PYU Week 13: Don’t Mention The War

(DISCLAIMER: No one actually cares about the War on I-4. Also, this game is for entertainment purposes only. No actual money is being wagered.)

I suppose I should say something about the end of the War on I-4 rivalry series. But I said it all the year it started:

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

Jamie said it even better in 2010:

It’s a completely unhealthy, sometimes dangerous relationship, and I can’t believe how many Bulls fans get sucked into it... whatever grudge match exists between the two schools is more like a quicksand trap that both sides constantly sink into.

None of these things has changed.

I hoped the formalization of the rivalry in 2013, with a formal trophy and being in the same conference, would normalize things a bit. But it has the same petty, sniping, too-online tone it always did. Even the epic 2017 football game, which will someday consume a chapter of a future “greatest games in Florida football history” book, didn’t help. All it created was another dumb thing for the fan bases to bicker about.

And there’s just no reason for it. There have been no real on- or off-field incidents. It has no roots in long-ago fan conflicts, or one of their own students being killed in one, or bitterness about the creation and purpose of the institutions, or pre-Civil War raids. There was never even an FIU-Miami brawl. Or anything that happened in the 20th century!

There was the tackle that gruesomely injured McKenzie Milton in the 2018 game, but he and Mazzi Wilkins actually became friends over it. Milton had this to say, at a faith conference:

“It doesn’t need to be a thing anymore. It’s just cool to have a USF Bull here and a UCF Knight coming together and becoming friends. That’s the kind of stuff football can do.”

That’s... the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.

Not because of the noble idea that friendship should be more important than sports rivalry. It’s the implication that USF Bulls and UCF Knights should exist in some default state of being enemies. Imagine hearing that about Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee, or Henderson State-Ouachita Baptist, or any other passionate but irrelevant local annual game.

If a guy who nearly lost a leg in the War on I-4 can publicly forgive and move past it, then whatever axe you have to grind with an opposing fan base probably isn’t worth the effort.

So I’m glad that the War On I-4 is going into timeout for at least a couple years. I’ll miss the games, but I won’t miss the “rivalry.” Maybe someday, when it’s about something other than who gets to be in what power conference, it’ll start to gain some actual meaning. And if Twitter is going to die like everyone says it is, that would be a big help.

Having said all that, let’s see how many spite bets were made on this game. I made one like I do every year, but I found a new target for it:

Results will be posted after the weekend. Most futures bets will be resolved at that time as well.