The week before WVU and Marshall meet on the football field inevitably prompts the question of whether the game can be classified as a “rivalry.”
WVU fans are loath to admit that it is because to do so would elevate Marshall. “Pitt is our rival,” the WVU fans say. And they are correct. The Backyard Brawl has the principle elements of a rivalry: History, geography, passion and significance.
Certainly Marshall is not the rival for WVU, but can it can still be a rivalry game.
Steve Cotton, the Voice of the Marshall Thundering Herd, concedes that Marshall needs to win one in the series before the “R” word can be used liberally. However, Cotton says, the Monday after the game one team’s fans will be giving fans of the losing team a hard time in the workplace, the coffee shop and anyplace else they meet; that sounds like a rivalry.
The fact that Marshall and WVU fans argue over whether the “Friends of Coal Bowl” can be classified as a rivalry is another indication that the game is, in fact, a rivalry.
Admittedly the game does not fit the classic definition of a rivalry. Army first took the field against Navy in 1890. Cal and Stanford have been battling over The Stanford Axe since 1892. Mississippi State and Ole Miss have played every year since 1901 for the Golden Egg Trophy. On and on.
WVU and Marshall have played just eight times in football (three times for the Friends of Coal Trophy) and WVU has won all eight meetings.
Long-time rivalries have their own unique traditions, but they all have one thing in common—they had a beginning. Maybe when Purdue and Indiana first tangled there wasn’t much buzz on the games, especially since Purdue won the first three meetings (1891, ’92, ‘93) by a combined score of 192 to nothing. But now the annual battle for the Old Oaken Bucket is one of the biggest on each team’s schedule.
WVU has won each of the three games since the two teams started their current series so the Friends of Coal trophy has stayed in Morgantown. Mountaineer fans have grown accustomed to having the beautiful glass football at the facilities building. It’s like the Schwartzwalder Trophy, which is collecting dust in Morgantown since WVU has won the last eight meetings with Syracuse.
But if WVU loses Saturday, Mountaineer fans who want to downplay the game will consider cracking open the glass Friends of Coal Bowl trophy and using a piece to slash their wrists.
Interestingly, the game has political implications. It was Gov. Joe Manchin who forced the seven-game series between the two schools, an intervention many WVU fans have never gotten over. If Marshall wins the Coal Bowl, Manchin will take almost as much heat as Coach Bill Stewart.
The late Tom Searls, who was a long-time Charleston Gazette reporter and loyal Marshall alum, used to love to tweak me about my alma mater, WVU. The best way to shut up Searls, which was not easy to do, was to cite the outcome of the most recent WVU-Marshall meeting on the football field or the basketball court.
The final score always muted whatever argument he posited. They call them “bragging rights” for a reason, and you only brag about an outcome when you want the opposing team’s fans to feel even worse about themselves after a loss than they already do.
I won’t brag if WVU wins Saturday, but I will be relieved and quietly smug. The thought of losing to Marshall is more horrifying than the benefit that comes with winning.
That’s the way it is with a rival.
