The 10 Best Current Rivalries

While the BCS currently defines college football compared to the rest of the sports world, the rivalries are a close second. So which ones are the ten biggest of all-time and which are the best ones going right now? Here are our choices for the ten best along with the signature games in each series.

Ten Best Current Rivalries

The top ten rivalries, No. 1 - No. 3

By Pete Fiutak     Rivalry Games No. 4 through No. 6 | Rivalry Games No. 7 through No. 10

The rest of the world might have Yankees-Red Sox, Bears-Packers, Coke-Pepsi and Christina-Britney, but the real rivalries are in college football. With no playoff system, rivalries define seasons as the biggest of the big showdowns that often decide conference and national championships. Other rivalries simply give one team’s fan base bragging rights for a year. There's an old cliché; a 1-10 season is a success if that one win is over the hated rival.

Here are the ten best rivalries in college football (D-I only) based on how much they’ve mattered, the bitterness of the feud, and what they mean to the college football landscape. Remember one fact while reading this: just because your favorite team’s rivalry is the be-all-end-all of your existence, that doesn’t mean that it’s important to anyone else. Think globally, get jacked up locally.

1. Michigan vs. Ohio State
(Michigan leads all-time 58-41-6)
Alabama-Auburn is meaner and Florida State-Miami has meant more at times over the last few decades, but no rivalry has a better combination of history, animosity and championship implications than Michigan vs. Ohio State.

How dominant have these two teams been in Big Ten play? Since 1913, the two teams have combined for all or part of 75 Big Ten titles and the have finished 1-2 in the standings 19 times since 1968. Everyone else, including the University of Chicago, has combined for 82 Big Ten titles. In other words, the showdown between these two has meant everything to the Big Ten race for almost a century.

How important is beating the other team? John Cooper won 71% of his games as the OSU head coach with a string of four ten-win seasons in the late 1990s, but he went 2-10-1 against Michigan. Five of those losses cost Ohio State the Big Ten title and one cost a national championship. Cooper was gone in 2001.

As the legend/myth goes, Woody Hayes was on his way back to Columbus from a recruiting trip in Michigan when his car ran out of gas. He ignored a gas station and ended up pushing his car over the border rather than spend money in Michigan.

The Signature Games … Ohio State 42 ... Michigan 39, November 18, 2006
The backdrop was too rich to be true. No. 1 Ohio State vs. No. 1 Michigan, with a spot in the national championship on the line, and with Bo Schembechler passing away a few days before the game. Ohio State won a classic as Troy Smith threw four touchdown passes to four different receivers highlighted by a 39-yard pass to Ted Ginn off a fake for a 21-7 second half lead and an eight-yard strike to Anthony Gonzalez for a 28-14 halftime advantage. Michigan roared back with a stop on OSU's first second half possession to go 60 yards in five plays finished off by the second of Mike Hart's three touchdown runs. The Wolverines pulled within four on a 39-yard Garrett Rivas field goal, but the Buckeyes got their second big touchdown run of the game, the first coming in the first half on a brilliant, spinning 52-yard dash from Chris Wells, on an Antonio Pittman 56-yard dash. Michigan capitalized off a fumble with a short Hart scoring run, but head coach Lloyd Carr chose to kick the extra point rather than go for two allowing OSU to be up by four. With an 11-play, 82-yard drive that took five minutes and was kept alive on a penalty from a helmet-to-helmet hit on a third down misfire, Smith hit Brian Robiskie on a 13-yard touchdown pass for a 42-31 lead. Michigan marched back with a 16-yard touchdown pass to Tyler Ecker and the two point conversion, but the Buckeyes recovered the onside kick and ran out the clock. 

Michigan 24 … Ohio State 12   November 22, 1969
Ohio State was the defending national champion and had its most dominant Buckeye team yet under Woody Hayes having outscored their opponents 371 to 69. The closest anyone had come to touching the No. 1 Buckeyes was Northwestern in a 35-6 loss. Michigan was on a roll of its own with a 7-2 record and a No. 12 ranking beating its last four opponents 178-22. Even after the Buckeyes got on the board early, it was Michigan's game as its defense showed early that it wouldn’t be intimidated and stopped the juggernaut costing Ohio State the national title. For Michigan, this was one of the great wins in school history paving the way to the Rose Bowl and a 10-3 loss to USC to finish 8-3 and ranked ninth. Ohio State didn’t go to a bowl and finished fourth.

2. Oklahoma vs. Texas  (Texas leads the series 59-40-5)
The Red River rivalry is as fierce and angry as any in college football with only Auburn-Alabama ranking higher on the meanness scale. During the second weekend of October both teams travel to Dallas, a site equidistant from both schools and with each getting an equal number of tickets, for the last day of the State Fair of Texas. Only the Army-Navy games has a better atmosphere as one side of the stadium is totally clad in burnt orange while the other is in crimson and white.

How old is this series? It started in 1900 before Oklahoma was even a state. There were, possibly, lost political elections because of this game as former OU head coach Bud Wilkinson lost a Senate race after his number one Sooner lost to the number two Longhorns 28-7 in 1963. There have been incidents of spying by the Oklahoma coaches causing former Texas head coach Darrell Royal to call them “sorry bastards” before the 1976 showdown. And there have been tarnished legacies on both sides for failing to win this game.  As the two programs have reentered a place reserved for only the elite of the elite in college football, this is getting even more heated.

Signature Game: Texas 26 … Oklahoma 20   October 12, 1968
Down 20-19 with only 2:37 to play, Texas quarterback James Street connected on four passes to get down to the Sooner 21 with 55 seconds to play. Going back to the running game, UT won when fullback Steve Worster ran seven yards for the final score. Texas would follow this by winning 28 straight games giving validity to its strange new offense that would dominate college football for the better part of the next two decades: the wishbone. When this offense was run to perfection, it was one of the most dominating forces in all of sports. Teams with superior ground attacks were able to put up numbers equal to any high-octane passing attack nowadays. It all started here.

Texas 45 … Oklahoma 35   October 11, 2008
In a wildly fun game with each offense throwing haymaker after haymaker, Texas overcame an early 14-3 deficit thanks to a 96-yard kickoff return for a score and a 25-7 second half run to close out the game. Cody Johnson ran for three short scores and Shipley caught a two-yard touchdown pass for the Longhorns, while Sam Bradford threw five touchdown passes including three to Manuel Johnson and a 52-yarder to Jermaine Gresham. The 80 combined points were the most ever in the 103 times the two teams have played.

3. Alabama vs. Auburn (Alabama leads 38-33-1 according to Alabama, 38-34-1 according to Auburn)
As far as the pure definition of a college football rivalry game, this is number one as the fire and passion between the two schools is unlike any other in any sport. 365 days a year radio talk shows discuss this game and people who grew up and live in Alabama are defined by their allegiances. There’s no debate about it; this one is the nastiest of the bunch as the only thing the two sides can agree on is that they hate each other and that they think their rivalry is the biggest and best in college football.

The rivalry began with a fight. The legend has it that the battle between the two halted between 1908 through 1947 because of a fight after a 6-6 tie after the 1907 game, but in reality, the two didn’t play because they couldn’t decide which referees to use and how much each of their players could get for expenses. After 41 years of bickering, the presidents of the two schools decided enough was enough and said the two schools should play again.

With a few notable exceptions, the games were relatively average until the 1980s when the rivalry started to really hum with several heart-stopping finishes and close battles. The rivalry took another major turn in 1989 when, after years of playing in Birmingham, Alabama went to Auburn for the first time and saw its national title hopes dashed as the Tigers won 30-20.

Signature Game: Auburn 17 … Alabama 16   December 2, 1972
Just before going on a nine-year Iron Bowl winning streak, the Tide lost to their hated rivals after Bear Bryant made the pregame statement that he’d “prefer to beat that cow college once than beat Texas ten times.” The No. 2 ranked and unbeaten Tide was up 16-3 with 5:30 to play and the game in hand, but Auburn pulled off a miracle blocking two Bama punts for touchdowns for a 17-16 win. Had Alabama beaten Auburn, it would’ve been playing for the national title. Oddly enough, the Bear didn’t only lose to the Cow College, but he also later lost to Texas 17-13 in the Cotton Bowl.

Rivalry Games No. 4 through No. 6 | Rivalry Games No. 7 through No. 10