In the immortal words of Slim Pickens, "Where in the Wide Wide World of Sports"...does it say we have to play someone every year to consider them a "rival"?
I even consider Miami more of a rival than pretty much any B12 North team..No offense to our conference Brothers (And I DO consider them more like brothers than rivals...except OU and UT)..But it takes more than one bitter loss ~32 years ago for me to consider Missery much of a Rival.
CU and the two Kansas schools have won a few more against us recently than we were used to, but none of the games were "nailbiters" or hardly ever in doubt on the last series or few of the game...maybe one or two against CU, so they probably have come the closest of the Norse Division :dunno . but just because we take an alternating couple years off from playing OU doesn't mean that the times we do play them won't have me on the edge of my seat and not taking a deep breath for 5 hours durring the game...to tide me over until the next time.
No one else even comes close to doing that.
Here's where I feel an obligation to CY to say something nice about ISU...Like... :dunno
They can and do beat us every dozen or so games, and mannage to steal a few Omaha kids every other year.
But "Rival"????
:rant
OU will always be a big game to us, but only as long as we are both great teams. You need some continuity to have a real rivalry. It can't only be important from the fans perspective, the players have to feel it too. If you start 3 years and you come into the game your SR season without having played them....... In a rivalry the players are sick to their stomach (some cry, but that is so girly, no matter how ''in touch you are with your emotions," its not girls high school basketball :rant ) when they lose. They come into the game the next year wanting to beat the hell out of the opposition. Two years off is too much! Not that this makes me right, but look at anybody's list of the top ten rivalries and see if anyone is listed that don't play every year.