And as far as a "rivalry" goes, I think there has to be a continued history of close games, and an even won/loss record in the series.
In the total NU-CU series (I'm not going to waste the time to research the accurate number) I believe we lead the series by at least 35 games!
Oklahoma is the only team in the old Big 8 that we consistently competed with. We have such a huge advantage in wins over all the other former Big 8 teams, so any talk of a rivalry with those teams seems silly.
Ehh, I don't think there's any sort of set requirements that a game has to have for a yearly contest to become a rivalry game. Obviously most heated rivalries have a few things in common (close proximity to one another, history of success for one or both programs, perceptually or literally differing social dynamics at each school, reciprocity, etc) and CU/NU fits the bill for most of these categories, but it's not like missing one or two of the common qualifiers excludes a game from being seen as a rivalry. That said, now that NU's fallen on hard times it seems that the student body at CU gets a lot more excited for the CSU game every year, so maybe soon enough we'll have a situation where both sides are railing on and on about how this "really isn't a rivalry."
Regardless, the title of rivalry game doesn't really matter to me too much, I just enjoy the tradition (or if you're prefer a less romantic term, "recurrence") of the game the day after Thanksgiving. It's nice to have that big network audience, and it's a superb way to wake up from a turkey coma.
As far as the whole "Oklahoma is our only real rival" argument - well, I just hope you guys really soaked in all the pageantry, tradition, and mutual respect that game brought into your lives this year... you know, for the 3 or 4 minutes of gametime when Oklahoma wasn't up by 28 points. :thumbs