Choose State Lines, Not TV Lines
College football used to be defined by geography. Saturdays weren’t just about the sport; they were about identity. Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State. Oregon vs. Oregon State. Nebraska vs. Colorado. Bedlam, the Civil War, the Border War — these weren’t just games, they were state holidays. You circled them on the calendar because they meant more than wins and losses. They were about bragging rights at work on Monday, about your uncle not talking to your dad for a week, about a state splitting down the middle for four quarters.
But those games are disappearing, not because the rivalries died, but because TV money told them to. Oklahoma and Texas are heading to the SEC. USC and UCLA now play in the Big Ten. Stanford and Cal are flying to the ACC. Oregon State and Washington State are left holding what’s left of the Pac-12, watching a century of tradition vanish overnight.
The problem isn’t that college football got bigger. The problem is that it got too big to care about the roots that made it matter. Rivalries used to be built on bus rides, shared borders, and fans who lived next door to each other. Now it’s built on flight itineraries and kickoff times set by networks. Nobody asked for Cal vs. Syracuse. Nobody will remember it, either.
And sure, football might have the money and the schedule to survive this. One game a week, charter flights, private nutritionists, and endless resources. But what about the other sports? What about baseball teams playing three-game series across the country? What about volleyball players with two away matches in a week? What about basketball teams traveling midweek from California to New York, then back again, just to meet a conference obligation? That isn’t strategy. That’s neglect. It’s a clear message: we don’t actually care about our student-athletes, we care about our television contracts.
Think about Bedlam. Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State has been played for more than 100 years. A rivalry so baked into the DNA of the state that you couldn’t escape it if you tried. Families split, workplaces buzzed, kids wore their colors to school. And now? It’s gone. Not because fans stopped caring, but because a TV contract said the SEC was worth more. One of the loudest, most tradition-soaked rivalries in college football is getting boxed up and left in history.
And here’s the kicker: these decisions don’t just affect fans. They affect campuses. Rivalries are how you get students invested, how you turn freshmen into lifers. They’re the spark that turns a Saturday into a spectacle. Without them, you’re left with sterile matchups that might sell to TV but don’t mean anything to the people on the ground. Rivalries are culture — and college football is burning that culture for cash.
When future generations look back, they won’t remember USC vs. Rutgers in a cold November Big Ten game. They’ll remember the last Bedlam. The last Civil War. The last time a rivalry still felt like it was about us, not about them.
Because once regional rivalries die, the sport stops feeling like college football — and starts feeling like another version of the NFL. Bigger, richer, shinier. But emptier, too.
