By: Ryan Moreland (@ryanmoreland)
Those who have been around for a while know that rivalries have been born in the CFSL that are not traditional rivalries in college football. The battles between Texas and Notre Dame back in the day are the stuff of legend. It feels like there is a rivalry budding between Kentucky and LSU that started with the coaching changes. And there is certainly no love lost between Oklahoma State and Boise State.
The CFSL has its latest rivalry about to start tonight. West Virginia AD Nate Murphy and Colorado AD Skyler Shearer got together to form a rivalry between the two schools. From now on the games between The Mountaineers and the Buffaloes will be known as Mountain Mayhem aka The Battle for John Denver’s Guitar, which might be my favorite name for a rivalry ever. We will give the younger members of our league a second to Google who John Denver is.
Are you caught up? Great.
Now, the winner isn’t going to actually get John Denver’s Guitar (mostly because he won’t respond to Murph’s calls), but they will get bragging rights over a conference rival and some momentum heading into the back half of the season.
Just because this rivalry is new, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have some fire behind it. “The game isn’t gonna be nice,” Shearer said. He continued, “It’s gonna be a lot of hard-hitting and emotions on the field… This is the in-season Super Bowl for our teams.”
These nontraditional rivalries are a piece of what makes the CFSL so great. I, for one, cannot wait to see who wins this game and how fired up the chat will be during and after. And it is all because two enterprising ADs had a great idea.
We will have to wait and see how this new rivalry unfolds. What we do know now is both teams desperately want this win. West Virginia is 1-2 currently and Colorado is still searching for their program’s first win. A win in this game would go a long way to helping these teams achieve their season goals.
Kickoff is set for 8:30 P.M. CST tonight and it will be live on Twitch. Sit back, relax, and watch the first-ever game in the Mountain Mayhem rivalry. Good luck to both teams and their innovative athletic directors.
