Yeah your middle paragraph tells it all. The season is obviously early (and they can drop some bad games) but no one knew if the portal would work/be sustainable or not given how new it was. So it was stupid for people to discount it so much (and seem to still be doing so) since threI diae years of it is now parlaying into better seasons, bigger wins, and now a likely top 10 class for them which is high school based (when people are saying they can’t recruit normally, either). Even when Norvell went 38-15 at Memphis people were saying it was due to what he inherited from Fuentes and the focus was on his cornrows as a player.
I want to beat these guys more than ever before besides the decades of hatred due to your third paragraph. Mario has already worked really hard to flip the roster and worked on correcting his mistakes with coaching hires. I want us to cut off their momentum THIS year which is already crucial given how year 1 went for us. It would be a mega upset, the biggest win this program has seen in a while, and an additional stimulant for additional recruiting and growing trust in Mario.