re: Do the rivalries really matter?

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For sure. It's odd, for all the history we have with A&M there is just no animosity between the two schools outside of the standard canned message board bullshite.

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they never stood out as a SWC rival to me, Arky-UT well hell yeah but never the ags

now us, I grew up on starting the season with them and we despised them, even when we were kickin them in the 70's and early 80's

I'm going to use your post here to try and make a point that people are missing in this latest realignment talk.

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Not really. There are certainly LSU fans that hate the likes of UA, AU, and UF but the feeling is rarely mutual from their fan bases. All my true hate, and most of the true hate by Tiger fans goes to and will forever go to Tulane. And that feeling is mutual.

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Take that statement 30 years ago, and it is accurate. 20 years ago, and it's still somewhat accurate. 10 years ago to today, not so much. The rivalry with Tulane is essentially dead now.

Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, and Texas A&M fans (and also Georgia Tech, Clemson, Florida State, and Texas fans) take note, although most people won't because you don't understand it... it really sucks and takes a lot of fun out of the season/ sporting year if your traditional rival actually dies on the vine. Your rivalries help give meaning to what you are as a program.

So yes, rivalries matter. In conference or out of conference, it doesn't matter. A rival is a rival, unless you kill the rival off.

aggies are the noobs but they're acting like they already own the place. i rather preserve old rivalries than add new teams.

I know some older Aggies who hate LSU. Most of them work in O&G. I know nobody who hates Arkansas, only those annoyed at the two recent losses. Our true hate will forever be reserved for the whorns, but LSU could be a very intense second rival that means more on the field because it would be a conference game. It would take several decades of events to surpass the whorns though.

What about the new out-of-conference rivalries? One of my favorite Saturdays is when the East plays all their in-state ACC rivals (USC-Clemson, UGA-GaTech, Fla-FSU) and spanks them. Add A&M-UT, OU-OSU or Mizzou-KU, UNC-NCSU and UVA-VaTech and you've got the equivalent of the ACC/BigEast hoops challenge that will generate a bunch of ratings even if the teams are just playing for bragging rights or bowl eligibility.

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Boot melted down to make new trophy specific to midwest

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This will not be a problem considering that after we kick your 4 teeth down your throat, we will have retained possession of the boot again....which will be 4 out of the past 5 years. I promise you...we will kick your arse in Baton Rouge this year.

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packdaddy75

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LSU Fan

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I don't want any of this expansion bull crap. But if we do then I say we need to forget all the rivalry crap and do everything on an even rotational basis. It is assinine to play some teams in the east every year and others only once in a blue moon.

I say if you don't play them every year are they really in your conf?

I think people think these rivalries matter a lot more than they do. I didn't miss aTm when we stopped playing them, don't care that I won't see Oklahoma/Neb, don't see why aTm would want to keep getting an arse beating by Texas just because their daddy used to get his arse beat way back in the day.