r/CFB • u/Honestly_ rawr • Sep 17 '26
/r/CFB Press /r/CFB Reporting: The Duke's Mayo Classic is a rematch of the 2002 game that killed the UVA Pep Band
by Bobak Ha'Eri
West Virginia (2-0) plays #25 Virginia (2-0) in the Duke's Mayo Classic this weekend in Charlotte, the first time these two teams have played in 24 years.
The last time they played was in this same stadium at the 2002 Continental Tire Bowl, the inaugural edition of what is now the Duke's Mayo Bowl (both organized by the Charlotte Sports Foundation).
The #15 West Virginia Mountaineers of the Big East, in the second season of Rich Rodriguez's first tenure, were 9-3 and coming off back-to-back road wins against ranked rivals Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh. Al Groh, in his own second season at UVA, had the ACC's Cavaliers 8-5 coming off their own rivalry loss at Virginia Tech.
This was the era where the regular bowls meant more. It was a good match, the spread was WVU by 1.5. Both teams were not too far away. The sellout crowd of 73,535 set a record for largest crowd to see a football game in what was then-called Ericsson Stadium.
Those who watched on Saturday, December 28, 2002, saw UVA freshman RB Wali Lundy go off for 4 touchdowns and 203 total yards in a 48-22 rout that snapped the 'Hoos 4-bowl losing streak.
Time passes, memories fade (though RichRod is back…). One effect of that game remains.
This was the game that killed UVA's band.
The Virginia Pep Band was a "scramble band" like Stanford's band. Maybe a bit too much like the Stanford band for the Governor of West Virginia. More on that in a moment.
The Virginia Pep Band started like a typical school marching band, but in 1974 began evolving into the student-run scramble band style used by Stanford and the Ivy League schools. The irreverence and humor of the band was popular with the student body, but sometimes embarrassed the administration. In 1993 there was an attempt by the athletic department to replace it with a faculty-run UVA Sports Band that was very unpopular, booed by fans and protested by the Pep Band on The Hill (on the side of the open end zone) during home games. The Pep Band was reinstated in time for the Virginia Tech game at the end of the season (which they lost).
For the halftime of the Continental Tire Bowl, the Virginia Pep Band came up with performance and skits that highlighted stereotypes of Appalachia. Uncreative? Sure. Cringe? Of course! But how far would be too far? The answer would turn out to be not as far as one might expect.
The Pep Band blended two pop culture moments in those early years of reality television: the first season of "The Bachelor" and a planned reality reboot of the "The Beverly Hillbillies" that never aired. A UVA student portraying The Bachelor chose between two contestants: a woman dressed in a Virginia shirt and another West Virginia-coded woman in bib/blue overalls, pigtails, "a talent for square dancing and a dream to move to Beverly Hills". The band reportedly included "The Beverly Hillbillies" theme song.
The Charlotte Observer described it on Sunday briefly:
Virginia's pep band ticked off the West Virginia crowd with a hillbilly skit similar to the one it pulled last time the teams played in 1985 [more on that below].
West Virginia fans booed and chanted "Get off the field!" as a woman wearing coveralls and pigtails staged a cat fight with a woman dressed in Virginia colors.
Later descriptions by the paper noted the WVU student was portrayed as sociology major and the UVA student was portrayed as a biology major headed for medical school. There were disputes over whether the actor portraying the WVU student was barefoot.
Not the first time.
The last time WVU had played UVA was a 1985 regular-season game where the Mountaineers visited Scott Stadium ('Hoos won, 27-7; RichRod was a graduate assistant coach on the team). During halftime, the Pep Band did a parody of the Family Feud mocking stereotypes about a lack of education, indoor plumbing, and birth control. Then-UVA President Robert O'Neil had to apologize to the people of West Virginia.
Given the tensions that had previously boiled over in 1993, the 2002 incident was the kindling that lit the Continental Tire fire.
The Aftermath.
The complaints began to pile up soon after the bowl game. By Monday, an official from UVA went on a West Virginia morning radio show to apologize and promise a full review of how The Bachelor skit got approved. The Governor of West Virginia, Bob Wise, sent a letter demanding an apology from UVA President John T. Casteen III that same day.
In his letter, Gov. Wise wrote "This type of performance merely perpetuates the unfounded stereotypes that we in West Virginia are fighting so hard to overcome."
By Tuesday, the Charlotte Observer reported UVA administrators had received over 200 letters not only from West Virginia fans but also the school's own alumni, in addition to angry letters to the newspaper and bowl organizers.
WVU's president, David Hardesty, made a statement congratulating the Cavaliers for their victory but derided the Pep Band for its "poor taste." He added "Given the similar offensive events involving the UVA pep band at the last encounter [in 1985], I am surprised that the UVA pep band would again adopt a program that exemplifies such poor sportsmanship.
Prior to the game the Pep Band director, third-year student Adam Lorentson, said "We're always told to stay out of trouble, but we never do."
Ken Haines, President and CEO of Raycom Sports as well as executive director and founder of the bowl game, said he approved a five-paragraph script presented by band officials but claimed the performance went further than expected and was "childish", stating it was "unflattering and stereotypical" and "was not done with class." The band was banned from future visits to the bowl game.
Below is the script that was supposedly presented to the bowl and possibly UVA:
intro: ladies and gentlemen- welcome to the final episode of the continental tire bowl's "the bachelor". and please welcome our bachelor to the field, DUDE{insert real name here}! [guy walks out onto the 50] DUDE has a great sense of humor, likes candlelight dinners, and enjoys long walks on the beach. he's also a member of the finest scramble band in the acc, The Award Winning Virginia Fighting Cavalier Precision Marching Pep Band!!!
announcer: we have just two bachelorettes left, GIRL_1[insert real name here], a sociology major from wvu [girl walks out, wearing blue and yellow]... and GIRL_2[insert real name here], a biology major from uva [another girl walks out, wearing blue and orange]. so who will it be? stay tuned to the continental tire bowl's "the bachelor" to find out.
[the three dance during the song, with each girl pulling him away from the other, vying for his attention]
announcer: well, it's going to be a tough choice for our bachelor, deciding between these two bachelorettes. GIRL_2, from uva, will be attending medical school next fall and plans to be a pediatrician. After she leaves wvu, GIRL_1 will be heading to california, out to beverly. hills, that is. swimming pools, movie stars!
announcer: now the moment you've all been waiting for- who will get the continental tire and who will go home with a broken heart? will it be GIRL_1 from wvu? [guy walks over to where GIRL_1]... or will it be GIRL_2 from uva? [guy walks over to GIRL_2] who will it be?!?!
[guys goes back and forth between the two girls, and during the "singing" part of song, he runs over to GIRL_2, drops to one kness, gives her the tire, she shrieks in joy, they hug and he carries her off the field toward the front sidelines]
As things progressed, band director Lorentson maintained the band did nothing wrong. "I'm surprised that pigtails are offensive, and I saw plenty of fans from both sides in overalls." While acknowledging the allusion to mountain stereotypes with the "Beverly Hillbillies" references, he said "We thought it was pretty innocuous." He further claimed that there were unidentified persons attempting to make their way onto the band bus before they escaped.
A stadium ban is hardly unique to any one band (just ask Stanford) but the incident went a step further with Gov. Wise.
As the New Year rolled in, President Casteen made a public appeal for anyone with video footage of the so-called "hillbilly" skit before commenting. Although he was at the game, he had missed the performance and no one at UVA apparently recorded it. A university spokesperson said "clearly the majority of emails and calls are of concern and regret and disappointment that the halftime caused any pain to the WVU fans and the citizens of that state."
On January 2nd, President Casteen – acknowledging he could not locate any video of the performance – made a statement regretting the performance and the offense it caused. His apology is still posted on the WVU website. "I have come to believe that the bands attempted spoof, however ill or well conceived, worked badly, and that our common problem now is to learn from this event and move on." He called the skit a violation of explicit NCAA/ACC sportsmanship rules barring bands from ridiculing opposing teams or fans. He lamented the fact that "the performance has diverted attention from the success of a young football team that exceeded all expectations this season. Post-game reviews have said little or nothing about this team and its successes, and a great deal about (of all things) the band."
The Band is Pushed Aside
Casteen promised a review of "how the band works." UVA Athletic Director Craig Littlepage acknowledged the internal review board, mandatory before Pep Band performances after the 1985 WVU game, "didn't ask enough questions" before the game.
By the end of the Spring 2003 semester, the UVA administration made its move. The school announced a $1.5 million gift from an alumnus to establish a traditional marching band. The Pep Band was disinvited to play at athletic events. The new, university-run band became known as the Cavalier Marching Band. In parallel, the school wanted to start taking big time college sports seriously, and the old Pep Band was seen as a liability. Littlepage noted "There were a lot of people that just felt as though if we are serious about a high-quality athletic program, part of that in terms of presentation at football or basketball games should be a more standard approach. To go from kind of a more playful, not-so-serious tone at the games to an approach that’s more about enhancing spirit, as opposed to the focus being the band itself."
The student-run Pep Band tried to keep itself alive but faded out within a decade from lack of interest.
In his apology letter, Casteen appealed to the commonality of the people of the two states: "We are all pretty much the same. We are related." Despite wishing for more frequent match-ups between the programs, he feared "this sad controversy may delay" future matchups "to our mutual detriment." He hoped "for a day when mutual respect and the appropriate affections that ought to exist among people who share as much as Virginians and West Virginians do will be the rule, not the exception."
That day will be this Saturday, 24 years later, on the same field in Charlotte.
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u/UncleManatee Virginia Cavaliers Sep 17 '26
As a student at the time, we all hated the Pep Band. As someone else said, they were wannabe edgelords. They were corny. WVU hated UVa. UVa response was typically ‘I don’t think about you at all’ meme. And the best way to demonstrate that? Do an entire skit about them pulling from the same, tired & trite stereotypes in an attempt to be provocative?
It was offensive. Not because it was insulting but because it simply wasn’t funny.
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u/GonePostalRoute West Virginia Mountaineers Sep 17 '26
And you even read the comments from the guy who led the pep band, he definitely was never told to stop being a moron at any point in his life by his parents
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u/justwatchthefirewerx Virginia Cavaliers Sep 17 '26
I thought their schtick was lame, but I didn't hate the pep band. In retrospect, I even marginally prefer them to the marching band, which is so generic that I ignore it.
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u/UncleManatee Virginia Cavaliers 29d ago
Ha, yes, hate was way too strong a word. In the parlance of our times, I thought they were cringe.
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u/MapleBisonHeel /r/CFB Sep 17 '26
Scramble bands are little more than an in-joke for the participants. Wannabe edgelords.
Stanford’s definitely come off as trust fund babies trying to look like iconoclasts. And traditionally they perform badly on special teams.
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u/Davidellias Virginia Tech • Wisconsin Sep 17 '26
Reminds me my local D3 school has a band of like 8 members and they do a sad trombone on kickoffs everytime
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u/Rock_man_bears_fan Miami (OH) RedHawks • Nebraska Cornhuskers Sep 17 '26
Scramble bands are what happens when you remove bullies from the ecosystem in which the band kids inhabit
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u/DrSnidely Alabama • Virginia Tech Sep 17 '26
This seems pretty mild, actually.
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u/Pretty-Drummer3532 West Virginia Mountaineers Sep 17 '26
So we hate VT and Pitt right? Imagine if our main rival was UVA. Add all the historical context and something like this will send the already seething hatred WVU has for UVA over the edge.
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Sep 17 '26
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u/MarlonBain Virginia Tech Hokies Sep 17 '26
No no listen it makes way more sense for VT to play in Berkeley, Penn State to play in Seattle, and West Virginia to play in Salt Lake City.
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u/ConsuelaApplebee Virginia • Johns Hopkins Sep 17 '26
Well yeah. I mean I can go for a swim in the Atlantic and swim to berkeley so Cal is pretty much a neighbor of VT. I mean they wouldn't put Cal and Stanford in the Atlantic coast conference if they weren't adjacent to the Atlantic. People need to learn some geography.
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u/Knightro829 UCF Knights • /r/CFB Donor Sep 17 '26
This comment sent me down a rabbit hole about swimming the Panama Canal…
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u/jeeceofx Sep 17 '26
Some of those teams were in a conference together...then a couple of the best teams left and kicked off a wave of realignment that has never stopped. Trying to remember who those teams were. Miami was one of them for sure, but who was the other....? Hmm.
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Sep 17 '26
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u/jeeceofx Sep 17 '26
You forgot that the entire world is based around my perspective and that history has to be interpreted based on when I got old enough to start paying attention to things.
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u/cluttered-thoughts3 West Virginia Mountaineers Sep 17 '26
I like VT compared to UVA. UVA makes my blood boil
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u/Pretty-Drummer3532 West Virginia Mountaineers Sep 17 '26
UVA are the McCoys and we are the Hatfields.
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u/DrSnidely Alabama • Virginia Tech Sep 17 '26
I genuinely had no idea there was any historical bad blood between UVA and WVU
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u/Homomorphism Virginia • California Sep 17 '26
I don’t think any UVA fans care, but honestly WVU has a right to be mad at us
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u/cluttered-thoughts3 West Virginia Mountaineers Sep 17 '26
You could even go as far to say that the Pep Bands antics are what killed UVA vs WVU matchups. This year is the first time we have intentionally scheduled them since the 1980s. WVU fans rage was uncontrollable towards UVA
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u/Shenanigangster Virginia • Jefferson–Eppes Trophy Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 17 '26
It is entirely directed one way
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u/BoldElDavo Virginia Cavaliers Sep 17 '26
Tbh I didn't either, but it makes sense as a rivalry so I wish we could find a way to play more often.
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u/CaptainBuzzKillton Texas Tech • Cincinnati Sep 17 '26
I'm more surprised both teams don't play each other that much
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u/cluttered-thoughts3 West Virginia Mountaineers Sep 17 '26
The issue is WVU fans literally wanted to kill UVA fans so we needed time to cool off. 17 years wasn’t enough last time so here’s to hoping 25 years is enough this time
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u/CaptainBuzzKillton Texas Tech • Cincinnati Sep 17 '26
You guys hold grudges worse than elephants
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u/cluttered-thoughts3 West Virginia Mountaineers Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 17 '26
I’m sure VT fans understand. Kinda just have to experience it to get it
You can only take the classism and bigotry for so many decades
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u/SnooFoxes282 West Virginia • West Virgini… Sep 17 '26
You're not wrong. That's what I miss so badly about the Big East. Most weekends we were fueled by hate. I'll never forgive Marvin Graves and Syracuse for "the fight". I'll never forget numerous UVA fans hurling bigoted stereotypes at me in the stands. When everyone craps on your state all the time, our state's team takes on a more personal game day atmosphere.
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u/Ok-Cranberry-5582 29d ago
IDK if this year will be much better with UVA playing Country Roads after their wins. This is going to fire up that rivalry even more.
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u/Odd_Alfalfa7789 Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 17 '26
I think that a bunch of the old WV fans were already pretty upset at the UVA band for the 1985 skit. What OP left out was that the 1985 skit noted that WV was best known for "toxic gases," seemingly mocking an industrial accident that hospitalized a couple dozen people a few months prior to the '85 game.
If the UVA band was openly mocking dozens of people getting hospitalized the last time the teams played, I can understand the old WV fans not having much patience for band the next time they met up.
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u/cooterdick Tennessee • North Carolina Sep 17 '26
At the same time, have you ever seen a band performance mock the opposition like this?
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u/Statalyzer Texas Longhorns Sep 17 '26
Yeah, I guess West Virginia are the Aggies of the Appalachians.
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u/jeeceofx Sep 17 '26
Except WVU actually beat Texas a few times when the teams were in the same conference.
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u/Mr_Mumbercycle West Virginia Mountaineers Sep 18 '26
A few times? We have a winning record against them in the B12.
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u/jeeceofx 29d ago
I was thinking it was 5-6 (favoring Texas by one) during those years. I'd have to actually look it up for sure but it was pretty close to even. Unless you are counting 2018 as two wins for WVU since WVU won on a 2-point conversion, Texas was given a retroactive timeout, and then WVU won again.
Mainly I was just making a joke about how rarely A&M actually beats them though.
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u/Ok-Cranberry-5582 29d ago
Just looked it up, the record is WVU 5, Texas 6 for B12. Overall we are tied at 6.
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u/smellslikebadussy Virginia Cavaliers Sep 17 '26
The one at the bowl wasn't even that bad! (Although I understand they added some stuff after the script was approved, which didn't help their argument.) The 1985 skit, as I understand, was much worse.
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u/Honestly_ rawr Sep 17 '26
The more I read about it the more it was clearly a lifetime achievement award combined with the decision by athletics to be more serious about sports -- I do remember, when USC played there in 2008, seeing mentions that the band had been switched out and there was pressure from Al Groh's staff to make UVA more of a big time college football program.
Groh had been a UVA player but before the band went into its scramble/scatter period.
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u/MagdalenaBayCRJ Virginia Cavaliers Sep 17 '26
Yeah, the band switched out to a traditional style college marching band just a bit before that in fall 2004. I was on drum line in its inaugural year as a 1st year (freshman) myself. We generally had community support, but we definitely had a group of naysayers that felt like we were scabs filling in for an unjustifiably disbanded pep band. I don't really have strong feeling about the pep band one way or another, since it was before my time, but I will say that I probably would not have joined them.
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u/Kattheshrink Sep 18 '26 edited Sep 18 '26
Being from WV, being there that day, and being in the WVU band at that time, I’ve heard far worse in my years, but it was still pretty distasteful, particularly for a bowl game. I think it brought up a point at the time of what would be considered “ok” and “over the line” for mocking largely disadvantaged populations, classism, etc.
Moreso, I think there was a stink from some UVA fans as well because UVA was really, really seemed to be on a kick about the high road, morality, ingraining the “we love our Honor Code” back then. There were UVA donors that were just as pissed as WVU was because it wasn’t a good look.
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u/1990Buscemi Drury Panthers • Missouri Tigers Sep 17 '26
UVA Sports Band sounds incredibly corporate. You can tell a suit named them.
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u/Honestly_ rawr Sep 17 '26
Especially in 1993, that's falling into peak Gen X cynicism.
Unless you took it a few steps further to make it ironic? UVA Sports Band Musical Group, though that's more post-Borat movie humor.
The 1993 corporate attempt at trying to capture the youth market would've been UVA Pretty Cool Band.
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u/rodrigo_i Florida Gators Sep 17 '26
Casteen opening his statement with "We're related" plays right in to the inbred hillbilly stereotype.
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u/kjbtetrick Sep 17 '26
I was in WVU’s band at that time. The UVA pep band did themselves in. They performed a different show than what was approved by bowl officials. As I recall, the backlash to UVA itself was swift and severe. The following year, a university sponsored band was formed at UVA from the generosity of a UVA alumni donation.
I don’t remember anything from the show itself beyond the tired, and unoriginal, trope that West Virginia is inbred and uneducated. It wasn’t even creative.
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u/Kattheshrink Sep 18 '26
From what I recall, the donation was inspired by the severe discrepancy in the bands that day. It’s safe to say we kind of killed the UVA pep band.
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u/wrapboywrap Washington Huskies • Colorado Buffaloes Sep 17 '26
A buddy went to UVA in the 90s and refers to the UVA-WVU game as Culture versus Agriculture. This has nothing to do with the story but I always loved that moniker.
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u/Shreddy_Brewski ECU Pirates Sep 17 '26
That's a stupid joke because WV isn't even known for agriculture. It actually seems like it would be hard as shit to grow any crops there, it's all mountains.
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u/UncleMalcolm Virginia Cavaliers • Orange Bowl 28d ago
Yeah that’s more a Commonwealth Cup joke than aimed at WVU, but we also rarely play them in like any sports.
The lack of big tracts of land for agriculture is a large part of why West Virginia even exists today…and I’ll let other people connect the dots there
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u/Enrickel Virginia Tech Hokies Sep 17 '26
And then they wonder why no one likes them
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u/Electromotivation James Madison Dukes Sep 17 '26
Ahem, It’s called The Grounds!!
(Sorry Hoos, had to)
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u/UncleMalcolm Virginia Cavaliers • Orange Bowl 28d ago
(Sean Parker voice) Drop the “the.” Just “Grounds.” It’s cleaner.
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u/TrueBrees9 Virginia Tech Hokies • Texas Longhorns Sep 17 '26
It gets less funny when you have to hear it every year
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u/JellyfishFit3871 Georgia Southern • Georgia Sep 17 '26
Alexa, play "Neck."
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u/Shenanigangster Virginia • Jefferson–Eppes Trophy Sep 17 '26
The one cool thing the Cavalier Marching Band did was play Neck regularly but they chickened out when LSU had to stop
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u/JellyfishFit3871 Georgia Southern • Georgia Sep 17 '26
True story: in high school, I was on the marching band drum line. We worked up a new cadence based on a popular song, and marched into a pep rally one Friday.
No worries, right? It was just percussion.
Yep. Student body recognized what we were playing. Retired Air Force Colonel/notorious hard ass principal didn't appreciate "we don't need no water let the motherfucker burn." Closest I've ever come to being suspended.
(The drum line let me be the spokesperson to the principal, because I was the captain and reasonably smart. I absolutely tapdanced through that interview, because 14 people were threatened with suspension or detention. I just couldn't let that happen on my watch. We were just a bunch of naive teenagers!)
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u/JellyfishFit3871 Georgia Southern • Georgia Sep 17 '26
The same year, we created cadences based on "Air of Night" and "YYZ." We were creative and a little chaotic, not malicious.
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u/getyourpopcornreddy Eastern Michigan Eagles Sep 17 '26
I was in school during the 1st Gulf War and we had some people get their undies in a bunch because we let a student play the National Anthem on an electric guitar during basketball season, which was a rivalry game. All of us in the pep band (which were grades 7-12, small school) threatened not to play that night. That student got to play the National Anthem on their electric guitar and it was good. The student was not in the band, but our band director, may he Rest in Peace, let the student play.
My school also won the rivalry game that night.
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u/Odd_Alfalfa7789 Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 17 '26
I feel like OP left out a major piece of the story. The 1985 band skit noted that WV was primarily known for its "toxic gases." I'm too young to know, but I'm told that this was a reference to a toxic gas leak that occurred a couple months prior that sent two dozen people to the hospital.
Joking about an industrial disaster that sent a couple dozen people to the hospital is pretty messed up.
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u/Mertz24 West Virginia Mountaineers • ACC Sep 17 '26
This is a true story. I was there as a kid and that band was embarrassing. The boos were so loud.
Also, credit to The Pride of West Virginia (a Sudler Trophy-winning marching band, the Heisman of marching bands), which in contrast, West Virginians are extremely proud of. Its performance and impact on UVA leaders and fans also led to the decision to form a traditional marching band. I remember people asking, “Why can’t we have a band like them?”
Edit: more context
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u/Pitt_Is_It_2009 Pittsburgh Panthers Sep 17 '26
That skit is not funny at all. I’m on WVU’s side on this one.
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u/1fiercedeity Maryland Terrapins • Paper Bag Sep 17 '26
Same. Even in the approved version of the script it reads as "people from west Virginia will never rise above their hillbilly stereotype". Factor in the audience definitely includes 1st generation college students who just by being in college have broken the stereotype for themselves and its even worse.
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u/TrueBrees9 Virginia Tech Hokies • Texas Longhorns Sep 17 '26
I’ll start off by saying that most UVA fans and students I’ve interacted with are fine, for the most part we all realize it’s just a sports rivalry between schools.
But there’s a segment of the UVA community that’s very coastal elite and those people love punching down. It wears thin on those who are from more blue collar communities, kids from modest backgrounds that go to WVU and VT and other schools in Appalachia. I knew a few people from my time at Tech who despised everything UVA related, like who are these nova trust fund kids to talk to us like that. So don’t be surprised when there is a visceral hatred of UVA amongst some people in this part of the world.
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u/lostkoalas Virginia Tech Hokies Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 17 '26
Yeah obviously most UVA fans I’ve interacted with are fine. But my first thought upon reading about this skit, with the perfect classy elegant future-doctor UVA student vs the dumb hillbilly WVU student, was “that’s exactly the type of skit I’d expect UVA to do” lmao.
We’ve all heard it from UVA fans…calling us poor redneck hillbillies who were too stupid to get into UVA. You even see it on this sub sometimes. This skit is very in character of them.
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u/Statalyzer Texas Longhorns Sep 17 '26
Maybe not, but it wasn't nearly offensive enough to provoke such a reaction.
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u/mynameisrainer Marshall Thundering Herd • Sun Belt Sep 17 '26
When your team is getting its ass kicked, everything is offensive
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u/UncleMalcolm Virginia Cavaliers • Orange Bowl Sep 17 '26
I’m with you on this one: it was a cheap shot and unnecessarily playing off stereotypes from a bygone era…but I also don’t think it would have gotten the level of attention it did if they weren’t getting their teeth kicked in at the same time. Insult to injury and all that.
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u/PunishedLeBoymoder Stanford Cardinal • /r/CFB Promoter Sep 17 '26
See the Stanford Band's 2016 Rose Bowl halftime show
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u/KingOfTheUzbeks Ohio State • Minnesota Sep 17 '26
That's it?
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u/Odd_Alfalfa7789 Sep 18 '26 edited Sep 18 '26
Went to the game with a buddy who was a WVU grad. From what I remember, the WVU fans were split pretty heavily based on age. People mid-20's or younger thought the skit was trashy, but didn't get too bent out of shape about it. In contrast, the fans in their 30's or older got pretty upset.
From what I could gather (and the part that OP left out), in the 1985 skit, the UVA band made fun of an industrial accident that sent a few dozen people to the hospital a couple months before the two teams faced off.
The fans that were old enough to personally remember the UVA band mocking what they saw as a legit tragedy set the stage for how they interpreted the '02 performance. The fans that weren't old enough to remember it didn't feel nearly as strongly negative about the '02 skit.
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u/Pretty-Drummer3532 West Virginia Mountaineers Sep 17 '26
Add in the historical context, and its like provoking angry hyenas with fresh meat.
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u/GoDiegoGo7969 Texas Longhorns • Texas Southern Tigers Sep 17 '26
If you were offended by that then you should see Rice. Those smart kids are unhinged
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u/montani West Virginia Mountaineers Sep 17 '26
I was there! I also wasn't as outraged as many people
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u/mynameisrainer Marshall Thundering Herd • Sun Belt Sep 17 '26
Wild. I was at this game for some reason. Had no idea this happened
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u/WampaStompa33 Michigan Wolverines Sep 17 '26
I first misread the title as 1902 and thought the title meant like, literally killed. Crazy shit happened in the early days of CFB
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u/oneevilchicken Mississippi State • Wake Forest Sep 17 '26
I feel like I’m torn because like I want to support the traditions and the fun that comes with them and find stuff like this hilarious even though this specific one sounds rather lame. College football has always been about the rivalries. At the same time though I really like how prestigious a lot of schools marching bands are and for example I wouldn’t want our band doing anything close to this because of said prestige and how much they add to our sporting events.
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u/trittico Princeton Tigers • Virginia Cavaliers Sep 17 '26
I only recently learned about UVA’s scramble band. Gotta say, I kinda hate scramble bands. I was in a very competitive corps-style marching band in high school in Texas and going to Princeton and seeing its band was a massive culture shock I wanted no part of. I love marching band as an art and don’t particularly love regular college bands, so there was no way I’d join.
Not surprised that UVA’s scramble band got in trouble, but if I’m gonna be honest, this 2002 skit is a children’s nursery rhyme compared to the average halftime at an Ivy game.
All that said, Hoos by four touchdowns and I hope the Cavalier Marching Band plays the theme from Beverly Hillbillies
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u/Megalomanizac Clemson • Coastal Carolina Sep 17 '26
Scramble bands lack the edge and intensity marching bands need.
Part of Why so many stadiums are hell are because of their bands, I mean are we gonna act like LSUs neck isn’t overwhelming? Alabama and Auburn trade the rammer jammer depending on who wins, etc. dotting the I is almost as famous as the Ohio State football team itself.
I’ll listen to Stanfords band or the ivies and they just look and sound horrible, and those schools have world class music departments.
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u/Sexy-Chicagoan-1837 South Carolina Gamecocks • /r/CFB 28d ago
I always associate scramble bands with academically elite universities.
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u/trittico Princeton Tigers • Virginia Cavaliers 28d ago
Honestly, it makes sense. You stressed yourself out to get into an Ivy or similar school, then it’s still no joke to get through the four years. You need to find outlets to let loose.
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u/TheRealRollestonian Virginia • Wake Forest Sep 17 '26
Yes, it was hilarious too, but the Pep Band was being murdered in the mid 1990s. 2003 was a blip.
Virginia also straight up destroyed West Virginia in that game. All hail Bill Musgrave.
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u/J-Goo Syracuse Orange Sep 17 '26
This is nothing compared to the shit the Stanford band has done historically, and WVU should be embarrassed that its fans are softer than ten ply.
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u/cluttered-thoughts3 West Virginia Mountaineers Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 17 '26
It doesn’t help that we detest UVA so literally anything they do pisses us off. Just reading this made me mad.
Plus we didn’t play them for 17 years and they did the same thing back to back. 1985 and 2002. We haven’t played them for almost 25 years now
Meanwhile our fans got “horns down” banned bc it made Texas fans upset, if we want to talk about soft
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u/Pretty-Drummer3532 West Virginia Mountaineers Sep 17 '26
No joke if we didn’t have Pitt as a safety valve for our hatred and instead our main rival was UVA, people would have been killed over it, WVU hates them that much.
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u/CaptainBuzzKillton Texas Tech • Cincinnati Sep 17 '26
Is Pitt as a rival really a safety valve, though? It's basically a straight-shot up 79 to get there
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u/MarlonBain Virginia Tech Hokies Sep 17 '26
Yeah but they can "hate" them without literally wanting to kill them. It's like playing GTA instead of going out and murdering actual people. We play all of these teams, and I'm here to tell you, I totally get it.
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u/MarlonBain Virginia Tech Hokies Sep 17 '26
we detest UVA so literally anything they do pisses us off. Just reading this made me mad.
Feels like the other fan bases are joking y'all but I'm here to say I totally get this, lol.
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u/Odd_Alfalfa7789 Sep 18 '26
I can't say I know that many WVU fans, but the ones I do know don't really hate UVA that much.
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u/Ok-Cranberry-5582 29d ago
Which made it sweeter when Grier gave the horns down when we beat them at their place. No one cared about that penalty.
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u/Statalyzer Texas Longhorns Sep 17 '26
It wasn't banned. It was ruled the same as any other gesture.
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u/carlalunadragon Sep 17 '26
It was funny when the SEC clarified the rule and everyone said "ah ha, now that they switched, they don't get special treatment" when the SEC and Big 12 rules were identical.
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u/Statalyzer Texas Longhorns Sep 17 '26
The really fun thing thing every forgot was that what sparked it was when one of our players got a 15 yard penalty for doing guns-down in response to Texas Tech doing guns-up.
Seems pretty reasonable to me for a coach and AD to clarify the rule with the conference and say "hang on, shouldn't either both be a penalty or neither?" And their answer was "Either can be a penalty, but neither automatically is - it's a case by case basis which depends on if it's directed at the opponents as a taunt vs at nobody in particular while celebrating with teammates."
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u/Odd_Alfalfa7789 Sep 18 '26
Went to the game with a buddy who was a WVU grad. From what I remember, the WVU fans were split pretty heavily based on age. People mid-20's or younger thought the skit was trashy, but didn't get too bent out of shape about it. In contrast, the fans in their 30's or older got pretty upset.
From what I could gather (and the part that OP left out), in the 1985 skit, the UVA band made fun of an industrial accident that sent a few dozen people to the hospital a couple months before the two teams faced off.
The fans that were old enough to personally remember the UVA band mocking what they saw as a legit tragedy set the stage for how they interpreted the '03 performance. The fans that weren't old enough to remember it didn't feel nearly as strongly negative about the '03 skit.
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u/J-Goo Syracuse Orange Sep 18 '26
This is good context. Thank you.
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u/Odd_Alfalfa7789 29d ago edited 29d ago
The dynamic was really strange. We were tailgating before the game and literally every single old-head WVU fan would go out of their way to tell everyone how hateful and disrespectful the UVA band was for mocking the victims back in 1985.
I wasn't around back then so I can't really understand or explain why it resulted in such a long-held and widespread reaction from the WVU fans. What I can say is that their position didn't come off as hyperbolic or exaggerated. From what I could tell, they legit felt that the band skit in '85 (as well as the thousands of UVA fans that were seemingly happy to laugh at the joke) was a purposeful and personal attack on the victims of the disaster.
FWIW, I've talked to a number of older WVU fans in the past couple months. When this year's UVA game comes up, the 60+ y/o crowd still talk about how funny the UVA fans thought it was to target and ridicule the victims.
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u/GonePostalRoute West Virginia Mountaineers Sep 17 '26
I mean, you could try to argue that, but when there’s been bad relations between the two, the last thing you’d want anyone doing is coming up with some corny skit that’s just meant to antagonize.
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u/speedy_delivery West Virginia Mountaineers • Hateful 8 Sep 17 '26
Eh, fuck em. We've been barraged by that one note bullshit from the plantation class for longer than any of us have been alive.
They wanted cheap heat and when they got it the flatland fops folded like a five dollar card table, which is the funniest shit about this whole thing.
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u/Davidellias Virginia Tech • Wisconsin Sep 17 '26
scribbles down plantation class for next Commonwealth Cup thread
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u/citrus1330 Alabama Crimson Tide • Michigan Wolverines Sep 17 '26
maybe I'm just out of the loop but since when do regular season games have corporate sponsors?
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u/Honestly_ rawr Sep 17 '26
It's basically a kickoff game that was moved to week 3. No clue if it's because of scheduling conflicts or what, but it's a delayed kickoff classic.
This one isn't too bad, the truly stupid one is the Union Jack Classic in Wembley this weekend. Why would you have a big international game 3 weeks into the season? You want hope and optimism on both sides like the Ireland games.
Instead you have a poorly organized bowl game run by a local British PR firm that has no idea what it's doing hosting two 1-1 teams playing a minor Big 12 conference game.
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u/DBSmiley West Virginia • Backyard Brawl Sep 18 '26
It was Week 3 because it was scheduled very recently.
WVU had a series with Bama lined up, but then the SEV went to 9 conference games, and WVU has been down and wanted out of the Bama series since we're rebuilding.
UVA had the NC State game already scheduled for week 1 (in Brazil IIRC), so they settled on Week 3 (which UVA got out of playing Notre Dame for, I think)
UVA fans correct anything I said that was wrong.
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u/UncleMalcolm Virginia Cavaliers • Orange Bowl Sep 17 '26
It’s been a thing for a while. Pretty sure Bama has played in the “Chick Fil A Kickoff/Gridiron Classic” multiple times.
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u/Electromotivation James Madison Dukes Sep 17 '26
Yea a lot of those neutral Atlanta games have corporate name/sponsorships.
Other example: the game at Bristol…though I don’t remember the name and sponsorships, a Hokie or Volunteer might volunteer that info though.
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u/Enrickel Virginia Tech Hokies Sep 17 '26
I'm sure that game had a sponsor, but I only remember it being referred to as "The Battle at Bristol"
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u/DeNomoloss NC State Wolfpack • Roanoke Maroons Sep 17 '26
As an alum of a rival ACC band, I miss the UVA Pep Band. They at least had a gimmick well-suited to a band not made up entirely of music majors. Most other bands like that hide it by being huge and loud (ours at NC State prior to ~2006 when the current director took over and tried to install more standards) or they’re just small and bad (Wake can’t march in step, Duke knows 2 songs and also can’t match in step).
We always called them The Home Depot Band due to their uniform being orange vests.
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u/ForFelix Tennessee Volunteers Sep 17 '26
……anything else?
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u/TheRealRollestonian Virginia • Wake Forest Sep 17 '26
No, we've firmly sworn off Elvis jokes at the Sugar Bowl.
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u/Tatworth Sep 17 '26
The best part about the pep band was the president of the U having to apologize to governors on the regular.
I was at the 85 game in Scott Stadium. It was funny, though the bourbon may have helped.
Now we have a boring high school band, like everyone else.
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u/EmperorHans Kentucky Wildcats Sep 17 '26
There were disputes over whether the actor portraying the WVU student was barefoot.
That bit made me crack up.
Also shocked that this prompted that level of outrage. In 2002!
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u/urzu_seven Washington Huskies • Marching Band Sep 18 '26
While I think scramble bands like Stanfords are lame as hell, the outrage over something that minor is ridiculous. Rival schools bands often poke fun at each other and that goes nowhere near over the line IMO.
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u/Sexy-Chicagoan-1837 South Carolina Gamecocks • /r/CFB 28d ago
Now you know why they sing country roads.
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u/Michiganman1225 Team Chaos • Sickos Sep 17 '26
Fuck West Virginia for being so soft. Fuck the Continental Tire Bowl for being so soft. Fuck Virginia's leadership for apologizing.
I hope the band does it again this Saturday.
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u/Unlikely_Specific828 West Virginia Mountaineers Sep 17 '26
Username checks out for a man of high integrity /s
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u/The_Stratman Virginia Tech • Penn State Sep 17 '26
If they did not want to be made fun of, they shouldn't have left Virginia to become a failure of a state.
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u/Mr_Mumbercycle West Virginia Mountaineers Sep 18 '26
Ah yes, we should have remained part of a slave state instead of doing the objectively morally correct thing and breaking away to help the North crush out the traitors and leave an entire group of people enslaved.
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u/tbia Georgia Bulldogs • College Football Playoff Sep 17 '26
Really wish I could post the Kobe Bryant "soft" gif
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u/bluestreak17 28d ago
If WVU had won the game, likely nothing would have happened. Getting beaten like a drum at home is what made people salty. This was mild. Unoriginal? Absolutely. Hackneyed? Definitely. But actually offensive? Nah. But this pales in comparison to what other scramble bands do.
WVU fans seem soft like Charmin. And just as thin skinned.
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