re: What is the appeal of rivalries?

I use to enjoy the deep rooted Auburn-Bama hate on here. Then, after Bama went on that run 2010’s, Auburn fans just quit flaming.

Sad really

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State & Ole Miss are rivals but I do not dislike Ole Miss. When I was young I did but in my old age, I actually want both of our teams to win so that when we play each other, the game means more.
For example, I was pulling for Ole Miss to win in the recent Regionals and CWS.

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Half my family went to State. One of my cousins married a well known State baseball player. I've never been a State hater and root for them more times than not. I also root for LSU and Arkansas a lot. A lot of LSU fans seem to be showing their arse in this thread. I really have nothing against them except when they talk shite about us. I root for Ole Miss and whatever teams that help us but I also like to see the nearby teams do well also. Hell, I even root for Memphis on occasion.

Without rivalries, you wouldn't have fun things like trash talking your opponents on their own campus:

Like I said, throwback to a different age.

A couple years back after my dad passed, I looked at some of his pictures. He went to a small engineering school in the Catskills in the early 50's before joining the Air Force, probably currently a D3 school (although to be fair, I think they're a bit of a power in NCAA hockey). He said they used to have a decent football team until hockey season, then everyone would swap over.
There were pictures of guys playing on a field, don't think there were even bleachers. Certainly not the pageantry of bigtime football today. But damned if there wasn't also a picture of an old Studebaker all trussed up with banners, and a big "Beat Fordham" painted on the windshield, with a crowd of folks all drinking around it.

Got me to thinking- once upon a time, you didn't see games on TV. A lucky few teams got on the radio (LSU on WWL, where people could hear it at night all the way to St Louis maybe). You saw some grainy B&W photos of some team that the AP said was "the best" in the paper. But damn it, you could go see YOUR team in full color, and the teams your team played. And in the SEC, you might be able to go see the Sugar Bowl if your team made it; and it didn't really matter if you were #1 or #10. If you beat "your rival", life was good. And if you beat a bunch more teams and made the Sugar, life was even better. And to hell with what some dude in NYC said was the best, that SEC champ was the best team you saw.
Or maybe to our former SWC teams, the Cotton. Or to Oklahoma fans, the Orange.

Screw the other teams, the Big 10 and Pac playing in their exclusive Rose Bowl. They were intangible concepts, they didn't come play us.
And I'm sure they felt the same way.
And unlike stuff like MLB, there were colleges everywhere in the country, close enough for you to go to, and another close enough that you had to deal with their fans too.

Nowadays, every damn game is on tv, probably half in multiple language broadcasts. Rivalries are a thing of the past, pride in beating them or winning your conference is a thing of the past. Regional ties mean little, your neighbor might be an Oregon or Ohio State fan because they win a lot and all their games are on TV.

College football just ain't the same.

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I honestly don't get why so many people hate one team more than all of the others. It seems like such a pointless mindset. I see all SEC teams as the same... opponents. I see so many LSU and Ole Miss dick waggers on here and it just seems like a waste of energy.

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Yup.

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That being said, Tennessee can eat a dick.

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Succinct message. You could probably be a writer.

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That being said, Tennessee can eat a dick.

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I think this is a good point and I am sorry that others do not share that sentiment so far. Have a fourth upvote!