and basketball-firsters to spend some time on a football board during football season. Invariably, those people would assert that the second UNC football was able to compete for something beyond 7 wins that they would do so.
WE won the Coastal last year, and none of that crowd came over and participated here. We are again ranked and have a good shot to be back to back Coastal Champs. And the basketball-onlys and basketball-firsters remain locked down on a basketball board.
I tell you what - you rally the basektaball-onlys to move into basketball-first status and also prod the basketball-first crowd to come here and post during the football season, post on game threads. And when we see it actually happening, I'll take the lead to trumpet the sign of good things coming for fans of Tar Heel athletics.
I don't think they even know there is a baseball team , much less hate it. Have you ever heard guys at the water cooler arguing dook-UNC or moo-UNC baseball?
very good post! i was an undergrad at carolina when we won the acc championship (1972) and football games were well-attended. people like a winner. the posters on this board who criticize carolina football fans ignore this basic fact of human nature. sports is entertainment, not moral obligation, and let's face it -- for a while carolina football was not very enjoyable. by the way, i went to bama for grad school and i remember basketball games where the only sound in the coliseum was the players' shoes squeaking.
Please provide these studies. I'm assuming you have some facts to back up your claims right?
You see the irony in what you are complaining about and what you are doing right?
I don't think I've ever seen anyone say that basketball was more monetarily valuable than football.
Here is the most important question. So what? Even if you are 100% correct what does it matter? Why does a basketball fan have to care about football? Why does a football fan have to care about basketball? Just let people be whatever type of fan they want to be and be happy that we have support no matter what teams they support.
I was just using your logic that if someone doesn't participate on a message board then they hate that team. How often have you posted on the baseball board? There is probably less than 10 people who post on that board, but that doesn't mean everyone else wants to kill of the baseball team. You're using radar type logic.
Where are you getting hate from? My contention is apathy not hate. I've posted on the baseball board 2-3 times but college baseball just doesn't create much buzz.
That's been the word, or implication, that has been used in this argument in the past, so that's why I used it. Even if you replace hate with apathy it still doesn't make sense. Judging someone's level of caring about a sport based on message board posts is illogical. I've only posted on the baseball board a few times during the season, but I would pick baseball over football and basketball any day of the week.
I will have to respectfully disagree. I think you post on the topics you care for the most. I do agree on baseball and it was my first love , but it's not much fun to post on the baseball site when there is almost no one there to converse with. The football/Blitz sight also has a lot more harmony among the posters.
So which is it? You post on the topics you care for the most or the one who has the most people to talk to? Either way you must love Hilary Clinton and chick since you post about them all of the time.
I don't care if there's a UNC football fan that just doesn't care about basketball, or vice versa. Or if there are people out there who are obsessed with UNC baseball and lax, but don't give a damn about football or basketball or anything like that.
The more fans the better, so even if we have a bunch of bandwagon basketball fans, that's fine by me. But I do somewhat snicker at their fandom if they are hardcore UNC basketball fans, and like college football - but pull for a more popular bandwagon football school, like oh I dunno - let's just pull out a random one off the top of my head - Auburn.
Exactly. Those types of folks effing kill me.
BTW, Woad is a lot more correct in this thread than some of y'all want to admit. Football fandom is a big problem for UNC.
Oh and speaking of ol' garysiete, I was in Tuscaloosa this past weekend for their game against A&M. I'm sure he would've loved that.
