Conference realignment can be an exciting time. It brings a new batch of annual opponents who may have little to no prior history, and makes for interesting story lines.
However, it can also separate longtime rivals who, in many cases, quit playing altogether. This is the collateral damage that schools could mitigate through out-of-conference series, but often don’t for political or monetary reasons. Sometimes, there’s really no apparent reason they don’t play each other.
Nowhere is this more true than in the Group of 5, where realignments are more common. The G5 is made up of new programs, but also traditional programs that have gone through various conferences where rivalries can be formed then broken multiple times.