University of Delaware alum Jeff Pearlson is less than pleased with his alma mater:

Allow me to be blunt. The University of Delaware’s persistent refusal to face Delaware State University in football is cowardly, pig-headed, self-righteous and, worst of all, oozing with racism. As you might know, the two schools — separated by a mere 50-minute drive from Newark to Dover — are both ranked in the top 25 of Division I-AA polls. For more than 30 years now, Delaware State has tried to arrange a football game with Delaware, only to be rebuffed time after time.

I can understand Pearlson’s frustration, but he jumps the gun a little bit by declaring the motivation to be racial. Across the country it is the case where flagship and sometimes land-grant universities refuse to play in-state schools that they believe to be beneath them. The same schools will gladly play some bi-regional former teacher’s college in other states, but not their own. The better the in-state school is, the more reluctant they are to play them. If they’re not sure they can maintain their dominance on the field, they’ll just keep it off the field.

Two such examples Kentucky and West Virginia. A couple years ago, Kentucky (the state’s flagship university) wanted to call off its annual meeting with urban upstart Louisville. Why? They were tired of getting their rears handed to them by what they considered to be a lesser athletics program. Ultimately the state government got involved and forced the two state schools to continue to play each other. A couple weeks back Kentucky pulled off a big upset against Louisville and that game is considered one of the football program’s biggest in some years.

Meanwhile, in West Virginia, WVU refused to schedule Marshall University for the longest time. Marshall had been an up-and-comer while West Virginia had fallen on hard times. Though WVU would have been the expected winner of any match-up, chances were good that in a series Marshall would pull off a victory or two. Again, the state forced them to play each other. By the time they did, however, Marshall’s football program had hit the rocks and the Marshall Thundering Herd get whipped up on every year.

Kentucky and West Virginia were worried about the loss of prestige that comes to losing to a lesser school. Also a factor is that by playing the other programs they are sending the message that there are two football powers in states where there aren’t enough football programs to go around. That’s why they’re more willing to take a loss to some school half way across the country than they are in taking a loss to a closer school.

So between Delaware and Delaware State, I don’t think that race is the motivating factor. As the author himself notes, aside from race Delaware is the larger, flagship school and Delaware State is small and underfunded. It really is no big surprise that the Delaware Blue Hens would not be enthusiastic about a match-up.

So though I don’t believe that race is an issue, should it be? I’m not convinced that even if race were a reason that in this case some fears may not be justified. In state rivals very frequently get very ugly. In states where the rivalries are flagship universities against land-grant universities (Virginia/Virginia Tech, Texas/Texas A&M, Oklahoma/OSU, North Caroline/NC State) the land-grant universities frequently accuse their more cosmopolitan cousins of being homosexuals while the flagships accuse their land-grant cousins as hicks or effeminate engineers.

For quite some time, Louisville had the nickname of “N*gger U”, though unlike Delaware State it’s not an HBCU.

It would likely cause the president of the University of Delaware a world of headaches. First there would be those clueless or racist students that would make racist taunts. Then there would be the concern that any taunt would be construed as racist whether it really was or not. It would be great if race relations in this country were good enough that such a rivalry would cause administrators so much trouble, but unfortunately they’re not.