I think it’s an opportunity to come up with something a little more original. The “Apple Cup” (Washington v. Washington State) doesn’t sound very football-like, but at least it doesn’t share the same name as a dozen other rivalries.
I’m a student at OSU. I hadn’t really connected the name of this rivalry to the American civil war, per se, but that was probably the particular war people might’ve been thinking off anyway, given when it received that moniker. Apart from the name, none of the iconography from the actual war seems to have been used, like war uniforms, union vs. rebels, etc. At least, not from what I saw. The two schools are on a relatively north/south bearing from one another so maybe that was part of the inspiration for the name.
“Civil war” is a generic term so I don’t know what black people made of it, but the schools report receiving requests to change the name going back some years. From an email sent to students:
In recent years, some students, faculty, alumni, student-athletes, OSU stakeholders and community members have questioned the appropriateness of this term.
Civil wars in general tend to have a lot of bloodshed and even genocide, so I think moving away from that name might be best, even if the American civil war had never happened.
The rivalry was once called the Oregon Classic so maybe they’ll just go back to that. The trophy for winning it is a platypus so maybe they’ll incorporate that somehow. Who knows.