In light of the huge Michigan-OSU game and Auburn-Alabama, it's time to examine the top rivalries in college football. I tried to factor in pageantry, great moments, history and the scope of these games in determining my order. As an aside, StubHub had a ranking of the bump in ticket interest for rivalry games this season. Of course, Michigan-OSU is the runaway No. 1.
1. Army-Navy: This is the purest essence of what a rivalry is. No other sports rivalry, not Duke-UNC basketball or Red Sox-Yankees, has a richer history or a prouder legacy. Army-Navy actually belongs in a class by itself because every other rivalry always will have some clunker year where both teams don't matter, but in this one the records are irrelevant to the buildup of the game. Everyone in the U.S. gets this one on some level or another -- even if it isn't always so easy to explain. For me, as the son of a captain in the Navy, the lasting image of my father is from a picture of him in uniform that we had near our living room. I've felt a connection to Navy ever since I saw that picture when I was probably 5 years old. I realize you could say that this game doesn't have significance to the national title picture these days, but it's still the one game almost every American has a rooting interest in and I really believe that transcends everything else.
From Gwen in Chicago: "Almost every other 'big' rivalry doesn't give the whole base of sports fans a rooting interest. I don't care about Oklahoma-Texas or FSU-Miami (I hate them all) but I love what Army and Navy represent and I'm a Domer, but Notre Dame-USC just doesn't symbolize or mean as much."
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Bruce Feldman
