RIP Civil ConFLiCT?

With UConn officially moving on to the Big East and leaving The American Conference in the dust, it is the end of what has to be one of the lamest rivalries in all of college sports.

The reason why a question mark exists at the end of the title of this article is because we don’t even know if this qualifies as a rivalry.

The “rivalry” began in 2014 when then-UConn football head coach Bob Diaco announced that UConn had created a trophy and rivalry series with UCF called the “Civil ConFLiCT” combining the FL in Florida and the CT in Connecticut. Head coach Bob Diaco created and paid for the trophy himself and announced the new rivalry without UCF knowing. This was a silly attempt for UConn football to obtain a rivalry and create a name for themselves in their new conference.

UConn improved to 2-0 during UCF’s abhorrent winless 2015 campaign, but it was the final win the school would achieve during the history of this rivalry.

A rivalry is defined as “competition for the same objective or for superiority in the same field.” I think it would be insulting to consider UCF and UConn in the same field.

The Knights have outscored the Huskies 185-78 in the last four meetings, all UCF victories. And the Huskies have also mustered just nine wins in the past four seasons, while UCF has achieved more than nine wins in each of the past three seasons.

In 2017 and 2018, UCF Athletic Communications poked fun at the “rivalry” in its game notes.

And in 2019, the Knights won the final inter-conference meeting between the two schools.

In 2021, UCF will play UConn in Orlando during non-conference play, where the rivalry will again not exist.

Farewell, UConn. And farewell, Civil ConFLiCT, but how do you say farewell to something you never said hello to?