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"Their program is so solid, and they're coached so well," Beck said. "You know you're in for a battle when you play them."
Though Beck is only in his second year as head coach in Pittsburg, he has been with the program since he played there in 1985 and 86. He was a student assistant the next year, a graduate assistant the next, and in 1989, the year Pittsburg State joined the MIAA, Beck joined the staff in a full-time manner.
Pitt has played Northwest 27 times since then, and a Gorilla win would even the series, since then, at 14 wins a piece.
The two met twice that first season Pittsburg was in the MIAA, with PSU beating Northwest twice, in the regular season 27-13 and in the playoffs 28-7. While that may seem like a great kickstart to what would eventually become arguably Division II's best rivalry, Beck says it wasn't until much later until it really took shape.
John Coffey, the longtime Voice of the Bearcats who calls the games on the Bearcat Radio Network, would agree. "At that particular point, I think Pittsburg State was probably several steps ahead of Northwest."
That year, 1989, was the first of what would be nine straight trips to the playoffs and a 1991 national championship for Pitt State while Northwest, coming off four straight losing seasons, would revert back to their losing ways, finishing under .500 in four of the next five years.
That included 1994, the year Mel Tjeerdsma took over in Maryville. The Bearcats went 0-11 that year, but it didn't take long for the now-Hall of Fame coach to get things turned around at Northwest Missouri. By 1996, the two teams shared an MIAA crown, but Pitt State still had Northwest's number, winning the season finale 40-0 and keeping Northwest from an outright conference crown.
Beck contends the rivalry didn't really pick up steam until the series moved to Arrowhead Stadium in 2002, but Coffey says Pitt, and their fans, really started to notice of each other five years earlier, in 1997. That year, Northwest snapped a 10-game losing streak to the Gorillas with a 15-14 victory.
On the MIAA message board, I asked fans to describe this rivalry, with one of the questions being "When did (this matchup) become more than just a conference game?" For user Pitt State R.N./P.T., it was that game.
"That was the first home loss that we had had since Moby Dick was a minnow." R.N. said. Well not quite. It was their first regular season loss in the Jungle since 1984 though (Pitt did lose 3 home playoff games in that timespan). "That's when the Northwest game became more personal, and I would have to go see the games to see if my beloved Gorillas try to break the schnide that Northwest had on us."
Northwest, who Beck and Coffey both say built at least portions of their program based on what Pittsburg State was doing in the late 80s and early 90s, has owned the series since then. Including the 1997 game, the Bearcats have won 14 of the last 18, but did lose to Pitt earlier this year in the 10th installment of the Fall Classic at Arrowhead.
The one-sidedness of the series hasn't stopped this rivalry from building over the years, as both teams have continued to have great success. Tjeerdsma would go on to win three national championships and 10 outright MIAA titles (and share 2 more) and Pitt was consistently right behind them, never having (until 2009 & 2010) more than three losses in a single season, winning two outright conference titles, sharing a third and making (including this year) eight more appearances in the playoffs - including one appearance in the national title game.
"You know you're going to have to beat Northwest Missouri to win a conference championship," Beck said, "and you know they're going to be right in the thick of things right until the end."
The rivalry has been fueled by close games (10 games since 97 have been decided by a touchdown or less), important games (4 playoff games, 15 games where both teams were ranked) and partly by the D2Football.com message board - at least for the fans.
This board and the give and take with NW fans on here have made the rivalry more meaningful," said user Predatory Primates. "No other fan base is quite so easy for me to dislike because of this board."
While players, and even more so coaches, will many times downplay the significance of a rivalry, the fans do not. While much of it is rooted in respect, the fan bases generally loathe the others' program and many times the others' fan base (on a general level, not ever that I've seen on a personal level).
For one Northwest Missouri fan, the rivalry popped up its head in the most unusual of places - Iraq.
In 2004, user Cat N Mav, a member of the Army Reserves, was there when he happened across a group of Iraqi teenagers. He says he was "shocked and horrified to see that one of them was wearing an ugly" Pitt State t-shirt. Though he applauded whoever it was that sent the shirt "to help the war-torn country in its road to recovery," he had to do something. So between his broken Arabic and the broken English of one of the boy's friends, they came to an agreement to burn the t-shirt in exchange for 10 American dollars. "He took it off and we burned it together right there, and the whole crew of workers cheered and sang."
Now THAT, my friends, is a rivalry.
There's LOTS more great stories about the fans of this intense rivalry on the thread I started Wednesday night. I suggest you check it out by clicking here.
As far as a game preview and a prediction, I'll wait until tomorrow to post that. In the meantime though, you can click the YouTube video below to listen to my conversation with coach Beck about the rivalry and leave your comments below or in the Message Board thread with your thoughts on the rivalry.
