Only Temple fans and loser RU fans consider it a rivalry. Very few if any kids that we really want end up choosing Temple. Our battle for kids is really with the blue bloods and the P5 teams such as Pitt/VaTech/NC etc.
It's hard to consider anyone a rival.
We've alternated between horrible and respectful since the 1A - 1AA split. A lot of the teams on our schedule were usually really good when we were really bad, and really bad when we were at our best (Pitt, Syracuse, BC to a lesser extent though we didn't play them after they fired Jags and went into the crapper). When we were at our worst, Temple was at its worst, and who really would have wanted to see that pillow fight?
Pitt, Syracuse, and most of the other Big East 1.0 schools do not consider us a rival and in their eyes we are beneath them. Considering Temple our rival would have been OK if the latter half of the 90s didn't happen to either school. But honestly, when I consider Temple, I think of the horrible teams during the Dickerson years, and if we lost to them like we did a few times, all I could think of is "How did we lose to Temple? How bad are we?" That's probably the same sentiment that Pitt/Syracuse/BC fans would think of if they played us and we beat them.
We didn't play Penn State for nearly 20 years before we went into the Big Ten. Since we've won 2 games out of 30 or so played, it's not a rivalry, its another game on the schedule. One of the better ones, though, since I know so many people that went to Penn State its actually a great game in terms of the friendship around the tailgate or TV. If we win a few games, maybe it becomes interesting.
If the second iteration of the Big East had lasted, we probably would have established some rivalries. USF fans didn't care for us when we beat the #2 ranked Bulls, and during our time in the Big East the series with Connecticut in football was actually fairly even (though we lead them 2 -1 over the entire history of the series). We had a pretty good games with Pitt and Syracuse since the 2005 Big East expansion, and played some good, meaningful games against UL. Any of those games could have developed into a rivalry but that all ended.
Now we're playing against 13 teams every year that we just don't have a history with. We circle Penn State on the calendar because we would love to have had their success (without the stigma of Paterno, Sandusky, et. al) and know a lot of Penn State alumni. Possibly the same is true for Maryland. But the rest of the Big 10 has 100 years of history together and we'll be an outsider for the next 50 years.
Our true historic rivals were Princeton, Lehigh and Lafayette. But we went a different way when the 1A/1AA split was coming and don't play them anymore. Since that time we've played in the equivalent of 4 "conferences" (Independence, Big East 1.0, Big East 2.0 and now the Big 10). Nothing has gelled as of yet. It's almost like we've had 40 years of transition since 1978.
We have peers. We don't really have a rival. Our peers could be considered to be the other P5 schools in the ACC and Big 10, or some combination of ACC, American and Big 10.
Temple is an interesting case because they had a couple of coaches that could have them winning among their peers, and we have a 4 game series coming up with them. It'll be fun, and it'll be interesting. It should be better than the games were in the late 90s and early 2000s. But it won't be a rivalry because who knows if we will play them after the 4 game series is up?
