VT-WVU: A Rivalry's Meltdown
WVU commenter EER14 had a couple of good thoughts on the upcoming Tech-WVU matchup in a WVU-ECU postgame thread on Fanblogs Big East Tuesday morning, and the Roanoke Times followed up Wednesday morning with a good article on the Hokie players’ perspective. EER14 is right that this rivalry has become huge, and that it’s disappointing it must end.
But Mountaineer fans wondering why need only look in the mirror. A rivalry that had once been intense but mostly-civil got grossly out of control following the rise of WVU’s riot culture in the past 5-6 years, and Virginia Tech’s escape to the ACC tossed gasoline on the burning Morgantown couches. To be honest, WVU would have been an outside hope anyway for the ACC’s twelfth spot, but their fan base ended discussions before they ever started. Rumor was that Jim Weaver and WVU AD Ed Pastilong discussed continuing the rivalry at a neutral site like FedEx Field, but adding in-stadium beer sales to this matchup would have been asking for a disaster.
Hokie fans will travel just about anywhere, but I’d be surprised to see more than a thousand of us at Mountaineer Field on Saturday. Between my usual traveling group of friends, we’ve done Charlottesville three times, Pittsburgh twice, Miami twice, New Orleans twice, FedEx Field (P.G. County), Nashville, Jacksonville, Phoenix, Durham, and we’ll get College Park (P.G. again!) later in October, but none of us will touch Morgantown. It isn’t safe there, and that’s no way to enjoy a football game.
28 September 2005 / 0 Comments / Tags: football