This was never supposed to be a rivalry.
For over a decade in the Sun Belt, North Texas toiled away with no natural geographic rival, its closest conference-mates in Arkansas and Louisiana. They paid their dues, and finally— FINALLY— at long last, moved up to a larger conference, with more bowl opportunities, and a bigger payout.
And then there was UTSA, a school that didn’t even have a football team while the Mean Green were grinding it out in a conference no one outside of it seemed to think much of. Then all of a sudden they did, and before you could say “meep meep,” they were suddenly FBS, and just as suddenly full members of Conference USA.