Rivalries
 

I've been wanting to ask this for awhile. Playing NCAA 2005 makes you realize there are a lot of college football rivalries out there. Quite frankly, rivalries take sporting events from "good" or "fun to watch" to a whole new level. The problem is, a lot of these are regional, and unknown to people outside that region (for instance, I read about the Arkansas vs. Texas college football rivalry today - especially regarding an epic game played in 1969 and the plans (or non-plans) to celebrate that game). Living in Delaware, I'm not really privy to many great rivalries, but a few come to attention. I'm hoping others on this board can help me out. It doesn't have to be college football, though the sport naturally lends itself to these things (one meeting a year, large and vocal crowds). So, I'll begin with the ones I know about, and I'm hoping others will fill me in on the one's I'm missing as well as some possible anecdotes on the "hugeness" of the rivalry...

Army vs. Navy
Yankees vs. Red Sox
Alabama vs. Auburn
Florida vs. Florida St
Texas vs. Oklahoma
Eagles vs. Cowboys
Maryland vs. Duke

I'm sure there are many more that I could list, but I'm really interested in hearing about the personal stories of the huge rivalries that are found in your area.

Thanks!

I'm thinking that the Cowboys are bigger rivals with the 'Skins and Niners than the Eagles...

UTEP and NMSU are huge rivals, and UTEP fans everywhere hate UNM and BYU with a passion as well... :)

West Virginia vs Pitt (The Backyard Brawl)

Cubs vs. Cardinals
Illinois vs. Missouri

MD vs. Duke?

More like NC vs. Duke. THAT's the big game in ACC college basketball. Freakin' North Carolina shuts down for that game.

Shawn Micheals vs. Marty Jannetty

Missing big from that list, Michigan vs. Ohio State.

Yuck, i listed UM before OSU. I feel dirty.

From the NCAA
Georgia Tech v Georgia
Georgia v Florida
Alabama v Tennessee

And from the high school ranks, which can be as heated as anything:
Valdsota v Lowndes County
Parkview v Brookwood
Warner Robins v Northside-Warner Robins
Newnan v East Coweta (when both are good)

MILFORD VERSUS SYCAMORE

If neb checks in, uh, who are the Raiders rivals?

I only listed Eagles vs. Cowboys because the Eagles hate the Cowboys. Well, the fans do anyway. I'm thinking it's much more of a rivalry in Philadelphia than Dallas.

And... Maryland vs. Duke. Yes, I know UNC - Duke is THE game. However, the last few years, Maryland and Duke have a had a number of incredible games, and the fact that both have won the title in recent years have made it a big rivalry. Again, however, it's probably much more of a big game for the Maryland area than Duke.

Someone mentioned Alabama vs. Tennessee is a huge rivalry. I thought the big game for Alabama was vs. Auburn. Is that not the case? If Alabama and Tennessee is a huge rivalry as well, I'd love to hear about it. Would be interesting to hear about teams that have more than just a single rival each year...

The Alabama-Tennesse rivalry is still known as "The Third Saturday In October" in spite of the fact that the game was moved a week later a few years ago.

You can get a little feel for it from this review of a book focused on the rivalry
http://www.book-thoughts.com/book/al...20history.html

Here's a few more anecdotes from a daily newspaper that sits near the state line
http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturd...mareport.shtml

And a little more from what looks to be the UT student newspaper
http://dailybeacon.utk.edu/article.php/619
And a better one from the same source
http://dailybeacon.utk.edu/article.php/3998

Stanford vs. Cal
Cal Tech vs. The Rose Bowl

LSU-Arkansas was pretty big for a while, in both basketball and football, but Arkansas isn't so hot in football anymore, and both basketball programs have more or less gone into the tank.

As for as pro football, the Broncos are big rivals with the Chiefs and Raiders, while the Chiefs and Raiders are big rivals with each other. I know that the NFC East and the NFC Central have really strong, long-standing ties among their own teams, but I don't know if either of those conferences has as much hate as the Broncos-Raiders-Chiefs trio.

On to hockey, as a New Jersey Devils fan, I'd love for them to have a big rivalry with the Rangers, but the Rangers have become so bad in the past 10 years, it's not really worth pining over. I know Toronto and Ottawa have a big rivalry, as they fight for Ontario supremacy. I would imagine that the Red Wings and Avalanche are pretty big rivals, too, though I'm not quite as "up" on the Western Conference.

The big ones in Major League Baseball have been mentioned already. I don't have any to add. I don't think the NBA really has any big rivalries anymore. The Lakers-Celtics one was massive in the 1980s, and the Lakers and 76ers were pretty big at the same time too. Now, the closest you really get is Lakers and Kings, and with Shaq gone to Miami and Vlade back in LA, I would guess that even that rivalry will go down the tubes.

Anyway, for me personally, the AFC West rivalry is the biggest one that hasn't been mentioned yet.

Packers vs. Bears

Dola-

Donny Osmond vs. Danny Partridge

Pro football wise, Browns - Bengals is big here. No games are more important. Throw out the record books, it doesn't matter when these two meet (including last year basically eliminating us from the playoffs). Now, with both teams continually improving, maybe the national pub for this great historical rivalry will increase.

And to a lesser extent, Bengals - Steelers is always good (Swaggs, remember Blake's fake spike to Pickens for the game winning TD a few years back? ).

Well, in South Carolina, we really only have Clemson v. USC. By far the biggest football game in the state.

On a lesser level, Furman and the Citadel hate eachother, but thats more of a privileged white kid rivalry. Hopefully it will heat up this year after a Citadel player punched one of our players after the game last year.

The friendly, loyal, hard working, blue collar, down to earth Joe Six-Packs from Virginia Tech vs. the sniveling, two faced, wine sippin', brie eatin', son of a bitch snobs from the University of Virginia



Edit - Oh yeah, we're supposed to hate West Virginia, too...but mostly we all feel sorry for them.

UCLA vs USC. It usually spans two sports because UCLA should never lose to USC in basketball (Thank you Lavin) and the football rivalry is hated, but usually one sided, depending on the decade.

They share a similarity that no other rivalry can really say in college. The must share the same town. The campus's are 20 miles apart.

Yup this is one of those where everyone int he area either backs one or the other, whether they went to the school or not.

USC is interesting in that it has two big rivalries like this, with UCLA and with Notre Dame.

CR

I don't believe anyone has mentioned Miami and FSU. That's a pretty intense rivalry and usually has national title implications.

As you get older and wiser, very young one, you'll learn. This is your first step into a larger world...

Lord... the Jeff Blake and Eric Metcalf used to play like Joe Montana and Jim Brown vs the Steelers during the mid-90s.

The whole AFC North (formerly Central) has some pretty strong rivalries, with the Steelers-Browns and Browns-Ravens, in particular.

We feel sorry for you guys, too.

GO MISSOURI!!!!!! oh, wrong thread even though we landed one of the other Elite 11 QBs. Oh wait, wasnt he from TEXAS!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Screw you texas!

West Virginia vs. Pitt is one of the more heated rivalries in all of college football.

Cal vs. Stanford (The Big Game) there have been some classics in this rivalry. Even if both team completely suck, the 80,000 seat Stanford stadium or Cal stadium will be packed.

More underrated rivalry: Stanford vs. Notre Dame. In the past few years this rivalry has been renewed for a few reasons. Tyrone Willingham being stolen from Stanford, the Stanford band pissing all the Catholics off in the stadium with many harsh remarks (the harshest was a joke about the Potato famine from the stadium announcers booth.)

Of course those are pretty biased, except for the WV vs. Pitt rivalry. Michigan/Ohio State rivalry is the best in college football.

Baseball: Dodgers vs. Giants. We hate them, they hate us. It seems like fans hate each other more, numerous brawls happening outside and sometimes inside the stadiums over the years.

NFL: Dolphins vs. Bills is one of the biggest rivalries.
Niners vs. Cowboys-heated in the 90s, died down and then it was renewed when TO made his celebration in the middle of the Dallas star. Who knows how big it will be without TO?
Cowboys vs. Skins (Always has been one of the best rivalries in football)
Niners vs. Raiders (Fuck you Raider fans)
Niners vs. Rams (this is a huge rivalry between these division teams. The Lambs used to be spanked every year in the 80s and 90s untill recently when the Lambs have been good.)

It should be noted that prior to the 80s, the Rams were the ones routinely doing the spanking in this series. Not that a young pup like you would remember that. ;)

Niners suck! :D

CR

Agreed. As a Pitt alum in a family of WVU alums, I've lived this rivalry every day for years. I've been to nearly a dozen of these games in both cities (and to 3 seperate stadiums just in PIttsburgh alone), and the atmosphere is just plain bitter.

There is also a one-way rivalry at Pitt. I don't know how far back it goes, but many current Pitt fans/students hate Penn State with a passion. In a strange tradition, the student section still chants "Penn State Sucks!" during certain parts of the victory march, even though we may be playing Rutgers or Temple or Toledo at the time. From talking to several friends at PSU, the bitterness isn't mutual, as they focus their hatred on Big Ten rivals such as Oho State. I think Pitt's hatred stems from the fact that JoPa is too much of a chickenshit to schedule an annual game with Pitt, despite frequent and continuous requests by both Pitt and the legislature of Pennsylvania.

I'm not biased either :D

In addition to UM vs OSU, UM vs Notre Dame and UM vs MSU are also pretty big. Red Wings vs Avalanche is about as big as it gets in the NHL. Seeing as the Lions have sucked the past, oh, 40 years or so, I think our big rivals, Packers and Bears, do not really look at it as that big of a rivalry, but fans here do.

As for the smaller colleges in the state, Central and Western are the big rivals, but it is much more of a friendly rivalry now, from what I am told. Central/Western weekend is basically now just an excuse to go on a weekend-long bender.

On a lesser-known level...

William and Mary has a couple of big football rivalries

1) VMI. It is a tradition that when VMI comes to W&M, a group of keydets make it their goal to steal the W&M flag that the male cheerleaders have and the Army ROTC members at W&M make it their goal to prevent this/get the flag back. It is a fun rivalry, but has lost a bit of its flair since we stomp them every year.

2) University of Richmond. If you look in the NCAA game this is called the "Oldest Rivalry in the South" or something like that. We have been play them since like the 1890's. This rivalry has also died a bit since they left the Atlantic 10 a few years ago.

3) James Madison University. This is a bit more emotional because many students at W&M went to HS with folks that are at JMU.

That brought a tear of joy to my eye.


Syracuse - Georgetown in Basketball

and has anybody mentioned USC - Notre Dame or Michigan-Notre Dame? Those are pretty huge rivalries.

Patriots vs Tuna

ND vs MSU
ND vs Purdue
ND vs Standford
ND vs USC

The Wings-Avalanche rivalry between 1996-2002 was the best rivalry in sports. Period. End of discussion. The was especially the case between 1996-1997. It makes the whole Yankees-Red Sox rivalry look a playground spat between two school girls. Seriously.

Over the seven years (96-02), Colorado (two) and Detroit (three) won the Cup 5 times. They were the top two teams in the league over that stretch of time (though both had their ups and downs). They met four or fives times during each regular season and met in the play-offs in '96, '97, '99, '00, and '02.

During the peak of the rivalry, really starting in the 1996 Western Conference Finals (though techinically starting in a game where the Wings thrashed Roy and the Canadiens 11-1) and ending during the 1997 Western Conference Finals each and every game was amazingly intense, physical, and just an amazing amount of talent on the ice. It was unbelievable.

This is HB #2 here.

Rivalries from Spartan land:

1. MSU-UM
2. MSU-Notre Dame
3. MSU-Penn State

None of the other teams they play regularly or irregularly make it to the status of rivalry, but the MAC teams may disagree.

If I were to guess about the rivalries from Wolverine country, they'd be ranked something like this (Jim & my evil twin, among others, may disagree):

1. UM-OSU
2. Whomever UM plays from the Big 10 title
3. UM-Notre Dame
4. UM-MSU

The UM-MSU rivalry is a much bigger deal in East Lansing than in Ann Arbor for at least two reasons:

1) Roughly 80% of MSU students are from Michigan, compared to about 30% at UM
2) UM has been a better team over the years

Hawaii - Fresno St.
Hawaii - BYU

oregon oregon st.
Cubs Chisox

HB! My Sparty Twin!

I think you've pretty much nailed the the UofM rivalry ranking. At least from my perspective. OSU definitely #1 without a doubt. And the Notre Dame game is usually a bigger deal than the MSU game. I reckon if MSU was better it would leap-frog Notre Dame. It might happen one day... I wouldn't hold your breath, but it might. ;)

First some notes to Shorty: Sycamore Milford? HUGE!!!! Heh Heh. I wish Moeller would play Sycamore more often they are only about a mile apart, but Moeller's too busy playing a nationally ranked schedule, I guess. Speaking of Milford, I'll be out your way Friday. I'm playing Hickory Woods off of Rt. 28. It should be ugly.

The fake spike vs. the Steelers was Neil O'Donnel, not Blake.

Now onto the topic. Folks are listing some great rivalries and many of them are nationally known. But there are some great rivalries out there that aren't so well known that are are very intense and have some history.

For example in college football, the oldest rivaly west of the Alleghanies is University of Cincinnati-Miami of Ohio. Not many national implications, but it's a heated rivalry for the Victory Bell. It's a pretty cool trophy-a bell painted with the teams colors on either side. You can see it on NCAA 2004 and I'm sure it's on 2005 as well.

I've never seen the game, but DIII Wabash vs. Depauw in Indiana is a long rivalry with over 100 years of history. I remember a nice story about it in SI well over 10 years ago. Living in SW Ohio, I'm within a few hours of that game and I wouldn't mind catching it some day.

My high school alma-mater, Moeller used to have a great rivalry with Princeton HS, which in the 70's and first half of the 80's was the only team in Cincinnati that could beat Moeller. The two of them dominated the state of Ohio during those years and they always played the last game of the year. They used to move the games to Nippert Stadium at the University of Cincinnati or to Riverfront Stadium to accomodate crowds. Both teams are still good but have come down to Earth a bit so the rivalry diminished. Sadly, due to a change in Princeton's conference schedule, there is only one more year scheduled for this game.

The granddaddy of HS rivalries in Ohio and probably the mid west is Massilon-Canton McKinley. Both schools have 20,000 seat stadiums that they fill (McKinley's is at the Hall of Fame) Both teams have been state and national powers, although Massilon, who claims 20 something state titles, has never actually won one on the field in 30 years of playoffs.

Those are some good regional football rivalries. On the national level, I'm an ND fan. ND's rivals are 1. USC and 2. Michigan. There are some smaller rivalries. I think Boston College has become one for a couple reasons-1. their recent success against ND (who hasn't?) and 2. they are the only two Catholic schools playing D1A football. Purdue and Michigan St. are slight rivals based on history and playing every year but I'd not say they are real rivalries. This is not a slight to either team, there is really only so much rivalry energy to go around. They are more like competitive in-conference games.

Stanford is not a rival. Maybe it is seen as one in Northern California, but not at ND. They are another game on the schedule. Not a slight, but you can only really call so many teams "rivals" and USC offers plenty of West Coast rivalry.

While on the topic of USC-ND, I think it speaks greatly of the intensity of the rivaly that two schools so far away from each other can be so closely connected in a bitter but respectful rivalry. With the distance factor, it is certainly a unique rivalry.

On the college basketball front, Cincinnati-Xavier is a great rivalry that is getting national play in recent years, but the rivalry is diminishing a bit as UC becomes less and less competitive in the series. ;)

Whew. Long post. Sorry about that.

I'm not sayin anything....but I know we took care of business when I was a Senior :) Think I had 3 or 4 catches that day. . .

edit: Wanted to add a college rivalry. Ohio University v. Miami(OH) University
not big time, but a good MAC rivalry none the less

DMB's an Ave?

Is, was, yup

Another one I thought of - there's a rivalry between the rest of the Ivy League and Penn. Growing up in the Philadelphia area (actually closer to Princeton) there was always an impression that Penn wasn't really an Ivy League school - that they were a "pretender". As such, they always had great sports teams (football and basketball, anyway). So, the Penn-Princeton rivalry was pretty heated.

I love hearing about the MAC rivalries and Div III as well. We all know about the national ones, but I'm really interested in hearing about the games between the two 4-6 schools that a victory vs. Team X would mean the season was a success, despite a losing record.

Heh. Small world. I spent four of my better years on Montgomery Rd, grew up in Deer Park, though.

It's funny, there's actually a split (although I couldn't quantify the exact percentage) among FSU fans as to which rival is bigger, Miami or UF. I think the majority would consider UF to be the bigger rival (this is usually the Tallahassee lifers who have lived among UF fans for years), but there's a large minority who hate Miami so passionately, that hating UF is a distant second. These folks are usually from South Florida and absolutely hate the place with a passion.

And I have to admit, I think I'm one of them. I've actually rooted for UF on occasion, and while I take pleasure in seeing them lose every now and then, I can't think of a single instance in which I rooted for Miami (unless it would have helped FSU).

That being said, on one level, I prefer to consider UF as our top rival, since we've had pretty good success against them for well over a decade. The same can't be said for Miami, though. But even then, the whole "wide right, wide left, can't keep a lead, couldn't kick a freakin' field goal when it matters if the goal posts were as wide as the stadium" storyline just adds to the intensity of the rivalry.

As for other rivalries, when I lived in College Station, the A&M/UT rivalry was big.

That is a good one, and I listen to enough WLW that I should have thought of it myself.

Ksyrup - I think you might like this, if you haven't seen it before...

Bowden's proposed changes

You will probably have to hover your mouse over the picture and click the little icon that says "Expand to regular size" to be able to read the captions.

Tennessee vs. Alabama is a pretty big rivalry. Not as big as Alabama vs. Auburn, but still pretty big. It has probably diminished in recent years since Alabama is in the SEC West and UT is in the East. As a result, matchups against Georgia and Florida have grown in importance for Tenn.

Tennessee vs. Vanderbilt would be a big rivalry, if Vanderbilt didn't suck.


Georigia Tech vs. Georgia is a big rivalry. A book about the rivalry was titled "Clean old fashioned hate" and pretty well sums up the feelings between the two. Unfortunately, the rivalry ebbs and flows with how good Tech is, since UGA is usually the stronger of the two (blech, that tasted like poison). It is one of the oldest rivalrys since (i believe) the programs started playing each other in the late 1890's/early 1900's.

That's pretty damn funny.

I loved Bobby's quote from the ACC Football Kickoff about Chris Rix:

"If he goes to class and parks his car in the right place, there is no reason he shouldn't have an outstanding year for us."

In North Carolina, it's UNC against everyone else, namely NC State, Duke, and Wake Forest. There is some hate that flows constantly between all the schools, but most venom is reserved for UNC by the other three schools. As Jim Valvano put it, "I never knew that colors could bring such joy or wrath. To this day, I'll never cease to be amazed by it." While USC-UCLA share the same town, NC State, Duke, and UNC share the same metropolitan area, all within about 30 miles of one another (UNC and Duke, obviously are spitting at each other on US 15-501), while Wake's an hour west, but no less a rival for it.

The big thing that sells the rivalry is UNC's success. Without it, there wouldn't be a humongous obnoxious fan base that permeates the state thinking that Dean Smith walks on water and turns up their nose at anything not Carolina. This is especially true of people who buy Carolina clothes and worship at the altar of the ram, but have never spent a minute of their lives in Chapel Hill. They tend to be the most insufferable fans. They've been somewhat scarce during the Doherty years and Bunting has done a good job of driving them all out of Kenan Stadium, but they came back full-force with Roy's hiring. As I understand (as I am living in Michigan now), just about every Carolina fan who could say something about it said they were going to be national title contenders last year, just because Roy was coming home. Not surprisingly, they're saying the same thing this year. I wonder if it'll take Roy as long as it took Dean to win his first title. If so, they aren't due to win one until, what, 2009 or something like that? (I'm digressing, sorry....)

As for the rest of the ACC, Miami-FSU and UVa-VT are now in-conference rivalries, along with Maryland-Virginia, Virginia-UNC (one of the oldest rivalries around), and Maryland-NC State, a rivalry that has developed intensity since Friedgen and Amato became head coaches and the Terps have found ways to win all the contests between the two coaches over the last four years, building up a lot of bad blood in the process. Obviously, non-conference rivalries include FSU-Florida, GT-UGa, and Clemson-South Carolina.

Having lived in Big Ten country for a while now, though I don't really get into any teams up here beyond a sports-related "What was the score?"-type curiosity, I do have to admit there are some great rivalries and the uniqueness of trophy battles that go with many of them. The Old Oaken Bucket of Indiana-Purdue, Paul Bunyan's Axe between Minnesota and Wisconsin, the Tomahawk between Illinois and Northwestern, Floyd of Rosedale to the winner of Iowa-Minnesota, and so forth. It lends a neat bit of history and color that seems to be missing from a lot of other rivalries. I guess being that these are football rivalries first and foremost, an annual trophy makes sense. The ACC, while founded for football reasons, ended up a basketball league where everyone played everyone twice round-robin, so there wasn't a point to such trinkets being passed around so frequently.

In the NFL, I don't think anything beats the NFC East for bitterness (though the AFC West, San Diego aside, is pretty intense), and the NFC North for tradition. AFC East is a good rivalry division. The NFC South is emerging as a good one as well.
Among non-division rivals, I think the big one (from my experience running my tournament on the dynasty thread) is still Dallas-San Francisco. No love lost between them, for sure.

I think the NBA will benefit from its realignment as geographic rivalries become more close-knit. I can see the Central Division, the Texas-New Orleans-Memphis division, and the Pacific Division being very intense.

Bah none of those rivalries compare to Basic H.S. V. Green Valley H.S.

TCU vs SMU :D

TCU vs Baylor had the 3rd longest rivalry in college football at the time but when the SWC folded it went away. It was always "Beat the Baptists!"

A&M vs Rice was always big even though Rice usually got squashed but it was more what The Mob (the Rice band) was going to do to screw with the A&M band.

Texas vs Arkansas was a big one for a long time that they are renewing.

Odessa High vs Odessa Permian, outrageous crowds there for a high school game. Midland Lee is in that mix also.

As a Cowboys fan for life, I would have to say Cowboys/Skins. I want them to win those two games more than any of the others.

Just a little bump, and a copy to the second page, so that when Noop is around he won't miss it. Hopefully you get a laugh out of it Noop.

Oregon-Oregon St.

Oregon-Washington

Fresno St.-San Jose St. This was a good rivalry and i do not know if it has been re-kindled since they are both back in the same conference. If i remember correctly, the last great game between the two was Jeff garcia led San Jose St. v.Trent Dilfer led Fresno St. (although maybe Barsotti was still under center for the bulldogs)

BYU-Utah

Air Force-BYU (at least from the Air force side)

U.C. Davis - Sac. State

I wouldn't call Fresno St. - Hawaii a rivalry; but I hate to see a hawaii road game on the Fresno St. schedule. june Jones has done a terrific job and it is so hard to get out of there with a win. Just ask BYU.

As a Raider fan in a family of 49er fans, i can attest to this rivalry. My family doesn't even acknowledge that I like the Raiders. When I say something good about the Raiders, its like they don't uinderstand the words coming out of my mouth. I think it is good that these two teams don't hook up too often. The hatred among the fans is too mean-spirited and it has the potential to turn into one of those european soccer riots at the drop of a hat. They just rub each other the wrong way.

Giants-Dodgers. No love lost here

I have to agree with the USC - UCLA rivalry as being one of the biggest if not the biggest. In New Orleans, I work with a UCLA alum who refused to talk to me for 2 weeks after she found out I was a USC alum ;)

There were many crazy things that I did with my friends to harass UCLA students around the time of the football game each year. Thinking back on it, it was quite stupid but at the time it was all the rage. Tommy Trojan gets a protective wrap each year (or at least he used to - I haven't been on campus for about 7 years) because of prior abuse by UCLA fans.

The proximity of the two campus allows for a great deal of mischief that is often quite elaborate.

Haha if only we could have those for the games we might actually win one. Ksyrup I am shocked you cheer for the Crocs I would never ever cheer for those mullet wearing crocs.

And the best rival game is Miami and Florida State might not have the history as the others but it is the best period.

While the bragging rights game is fun... it doesn't hold a candle to the Missouri vs. Kansas rivalry.

I always found my hometown rivalry to be amazing (on a smaller scale than Odessa, though):

Graham H.S. (Bluefield, Va) vs Bluefield H.S. (Bluefield W.Va.)
- Two towns separated by a state line with a combined 20,000 in population. We'd pack a 12,000 seat stadium to standing room only levels every year. The rivalry was profiled on ESPN's Scholastic Sports America my senior year. Although I was interviewed and made it on the program, we lost 6-4. Yes...6-4.

scoop-

There are only really three golf courses near where I live that are open to the public, Hickory Woods, Little Miami Par 3, and Eaglenest. By far, Hickory Woods is my favorite to play at. Are you sure it was O'Donnell? I sooo wasn't a fan of him, so I would expect not to remember any good things he did.

Positive it was O'Donnell. I remember specifically because I already hated him at the time for this Super Bowl meltdown, this made me exponentially more enraged at him.

My brother graduated from UF. Plus, before I moved to Florida in 1990, about the only thing I knew of college football was UM/OSU and Texas A&M. And even then, I still hated the Miami program. I barely even aware UF had a football program, nor did I even know FSU used to be in the Metro Conference, until I moved up here in 1993. So I've got less of a negative reaction to UF than most folks, especially when compared to Miami.

I was all about pro sports before I moved to Florida. Still am, mostly. I really know very little college football history prior to 1993.

Hehe. Ksyrup is the brother of a mullet wearing croc. hehehe.

I just wanted to quote this in case you started feeling guilty and decided to edit it out later.

:D

For my fav teams, Va Tech and the Dallas Cowboys, I'd go with UVa and the Redskins as the biggest rivals, respectively.

Being an alum of Tech makes me intelligent enough to look at things rationally. Unlike the rabid fans of Bulldawg nation who follow blindly to the bone.

No editing or guilt on my part. Yet, tremendous glee when Tech wins 3 in a row over the University [sic] of Georgia.

Living in Washington State, there are a few rivalries that strike a chord with me.

College Football:

UW vs WSU is the Apple Cup, but it isn't that big of a rivalry, it is normally a good game, but UW almost always wins, unless they have nothing, and I mean nothing to play for (Save 1997, where a better WSU team walked in, and beat UW at home, and then brought out the roses, FU Ryan Leaf, and I'm glad Karma is a bitch)

UW vs U of Oregon. No game makes me love The U of Washington more. And the funny thing, this wasn't a rivalry until UO made it one, with their continuing showing of Kenny Wheaton's pick in 1994, but I think lately that has been fixed, what with back to back 42-10 ass kickings, and those "great" Oregon fans (Yes, you bastards who showered me and my friends with spit, dogbones, dog food, and insults. All you UO Alumnis, go pump my gas for me, whores) leaving in the 3rd quarter.

Baseball

For some reason, the Mariners and the Yankees have a rivalry up here. In fact, they are referred to as the "hated" Yankees after 1995, when the M's beat them. Never could figure this one out. 2001 was sweet revenge though

Pro Football:

It used to be Hawks-Raiders, but now it is Hawks-Niners. Back in the 80's and 90's, The Kingdome used to rock for any tilt against the Raiders or the "Mr. Ed" (Sorry John Elway) Broncos. But now it is The Niners

Basketball

Does Seattle have a NBA franchise?

Yep, it was O'Donnell. That play sticks out vividly in my mind for some reason. You'd think I would have forgotten the lost decade by now.

I'm looking forward to Hickory Woods tomorrow. It's an outing that my buddy's family puts on all year. This will be our third year playing Hickory Woods and I really enjoy it. The course is always in good shape and the staff there is great. Sadly, it'll probably be the only time I play all year.

Loveland just doesn't have any rivals.


As for the Browns-Bengals or Browns-Ravens I don't think those rivalries compare to the Browns-Steelers. That's the only one that really matters to the Cleveland fans.

Ahhh yes, the 2004 battle for the cellar :D