Sparta and Athens . . . The Capulets and the Montagues . . . Lincoln and Douglas . . . The Sox and Yanks
What is a rivalry?
One dictionary defines rivalry as, “a competitive or antagonistic state or condition.” But in sports, a rivalry means so much more, especially to the fans. Perhaps no sport thrives on the concept of rivalry than college football.
For those who don’t know, we are in the middle of an 11-day period in college football strangely known as “Rivalry Week.” Rivalry Week begins on Thanksgiving and ends with the Army-Navy Game on the first Saturday in December.
Rivalries form the true backbone of all college sports, but this seems especially true in college football. So, I sought out the true definition of a college football rivalry and I came up with 8 characteristics of a “great” rivalry:
1. Elite – Are the teams at the peak of their sport? Williams-Amherst, Grambling-Southern, and Harvard-Yale are all age-old and steeped in tradition and passion, but how can they be ranked on par with Michigan-OSU?
2. Geography – The single greatest ingredient in any rivalry is geographic proximity. If you look at most rivalries, the campuses are less than a 3-hour drive apart.
3. Frequency – Part of what makes a rivalry great is the fact that it is played every year.
4. Stakes – An otherwise average rivalry might become great, over time, if it carries big stakes. If the winner almost always or automatically advances toward a championship, the rivalry is enhanced. It is a battle for more than just bragging rights.
5. Pageantry – Is the game an event on and off the field?
6. Intensity/Hatred – How do the schools, the fans, the players feel about each other and the game.
7. Balance – Are the two teams usually or historically evenly-matched? Nobody cares about the rivalry between the hammer and the nail.
8. History – Has the game been around for decades? Have there been great or notorious moments captured in time and remembered forever? Have there been games no one would ever forget?
I objectively applied those 8 criteria to the rivalries in FBS college football, awarding 1-5 points per category, and came up with a list of the top-25 rivalries that surprised even me:
1. Ohio State-Michigan
2-tie. Auburn-Alabama
2-tie. Texas-Oklahoma
4. Army-Navy
5. Notre Dame-USC
6-tie. Notre Dame-Michigan
6-tie. Florida-Georgia
6-tie. Tennessee-Alabama
6-tie. Miami-Florida State
6-tie. Georgia-Georgia Tech
11-tie. Florida-Florida State
11-tie. Clemson-South Carolina
13. Virginia-Virginia Tech
14. Oklahoma-Oklahoma State
15. USC-UCLA
16-tie. Auburn-Georgia
16-tie. Nebraska-Oklahoma
16-tie. WVU-Pitt
16-tie. Notre Dame-Miami
16-tie. Notre Dame-BC
21. Oregon-Oregon State
22-tie. Texas-Texas A&M
22-tie. Iowa-Iowa State
22-tie. Washington-WSU
22-tie. California-Stanford
Just missed the cut:
Nebraska-Colorado, Texas-Arkansas, Oregon-Washington, BC-Miami, Michigan-MSU, Wisconsin-Minnesota, Penn State-Pitt, Penn State-Michigan, Kansas-Missouri.
November 26th, 2007
Wow – thats pretty interesting. I generally agree, however I’d add two more criteria:
9) Both teams have to think its a rivalry. For example, Maryland seems to want to make Virginia a rival, but Virginia is focused on Virginia Tech. (I think your list covers this one well already.)
10) Rivalry’s take lots of effort and emotion., so I think a team can only have one, and in extreme cases, two rivals. I’d guess Notre Dame would say USC and BC were the games that get the most emotion.
November 27th, 2007
Not bad, Mike, not bad. I don’t have issue with most of your criteria, on the whole. I do think, though, that some of your further-down criterion should be further up – for example, “elite” isn’t always important – and also isn’t as important from year-to-year as some of the other items (frequency, history). These are minor quibbles, however.
I think David’s suggestions are both spot-on, and while I think his #9 is a sub-part of #6, 10 is dead-on. I’m sorry, but Notre Dame can’t have five rivals. Neither can Michigan. Any additional “rival” inherently devalues all the others. I think one school can have regional rivals (UF-UGA, Mich-MSU), one-sided rivalries (MD-UVA), and other ephemeral rivals (ND-USC), but you can really only have ONE major rival, IMO. ND can have BC, but i’m sorry, USC has UCLA. Michigan has OSU. USC-UCLA may not match-up as the best game year after year in football, but for NCAA athletics, it goes beyond one sport. This is where David’s #10 really comes in – you can’t just limit it to football. The greatest rivalries are transcendent. Look at Scott’s commercial/post about Mich-OSU – it’s more than just “the game.” It’s about the people, the schools, the cities. I know this post focused on college football, but I don’t know that you can put that in a vacuum, away from the rest of college athletics/life. This is what adds to #’s 2, 4, and especially 5 and 6.
My cousin went to USC and isn’t a big sports guy, but “the UCLA game” is THE game of the year, EVERY year. Frankly, he couldn’t care less about Notre Dame in and of themselves, so long as they’re not the sole obstacle to a USC NC/undefeated season. As much as FSU has sucked recently, it’s still Florida-Florida State for those two. Duke and UNC or Army and Navy may ALWAYS suck in football, and that may lessen those rivalries when compared to others at the top of your list, but it’s still a BIG game – THE game – to those teams, players, and students. USC-ND or FL-GA may be BIG games most years (due mostly to the historical ‘eliteness’ of the programs), but they’re still not “great rivalries” in my opinion. How can you have a great rival, if there’s another one even greater next week??
The more i look at it, the more i think you did a nice job – with the criteria and their definitions in particular – for something that’s innate subjective. Not having seen how you scored each actual rivalry, however, I can’t comment on that. I’m sure we’d all have our subjective differences there. Just ’cause it’s numeric doesn’t make it objective! But a good start, and good criteria, at least.
November 27th, 2007
Using another anecdote to bolster my case:
I was in Norman, OK on the campus of OU in early October this year. The Sooners were about to play then-undefeated Mizzou the upcoming weekend. I was chatting with a couple of OU employees (some of whom were OU alumni, but my main counterpart was a Baylor alum). We began to talk about OU/Big 12 athletics (of which I admitted knowing VERY little about) and made a comment about that being a “big game” especially because OU was viewed as having a particularly good team (I don’t recall their ranking at the time). I immediately cut myself off, and said something to the effect of: ‘well, of course, not like OK State – they’re your BIG rival, right?’ I was instantly greeted with 5 pairs of eyes staring at me like I was from outer space [not surprising, knowing what I know now, after following college fb MUCH more closely this year - thanks you time-sucking SIMP bastards!!]. I got a group reply that was summed up as: ‘it’s big, but NOTHING like the Texas game.”
One went so far to say that, “while they normally put OU-OkSt as the last game of the year based on in-state tradition, OU-Texas is a MUCH bigger game for us, and for Texas too.”
This is probably why there’s the term “arch rival.”
November 28th, 2007
I don’t agree that you can only have 1 rival.
I would submit that for, say, Virginia, EVERY school in the ACC is a “rival,” while MD and UNC have stronger rivalries, and V-Tech is their “arch” rival.
As for Notre Dame, if they are limited to only two rivalries, it would be USC and Michigan. Most ND players and fans don’t consider BC a rival, which is usually why they have lost to them.