PYU Week 13 Picks (and War on I-4) Thread: It Just Doesn’t Matter

(DISCLAIMER: This game is for entertainment purposes only. No actual money is being wagered.)

You may have noticed that our blog doesn’t seem very engaged in the War on I-4. There’s a reason, and it’s practically a meme in our internal discussions: “they don’t hate USF nearly as much as we do.” Nobody gaslights us better than USF football. Despite our overconfidence at times (hello, Tulane), we’re a rather self-hating fan base.

There’s also the problem that on the field, USF doesn’t have much to say in its defense right now. The 2016 football game is the only time USF has ever possessed the War on I-4 trophy. As we have been frequently reminded this week, USF has never won a football conference championship to UCF’s six; has a male cow for a mascot; and is still not located in south Florida. But there’s a third, more important reason we don’t talk about the War on I-4 very much:

It’s not the actual competition.

When this rivalry became intra-conference starting in 2013, I wrote a long recap of USF-UCF history up to that point. It included this remark:

Neither school really wants a rivalry with the other. They want to be in a better conference, bigger, and more important than the other.

And boy howdy, has 2021 proven that. UCF being added to the Big XII was the validation they had long sought. To say nothing of the post-season access, television access, prestige, and financial benefits they will accrue. And when they got it, the War on I-4 almost immediately went on the back burner.

The decision was devastating for USF. It showed how far the USF athletic program had fallen from its Big East days. It was so devastating that USF’s long-desired on-campus stadium plan materialized out of nowhere, and even became a presidential priority. On top of that, an ineffective, unpopular defensive coach was fired in-season. That was a bold move for USF, because it’s more our style to keep overpaid dead weight around forever. Mike Hughes’ punt return didn’t bring about any of that positive change, did it?

That’s why there’s not much to say about the football game or the rivalry trophy. UCF has already won the only game that actually matters. Being in a better conference, bigger, and more important than USF is. That’s what’s unique to the War on I-4, and why I think it’s so vitriolic when it has no real reason to be. It’s a sports rivalry that’s not rooted in any actual sporting event. It’s rooted in the meta-competition of conference realignment. As college rivalries go, it’s very 21st century, and it’s very online. I’d love to hear an anthropologist’s take on it.

Do I want USF to upset UCF on Friday? Of course I do. Is it going to happen? The line speaks for itself, and the War on I-4 football rivalry has historically been dominated by the better team. Will it get us into a Power 5 conference? No. So much of that realignment stuff is about external factors anyway. The Big XII wasn’t going to kick out Oklahoma to add UCF. But I still made my traditional bet of 64.12 units on USF winning the game.

Here are the picks for this week:

Note that leader BullsOnParade96 has already scored a big parlay win. If he has the most winnings this week, he will clinch the points race, as well as taking a big lead in the money race.

I leave you with the greatest rousing speech in the history of sports movies, and one perfectly tailored to USF fans going into this game. Even though Meatballs isn’t really a sports movie. Even though the speech emphasized the superiority of the opponents, and the pointlessness of the game. Such is the genius of Bill Murray. If this doesn’t inspire you to run through a brick wall if it would do anything to stop those black-and-gold bastards from gaining an inch this Friday, then I can’t help you.