Thursday brought another helping of conference-realignment news, with the American Athletic Conference announcing that it will add six schools — UAB, Texas San Antonio, Rice, North Texas, Charlotte and Florida Atlantic — to replace the three that are soon to depart for the Big 12.
On paper, that would be the headline. On a paper plate, the news is much bigger, because the AAC’s addition of UAB means college football’s — nay, the world’s — most delicious rivalry now is set to resume. The Blazers and Memphis will soon be conference rivals again, which means they will once more battle for a trophy styled after a giant rack of ribs.
The Battle of the Bones (sometimes referred to as the Battle for the Bones) rivalry began in 2006 when the Blazers and Tigers were members of Conference USA and played every year. In a nod toward Birmingham’s and Memphis’s status as two of the United States’ premier barbecue hubs, the schools decided to start playing for the right to hoist a 100-pound bronze rack of ribs created by Heather Spencer, sculptor in residence at Birmingham’s Sloss Furnace. A delicious tradition was born.
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“It’s to build spirit between the two schools and to add to the good rivalry,” Sam Miller, then an associate athletic director at UAB, said at the time.
The rivalry went beyond the game. Each year, groups from Memphis and Birmingham would compete to see who had the best ribs at a competition held outside the stadium. The first year, UAB won the football game, 35-29, while teams representing Birmingham won both the professional and amateur barbecue competitions.
Sadly, it was not to last: Memphis departed for what would eventually become the AAC after the 2012 season, and the Tigers and Blazers have not played since (Memphis won the final Battle of the Bones game, 46-9, but UAB leads the series, 4-3).
The AAC needed new teams to replace Cincinnati, Houston and Central Florida, which in turn will replace Texas and Oklahoma in the Big 12 whenever those two teams can figure out their departure to the SEC. So the AAC more or less decided to gut Conference USA, taking six of its schools to join East Carolina, Memphis, Navy (in football only), South Florida, SMU, Temple, Tulane, Tulsa and Wichita State (basketball and Olympic sports only).
It’s unclear when the six new AAC schools will begin playing in the conference, because the lawyers need to figure out the terms of everyone’s departures. A hungry college football world hopes they figure it out quickly.
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