How many of us would rather be waterboarded than send our kids to BC? How many would make a personal point to paint Alumni Stadium blue and white? How many would love to rip apart BC at their home stadium and start a long, incessant "little brother" chant that echoes throughout the stadium to remind them in no uncertain terms who really is "New England's team?"
UConn football needs a rival. It does not have one. I know Rutgers can qualify, but honestly ask, are they a rival, or do we call them one because there are no better options? Rutgers and UConn have played very close (agonizing) games over the past few years, and that certainly helps, but rivalries are natural. Our "rivalry" with Rutgers always felt more like a "well, who honestly is a rival?" designation rather than a true blood hate rivalry. I like beating Rutgers as much as the next person, but honestly, if we do not ever play them again (unless we go to the B1G!), I sincerely will not care.
We hate BC. BC hates us. We are within 100 or so miles of one another, and we have a well-documented antipathy that extends beyond the players and the fans. Few schools have that kind of resentment toward one another.
College sports are built on rivalries. Where was our men's basketball team before we had Syracuse, Georgetown, and Pitt to hate? Those schools, and the desperation to beat one another lifted UConn basketball from a regional power into a national contender on a regular basis. Fans need games to circle on the calendar. UConn football has never had that.
We circled the Pitt, Cuse, G'Town basketball games on the calendar. Pitt and Cuse football games never carried that cache or angst. BC provides that more than any of those schools ever could or would. The local coverage of a UConn/BC game, and the storylines would generate a buzz for the game that only the Notre Dame and Michigan games ever did.
The passion for UConn in this state is pound for pound strong enough to rival any other fan base. It may not be the largest, but it certainly stacks up. To those of us who went to the Rutgers game at the Rent in 2007, we were playing our first game as a nationally ranked team at home, against Rutgers in primetime (with the representatives of the Sugar or Fiesta Bowl in attendance). I have never seen a UConn crowd at a football game like that. Something was at stake, the game MATTERED for national purposes, and the fans rose up, and responded in a way that I remember to this day.
We need that kind of game every single year if we cannot get it every single week. The more of them we have, the bigger, and more passionate UConn fans become for the football team. The BC game will matter. We have talked about it in hypotheticals for years. Seeing it live will be standing room only, and we will be able to hurl the boos and hate we have pent up for years in person. This game must happen. UConn football is desperate for it. That said, duckK BC!
