JSeahawks wrote:You might feel that way personally, but I dont believe that for a second about yoru fan base as a whole.
The UW sites I visit (UWdawgpound, etc) almost never bring up Oregon, outside of celebrating Chip Kelly's departure- which is only natural. UW's fanbase is very self-focused. Hating Oregon only comes after our team has a real chance to unseat them. Getting beat 56-0 when you expected to lose 56-0 doesn't really stir emotions. Getting beat during an 11-1 season does, and the last time that happened was 13 years ago.
I think UW fans probably hate Oregon's fans (seriously, some of the nastiest in the sport- remind me of 49ers fans- you are an exception of course), and they hate all the annoying (and often ugly) costume changes courtesy of Nike. And they probably hate constantly hearing about how brilliant Chip Kelly was (which he is), but I never got the sense that they really cared much about Oregon the football team any more than they did when USC was kicking their asses a few years ago. I don't really hate WSU, but I hate them 100 times more than Oregon, because they have embarrassed UW on a few occasions, and Oregon has never really done that, even when they were winning sixty to nothing.
If you were to feel envy, would you be envious of your CEO or envious of a coworker who just got the promotion you wanted? It's kind of hard to summon emotion when it comes to failing to achieve unrealistic expectations (unless perhaps you are a Mitt Romney pollster for Fox News).
justafan wrote:I have been to that hell hole down there to watch UW in the 80s and 90s and the duck fans were as obnoxious as any fans I have been around and that was before they were any good.
Maybe its a changing of the fanbase but going to Husky Stadium now is nothing like it was in the 80s or 90s there is nowhere near the passion for the Huskies.That stadium used to be more electric than the Hawks games.
I don't know its its sour grapes that make people say the ducks game isnt that big or just people really dont care that much but people I grew up with watching the Dawgs hated the ducks before they were good and still do.
There is no team I hate losing to more than the ducks period.Deep down I feel the fans who dont feel that way are the minority.
Nailed it. Basically, the passion for UW football isn't anywhere close to where it used to be. I'd compare it to maybe the "optimistic" post-2009 Mariners or maybe the Seahawks right after they hired Pete Carroll. UW fans are mildly upbeat, but the casual fans still need to be sold on. Saturdays are filled with more hopefulness than cockiness.
Without that passion, you will never experience a true rivalry with anyone else. One of the reasons Oregon thinks they are rivals with anyone is because their team is awesome. The reason we feel like we are rivals of the near SB winning 49ers is because the Seahawks are awesome. I think from Oregon's view, they aren't really rivals with the current Huskies, I think they view UW's legacy as the object they want to rival.
The Huskies just came off a season where they finished 4th in the Pac-12 North. The shit-talkiest fans also tend to ironically be bandwagoners, so yeah, you probably get some playful ribbing wearing a duck's jersey in Seattle right now, but you won't get a sharp object literally stuck in those ribs, as has been known to happen in some unnamed venues.
As far as sites that obsess over Kelly, etc, that sounds like a pretty obvious case of them wanting UW to improve through the attrition of the conference. Oregon is the conferences best team, so it's only natural they'd only want to see that team knocked off it's perch. If Oregon was being coached by some terrible coach like Mike Singletary and they had several losing seasons, I really doubt those same places would still be focusing on Oregon.