In an era of change, college football has never needed to lean more on its roots, when it can, than on rivalry weekend. As conferences change members and familiarity decreases, it is important for the sport to maintain tradition. Improving the rivalry weekend is the best way to do it.
Many of the Thanksgiving weekend sports series surpass 100 games played, and several debuted in the 1890s. History and proximity play a role in series that pit family, friends and neighborhoods against one another. Sometimes relief usurps happiness as the immediate emotion after a victory.
Rivalry Weekend is all about teams clinching conference title berths…or losing them. Traveling trophies provide programs with symbols of victory or exclamation points of heartbreak. Wins help programs reach bowl eligibility, while losses cost them recruits. Trainers earn extensions or pink strips based on results. Players receive lifelong adoration for game-changing plays.
For rivalry weekend to matter, everyone needs the right kind of enemy. For many leagues, these games are in effect and untouchable. Others, especially those in the midst of a realignment, need adjustments or date changes. Some require softened resentments. Conferences should work together in the best interest of the sport.
Starting with the league-exclusive games, let’s take a look at how major college football should position rivalry weekend. Games already scheduled for the 2024 rivalry weekend are in bold.
Michigan leads the all-time series against Ohio State 61-51-6. (Adam Cairns / USA Today)
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The first four are storied rivalries that form the backbone of Big Ten football. The only time Michigan and Ohio State fans came together in common cause was in 2010, when the Big Ten briefly considered eliminating “The Game” from the final weekend. As for the bottom four, Nebraska-Iowa has generated Black Friday equity amid fans’ growing disdain for each other. Maryland-Rutgers has little history beyond entering the league together, but their proximity makes the series worth returning to during rivalry weekend.
Penn State is considered incomparable, but you can’t have a rivalry weekend without a dedicated game. During the pre-Legends and Leaders era, the Nittany Lions finished their season against Michigan State. The teams also regularly paired up Thanksgiving weekend as Eastern Division rivals. Although neither program ranks the other as a major rival, they share the Land Grant Trophy.
USC-UCLA has challenges, starting with the Trojans facing Notre Dame every other year on Thanksgiving Saturday. In the past, UCLA would face Cal or Stanford against USC-Notre Dame. But that was under the Pac-12 umbrella. In this case, keep USC-UCLA on Thanksgiving weekend and switch USC-Notre Dame a week earlier.
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SECOND
Losing Texas-Texas A&M was arguably the biggest casualty during the realignment in 2012, so it’s great that the rivals are back on the field where they belong. It has to stay that way permanently. The Iron Bowl and the Egg Bowl are sacrosanct. Tennessee finished SEC play against Vanderbilt from 1946 to 2000 and then the in-state foes returned to rivalry weekend as an annual staple in 2014.
Arkansas-LSU is a bit like Michigan State-Penn State. They had some great games against each other, especially on Black Friday, but there are mixed reviews on whether the Golden Boot is a primary or secondary series.
Rivals Iowa State and Kansas State will open the 2025 season against each other in Dublin, Ireland. (Scott Sewell/USA Today)
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Maintaining the Territorial Cup (Arizona-Arizona State) and returning The Holy War (Utah-BYU) to the rivalry weekend is essential. Farmageddon (Iowa State-Kansas State) has become one of the league’s best rivalries, and the schools have played annually since 1917. They are scheduled to close their schedules in 2027, which would be a shame.
Texas schools have checkered community histories that coincide with their entries into the former Southwestern Conference. That makes the rivalry weekend problematic. Baylor-TCU rates as probably the state’s second-best college football rivalry (outside Texas-Texas A&M), but TCU-SMU is also a long-running Metroplex clash. Although Texas Tech was a later entry to the SWC (1956), the Red Raiders and Baylor have played each other 82 times. They entered the Big 12 together, so it’s a valuable series.
CAC
No ACC team has more rivals than North Carolina and the best include NC State, Duke and Virginia. The Tar Heels have played the Wolfpack 113 times, the Blue Devils 110 times and the Cavaliers 128 times. Virginia-Virginia Tech prevents the Cavaliers and Tar Heels from moving here, but the other two are a toss-up. NC State-Wake Forest (117 meetings) and Duke-Wake Forest (103) also have rivalry weekend histories of their own, so any of the four North Carolina schools are good here.
Syracuse and Boston College are long-time regional foes despite only 57 games being played. It’s crazy to write Stanford-Cal as an ACC series, but here we are. Stanford currently alternates with USC as Notre Dame’s annual Thanksgiving weekend trip to the West Coast. That would end Thanksgiving weekend because Cal can’t synchronize with UCLA every other year. That is a consequence of the realignment.
Automatic non-conference
- South Carolina-Clemson
- Kentucky-Louisville
- Florida-State of Florida
- Georgia-Georgia Tech
- Washington-Washington State
- Oregon-Oregon State
- Colorado-State of Colorado
- Notre Dame-Army/Navy
The first four are among the best non-conference rivalries across the board and they don’t have to give up on Thanksgiving weekend. Fortunately, the Apple Cup (Washington-Washington State) and Civil War (Oregon-Oregon State) remain annual rivalries despite realignment, but those games will seem out of place come September. This year, Washington-Oregon and Oregon State-Washington State play Thanksgiving weekend, which is…fine, but the Apple Cup and Civil War were scheduled conference finals all but once between 1947 and 2023. That is the right move.
Notre Dame currently plays either USC or Stanford on Thanksgiving weekend. With realignment, that tradition becomes a problem. But the Fighting Irish’s legendary series against the service academies would fit right into each year’s rivalry weekend. Colorado previously finished its regular season against Nebraska in its original Big 12 and Utah in the Pac-12. The Buffaloes are still playing Colorado State, so it makes sense to move from September to late November.
Pitt and West Virginia have played 106 times since their first meeting in 1895. (Michael Longo / USA Today)
Challenging rivalries
These are the problem areas in the rivalry weekend. The Backyard Brawl (West Virginia-Pittsburgh) has resumed in recent years with six more games scheduled through 2032. The return to Thanksgiving weekend elevates its importance.
TCU and SMU are set for a bye after the 103rd meeting of this season. Outside of the suspension of SMU’s two-year program in 1987-88, the programs scheduled each other every year but one (2006) from 1926 until this fall. Since the dissolution of the Southwest Conference, they have been at different competitive levels and TCU has skyrocketed in brand and success on the field. At least now with SMU as a member of the ACC, they are both power conference teams.
Missouri-Kansas remains one of the most bitter feuds in college sports more than a decade after the Tigers left the Big 12 for the SEC. Unless someone has experienced the lead-up to and aftermath of the Border War in football or men’s basketball, it is difficult to understand the mutual disdain the parties have for each other. Chaos is the biggest collateral damage in the recent realignment, and there are hard feelings over the Sooners’ departure to the SEC. But resetting this series takes away the pain of the recent realignment.
Houston and Rice have jumped to different conferences since the SWC dissolved in 1996, but have played 20 times in the last 25 years. They are located 4.6 miles away and play in the Bayou Bucket. Cincinnati and Miami (Ohio) began their Victory Bell series in 1888 and have played 127 times.
Finally, UCF and Miami are the leftovers. They reside in the same state in comparable conferences. Obviously, Miami’s history overshadows UCF’s steady rise to the Big 12. But in the College Football Playoff era, UCF has more wins (80) than Miami (73). The teams have played only twice, but there are more competitive similarities than differences.
(Top photo: Bryan Terry / USA Today)
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