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Larry Stone: The Development Of Rivalries
Rivalries develop in different ways.
You have rivalries of proximity such as Auburn/Alabama or Duke/North Carolina. Rivalries develop through time such as with the historic Tennessee/Alabama matchups.
Sometimes a personality and his ensuing success generates a rivalry such as Steve Spurrier's Florida Gators against the Volunteers. Remember the fans and media members who said the rivalry just wasn't the same this season without Spurrier. Then, the down-and-out Gators pull the upset in Knoxville. That brings us to another point about rivalries -- they ebb and flow, changing through time.
Professional sports do not have the same type of pomp and traditions surrounding rivalries, but they do exist. A recent television special talked about the deep rooted sentiment of Red Sox fans against the Yankees, a rivalry based in events of more than 80 years ago.
In the NFL, you can truly forget records and playoff positions when the Bears and Lions or Cowboys and Redskins meet twice annually -- rivalries built through history. Success has made Tennessee/Baltimore a rivalry -- the Ravens have had the success thanks to a guy Titans fans love to dislike. Ask yourself would the Ravens/Titans be as much fun if Brian Billick were not on the sidelines?
Still those games also feature great one-on-one matchups that fuel rivalries -- Ray Lewis vs Eddie George, Brad Hopkins vs Michael McCrary, Billick vs Fisher.
Tennessee/Jacksonville developed as a rivalry when the Titans took three games in 1999, including the Jaguars' Super Bowl hopes with that AFC Championship win.
That brings us to Sunday's game at Houston. This rivalry -- at least for now -- is based upon something totally different. The Texans/Titans rivalry has nothing to do with players or coaches or games won, it is about fans versus an owner: the residents of Houston who lost their Oilers to Nashville vs Bud Adams, who tried to get the city to build a stadium like the one Sunday's game will be played in, but was unsuccessful.
That's another great thing about rivalries: they need no element of truth or reality. It's immaterial to bring up the fact that Mr. Adams fought for years to get a stadium. It doesn't matter that he openly said he would have to move the team because the economics of the Astrodome would not work in the modern NFL. It doesn't matter that Adams introduced the proposal to NFL owners to bring the NFL back to Houston. For the fans who will yell and scream Sunday, all that matters is he took the Oilers away.
The Titans have just six players remaining on their squad who even played in Houston. They have downplayed the return all week, saying that too much time has passed. Indeed, six years is a long time. On the other side, the Texans understand how much a win Sunday would give the franchise positive momentum heading into the off-season. ''Beat Dallas and Tennessee to bookend the season -- who cares about the middle.''
One of the questions about Sunday's game will be how much the Texans players pick up the cause of the team's fans. If they seize that energy and come up with some big plays, Sunday's game will be a war. In rival games, one can expect nothing else.
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