The public doesn't care, so they don't care. We only support winners, so we turn away from teams with losing records. Thus the youth today just don't buy into those pride games the way we did 20 years ago. We used to care who won every high school football game. They still feel that way in a few rivalries like Cameron vs. Rockdale and Odessa Permian vs. Midland Lee, but they are vanishing.
New schools open every year.
Suddenly, you have to beat a Cypress Something for a gold football, not Temple or Waco. The Crosstown Showdown is never going to be one of the state's best rivalries. It will always be one of the state's top-attended games, and it might often be one of the best games. But it, like so many other games, will seldom have lasting substance. Thursday night, it means plenty, and there's no gold football or gimmicks needed.