Before I begin, this is not a Nebraska hate article. Believe me, there will be plenty of those throughout the week. This is more of an examination of this rivalry game as a whole. Is this “rivalry game” between the Iowa football team and Nebraska an actual rivalry game?
Geographically speaking, yes. But you need more than geography to make a game a rivalry game.
To me, the whole thing feels incredibly forced by the Big Ten.
Look at the trophy. It’s about as ugly of a rivalry game trophy as I can imagine, and it has little history to go along with it (as can be expected considering this “rivalry” started this decade.