Perhaps desperate to start building the same sort of tradition with its football program that its basketball program is already steeped in, UConn recently created a trophy for its “rivalry” with Central Florida.
UConn unveiled the trophy on Monday, which is has named the “Civil Conflict” trophy. Is it pathetic that two schools that have played each other twice have created a rivalry trophy? Yes, but it’s even more pathetic when one school does it without the other’s knowledge.
Just checked w/ @UCF_Football: "We have no involvement with the trophy or creating a rivalry game with UConn." They were surprised by tweet.
— Brandon Helwig (@UCFSports) June 1, 2015
Sigh. As a UConn alum, I find this quite embarrassing.
UCF won the first meeting between the two teams in 2013 by a score of 62-17. UConn got the best of the Knights in a 37-29 upset last season, and that was the Huskies’ only AAC victory. UConn coach Bob Diaco was so excited after that win that he came up with the trophy idea.
“We’re excited about this North/South battle. You want to call it the Civil Conflict? Maybe I’ll win my money and make a trophy,” he said at the time, per KnightNews.com. “I’ll buy it myself, put a giant Husky and a big giant Knight on it, make a stand [and] put it in our hallway. The Civil Conflict. The loser, maybe they’ve got to put nutmeg on the stand when it’s not there and we’ll put a sack of oranges.”
Again, this is all very, very embarrassing for me. This is probably the last I’ll mention it.
