Recipe for a Rivalry
Today must be recycling day, because after shamelessly stealing Andrew Sullivan's quote of the day I am now going to recycle a post of mine from earlier today on a messageboard, in response to the question of what constitutes a great college rivalry. Here goes:
I think there are certain elements that are necessary to a great rivalry, at least for college football purposes:
1. The teams gotta be good. Not consistently good necessarily, but good enough that the rivalry consistently affects the national championship aspirations of one of the two teams. For example, FSU-Miami determined or all but determined the national title hopes of one of the 2 teams for about a decade.
2. These can't be some podunk teams--we need big stadiums, massive fan bases, and national appeal. Michigan-Ohio State is probably the best example of an ugly rivalry with massive appeal.
3. No stupid bucket or jug or trophy involved. I'm sorry but if what you're fighting for is a trinket, it's not a serious rivalry. Hate needs to be your primary motivation.
4. It needs to be a direct rivalry borne of years of hard fought games and mutual dislike, not "your entire conference hates you." This means all those other SEC teams that hate UF (Tennessee, Alabama, Auburn, South Carolina, etc.) don't *really* have rivalries with UF like FSU and Georgia do.
5. Can't be lopsided for very long in either direction. Both teams need to have a legitimate shot at winning when they take the field. Bonus points if the team having the off year can usually rise to the occasion and pull off the upset just because they hate you so much and want to ruin your season.
With all of this in mind, I submit that these are the best and only true rivalries in college football:
FSU-Florida
Ohio St-Michigan
Alabama-Auburn
Texas-Oklahoma
Texas- A&M
USC-Notre Dame
Florida-Georgia
FSU-Miami (fading off this list, but it ruled the rivalries in the 80s/90s)
Now, some jokers will add Army-Navy into a list like this even though neither team has been good in ages. And they will talk about how it's a whole 'nother level of rivalry and consecutive losses for a number of years by either team indicated a coming war. I don't care. It's a game that nobody outside of the military gives a shit about.
Also, anyone who would include Harvard-Yale on this list probably hasn't watched real college football in their entire lives.
5 comments:
That's a pretty good list. I might add USC-UCLA. And since I'm a Spartan alum, I would try to add Michigan State-Michigan and Michigan State-Penn State... but then you would know I'm full of shit.
= : - )
Nice blog.
USC doesn't even notice when they play Notre Dame, whereas UCLA and USC have entire tee-shirt industries specifically devoted to that rivalry.
PS Go Bruins!
-YEM
I blogged a response to your post, but here's the gist of it:
I *might* add the following:
Georgia - Auburn - I mean c’mon, there’s a Wikipedia article for the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry. It should get extra bonus points for #5. Georgia’s season last year was shitty. We went on a losing streak to Tennessee, Vandy, nearly Mississippi State, Florida and Kentucky. But oh, what happened in the Plains? We rallied to beat #5 Auburn. And then we beat Georgia Tech!
Georgia - Georgia Tech; however, it would violate #1 and maybe #3 (Yes, we play for the Governor’s Cup, but there’s also clean ol’ fashioned hate involved).
But, you can’t add everyone.. and I’d say your list is pretty damn accurate.
Tennessee-Alabama needs to be on any list that's taking longevity into account and throwing off "recent rivalries." It's lost its luster in the last decade or so because of conference realignment, but there were a couple of decades where it was one of the only real potential stumbling blocks for Bear Bryant's Crimson Tide. It goes back to the 1929 when UT upset Bama to put itself on the map nationally.
I got to be at several Ala-Auburn games back in the late 70s & early eighties. At the time, the tickets were split eveny between both schools and they played at the (not exactly) neutral Legion Field in Birmingham. Those games were always the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so you could be home from school and free to just go spend the whole day there. They started at around 2pm, so just as the games drew to its climax the sun would have set and darkness was settling in. Those were special times. Your profile background was one of the reasons I added you on twitter.
Hopefully Satan, I mean SaBan, will get complete the rebuld at Bama and we can start having fun again. Great post.
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