Syracuse vs. Maryland: The Rivalry That Always Should Have Been

In my podcast discussion with Jim Young at ACC Sports, I surprised them with the notion that I thought the Syracuse Orange and the Maryland Terrapins always should have been big rivals on the basketball court and football field.

In fact, in doing a little internal research, I surprised even myself by realizing I've been calling for it since 2006. My reasoning? Like the world's money supply and the liberal media, my theory involves The Jews...

Let's face facts. Northeastern Jews usually make thier college choices between a few schools. If you're mentally-challenged, you go to West Virginia. If you're female or don't care about sports, you go to Delaware. If you're supersmart, you go Ivy League. The rest of the Flock decide between Syracuse, Maryland and Hofstra. I know from experience...my final two choices were Maryland and Syracuse. Because the Syracuse/Maryland dilemma is one faced by so many Jews in the Tri-State area (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut), there's tons of families, friends and communities with ties to both schools. You've got a built-in rivalry right there. And as for all the goyim, yeah, they can watch too.

Obviously, that's still a small percentage of the two alumni and fan bases, but it gets us down the path of rivalry. Like I said in the podcast, I know a LOT of people back in NJ who either have relatives or friends that went to both schools. Personally, my stepfather went to Maryland. There is a lot of overlap.

In the basketball realm, Syracuse is already entrentched firmly in the DC/Baltimore recruiting world (Carmelo, Donte Greene, etc.). And I'm willing to bet Maryland looks to NY/NJ/PA as well. Tons of crossover there.

The football match-up just got interesting with the arrival of Syracuse alum Randy Edsall. We're already pissed at Edsall for his UConn days and calling Maryland his "dream job." Well, we're actually laughing about that second part, but, you know. Considering Edsall's son Corey is walk-on at SU, we could call it The Edsall Bowl. Winner gets the rights to the other Edsall.

There's history there, too. We've actually played each other 34 times in football (SU leads 18-14-2), most recently in 1994. Maryland famously refused to play against Syracuse when they featured African-American superstar Wilmeth Sidat-Singh (until SU caved). And we played each other in the one and only Cherry Bowl.

Our basketball history is a bit more slight, having met 7 times (Maryland leads 5-2). We played one another in the NIT a few years back. Shame Gary Williams and Jim Boeheim didn't get more opportunities to curmudegeon-off.