UDel v DelState (Updated) 0

The University of Delaware is playing Delaware State University in a regular season football game for the first time ever; the current coaches of the two teams have worked together to make this happen (the UDel had a much harder row to hoe).

Everyone who cares about Delaware college football (that doesn’t include me since my kids are outta there) seems to be celebrating it as a big day. Indeed, it is such a big deal that the Philly PBS station is televising the game. PBS stations do not commonly broadcast college football games.

UDel is a much larger school with a strong football history and will likely crush DelState.

Why haven’t they played before? The local paper notes (emphasis added);

The schools’ proximity — less than an hour and fewer than 50 miles apart — makes their matchup a natural. So does their location in the same state, and as the only NCAA Division I-AA football programs here.

Those factors contributed to the oddity and decades-long curiosity about their failure to play football, which was rooted in UD’s administrative stubbornness, plus a historic economic and social disconnect between UD and historically black Delaware State.

Disconnect.

Yeah. That’s one way to put it.

Delaware was a segregated state. UDel was all white. DelState was all black.

When I was a young ‘un, white schools did not play black schools. Period.

“Disconnect.”

It is a good thing they got over it. It is a bad thing that persons seem mystified about why it’s taken so long.

Addendum:

Closer than expected: UDel 27, DelState 17.

At the link, there’s a picture captioned

Delaware State fans show their pride for the Hornets with plenty of red attire, homemade posters and colorful pompons.

It’s a picture of the DelState band in the stands. Of course, they are wearing red. They’re the band.

My daughter wore blue to all the games. She was in the UDel. band.