Rivalry Week!

I love Rivalry Week. The Golden Egg, Paul Bunyan's Axe, Chancellor's Spurs, the Platypus, the Apple Cup, and who knows what else.

Firstly, I love that the records of the respective teams generally don't matter.

The talent differences, money differences all seem to fade during Rivalry Week. Coaching differences still stand out, but not as much as the "underdog" tends to dig deep into the playbook. Hard to prep for plays you haven't seen in 3 years!

Secondly, I love the hype.

Usually I hate hype, it's so artificial, so contrived. Remember the lame LSU v Bama BCS championship game? Or Bama v Georgia in the CFP? Me neither. Why would I waste my time watching teams I don't care about (that was before I started doing this; I'll watch all the games now and be as objective as I can while talking about them)? Now, I can get up for watching Big12 vs SEC or Pac12 vs ACC, but SEC vs SEC? Yet the hype machine for those types of games goes into Ludicrous Speed ("They've gone to plaid!") to try to get non-conference eyeballs.

I say all of that to come back to loving the hype of Rivalry Week. Literally every outlet for every team is throwing shade, talking trash, pumping up the fanbase. And now is when it is exciting to watch B1G v B1G and SEC v SEC, so the hype is well deserved! And funny. And demoralizing. And all the things trash talking and such is supposed to be.

Thirdly, I love that usually the games matter.

There is almost always something meaningful at stake at the upper echelon of the sport, and so much pride at all levels. It's the part of the season when, even if your team is miserable, you have an opportunity for a lone bright spot. Or maybe you can become bowl eligible. Or maybe you can prevent your hated rival from becoming bowl eligible. Or you can break a streak like Virginia over Va Tech!

And at the top, you get to set bowl placement and CFP seeding. Who get's the Rose Bowl on Jan 1 and who gets the Carquest Autoparts Bowl on Dec 26? Did your team do enough to maintain pace with its closest competitors for the Playoff? You saw what happened to LSU last week. If your rival sucks or even just isn't very good (UGA vs Ga Tech) and the team you're trying to catch has a relatively solid rival (OSU v UM), you run the risk of falling further behind or being overtaken.

So here we are, close to the pointy end. OSU has already beaten down UM...again. I can't imagine LSU will have any trouble. UGA and Clemson won big against inferior opponents. Bama and Auburn are currently trading blows while Wisconsin and Minnesota are fighting for the right to be OSU's next victim. Washington beat WSU for the 7th straight time and probably secured a much nicer bowl than if they'd lost. Indiana over Purdue in 2OT.

Enjoy it while you can.