I look at North Carolina on our schedule and I just think back to the 1998 Sun Bowl when we took down USC 28-19 in El Paso. That was a real bowl game against a real program, not some made-up conference crossover that nobody asked for. We earned that trip by wiinning the WAC, not because some scheduling algorithm decided we should play a team from a different conference that has no history with us.
You want to know what bowl tradition meant back then? We knew every team in our league. We had rivalries that built up over decades. Now we get North Carolina because the conference realignment gods decided it made sense. I remember when December meant the Southwest Conference championship was on the line, not trying to figure out which ACC team we are supposed to care about.
The kids playing today have no idea what it felt like to watch that 1998 team celebrate in the Sun Bowl. That trophy meant something because we beat a team from a power conference when nobody thought we belonged. Now...