I really don't see the passion and "smack" talk I remember in years past?

Is this a condition of recent success over the last 10 years? Maybe recent grads don't see "The Battle of the Bricks" as anything important?

This is a HUGE Game against our arch rival! Where is the focus on a game that could "jump start" either team towards an East Title?

Many MAC Teams have looked mediocre in September and found success in Conference to pull out a respectable Bowl and/or a spot in the MAC Title Game.

This is a must win. Nothing has changed.

DCat, I hear you loudly and clearly. The fact that the spread on this game shows Ohio favored by only about a fg tells me that the books are looking for a closely fought tilt. I wish we were in a position where we could just take this win for granted, but we are not. We are playing a team who lost one-possession games to both W. Kentucky and Cincinnati. They are two very solid programs.
If you throw in the fact that Miami can't be any hungrier and more desperate, let's consider that they are also playing at home. This one worries me to death.

I think part of the reason for little smack talk is that our backfield being so depleted makes many of us unwilling to be overconfident -- or maybe even confident -- of a win.

As for whether Fiami folks care about football, there was a story on the Fiami student newspaper's website last spring asking why students don't attend football games. Top three reasons: a losing team; no beer at games; more to do (including drinking) elsewhere in Oxford on Saturday afternoons. Two weeks later, it was announced that beer would be sold at Yaeger. http://miamistudent.net/?p=17016990

BTW, it's damn difficult finding any press coverage of Fiami. The papers owned by the Dayton Daily News give sparse coverage; the Cincy Enquirer's coverage is almost nonexistent; and even the student paper is lax about covering the football team.

Something has changed. Miami's football teams and basketball teams have become so bad that many current students and very recent grads don't remember what it was like when it was in fact a strong rivalry. OUr programs have kicked the crap out of them so much in the last 6-8 years (or more) that Miami fans certainly aren't talking smack.

I know I've beaten this horse dead, but for me, if we played them annually again, I'd consider Marshall a bigger rival. In basketball, without question, Akron & UB are bigger rivals in my mind.

However, none of this diminishes the importance of a "W" toward the goal MAC Title.

Thanks for the comments. I guess it all makes sense. I jaw more with the Marshall folks at my golf course than Fiami.

I am still as uneasy as ever heading into this game. Probably won't sleep well tonight. Most of the Fiami Grads in my office are talking up their tailgating agenda for tomorrow's thriller in Columbus against Buttgers. That is just not a mentality of which I am familiar.

Big game tomorrow for us! My gut tells me Irons plays.