Going back to my freshman year, Penn has played Villanova three times each in football and basketball. Those six meetings all have two things in common: They were all played here on Penn's campus, and they were all Wildcats victories.
That's right; six big, fat losses, right in our own backyard.
And I couldn't care less.
As the football team prepares to play the Wildcats this weekend, the game represents several opportunities.
Sure, there is the opportunity to knock off Villanova for the first time since 1911.
But the real value of the game doesn't necessarily depend on which side emerges victorious. It's the fact that the game happens in the first place.
Someone like me, with only a three-year body of experience in Penn sports, might pick up on an apparent trend in the football and basketball programs.
Every year, Penn plays Villanova. Every year, Villanova is favored. And every year, Penn makes a game of it before eventually losing to its cross-town rival.
Rival. Like it or not, watching the Red and Blue match up against the Wildcats, whether in football and basketball or in any other of the various collegiate sports, has become a staple of my time here at Penn.
But in football, at least, that local grudge match is still in its infant stages.
I was surprised to learn that the Quakers have only played the Wildcats 11 times in history, and only six times since 1980. When I arrived on campus, the 'Nova game already seemed like a staple, and the matchup against the 11th-ranked team that night of my freshman year just the latest installment in a storied rivalry.
The stands were full, and the Quakers fought tooth-and-nail for what would have been a huge upset until a furious comeback fell short. The result: a 16-13 Penn loss that I was immensely glad to have the chance to witness.
That game would set the stage for the next two I was to see, still under the delusion that the contests were part of a long-standing rivalry. Each year, the Villanova night game at Franklin Field meant an entertaining football game played in front of a packed house.
Well, as packed a house as you'll see during football season. Last year's Penn-'Nova game drew 22,499 fans, while the homecoming contest against Brown was the only other to crack five digits with 11,177.
That's because Penn has done an excellent job of using its ties to Villanova in other sports, like basketball, to jumpstart a dead rivalry in football. This Saturday, the two schools will meet for the fifth time in six years, and the fourth time in an eight-year contract. Part of that eight-year contract stipulates that four of those games use Franklin Field as a neutral site, with both sides sharing costs and revenue, to accommodate more fans than would fit in Villanova's 12,500-seat stadium.
Somewhere along the road, the news was broken to me that the series was really not the storied rivalry I had thought.
Well, they had me going. And next year it would be nice if Penn could win one or two.
Ilario Huober is a senior International Relations major from Syracuse, N.Y., and is former Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is ihuober@sas.upenn.edu.
