Rivalry Thread

[CarltonBanks]

I don't think a rivalry between neighboring states can reach the animosity level of an in-state blood feud. Having to live and work beside the enemy angries up the blood. And I say that as a Bama fan more emotionally invested in beating UT than winning the Iron Bowl.

Not necessarily. The Kansas-Missouri rivalry has everything to do with being neighboring states and the history that goes along with it. KU/K-State never has and never will have the same intensity because it's just about sports. It's more like a sibling rivalry, but KU-Mizzou is pure hatred that stems for actual warring.

And you have plenty of KU and Mizzou people living and working beside each other in Kansas City.

Jake speaks the truth on this. The intensity is always there for football, but I doubt it'll rise to the 2007-08 levels again in my lifetime.... especially 2007.

In basketball, the vitriol is always there, and always will be.

The vitriol is there, but when one team always beats the **** out of the other, is it really a rivalry?

Ask Steelers fans if they have a rivalry with the Browns. While Steelers-Ravens has meant more over the last few years, Browns-Steelers will always be the biggest rivalry for both teams.

 

[joe_schmoe]

I'd pick Grambling vs. Southern too. Gotta love a rivalry where no one gives a crap about the winner of the game, but instead get into big wars over the bands. That's good stuff.

On a national level OU vs. Texas is bigger than Texas vs. A&M, but....
--for people who grew up in Texas, it's one of those where you pretty much pick a side early on in life you're an Aggie or a Longhorn (then the majority of us get to college age and become neither but still have a preference)
--in state, almost everyone in Texas has a mutual disrespect for Oklahoma, the schools, the state, the people (though over the last 10 years or so, we've made the Indian nations rich by flooding the border casinos. Southern Oklahoma is now home to the world's third largest casino).
---outside of football, Texas vs. Oklahoma is useless, except maybe in softball. Every other sport it's pretty much Texas vs. Texas.

All that being said, I don't know I'd put any Texas rivalry ahead of Bama/Auburn or Ohio State/Michigan.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

They had a biggest rivalry poll on ESPN.com.

Alabama-Auburn was the runaway winner.
Michigan-Ohio State was a very clear second.

Third was Pitt-WVU, slightly ahead of Texas-OU. I must admit, that one stunned me...

 

[Armchair_QB]

They had a biggest rivalry poll on ESPN.com.

Alabama-Auburn was the runaway winner.
Michigan-Ohio State was a very clear second.

Third was Pitt-WVU, slightly ahead of Texas-OU. I must admit, that one stunned me...

I'm surprised there are enough people in West Virginia with access to computers to cast enough votes. Must have been all Pitt fans.

 

[User 11148]

No doubt about it, Auburn-Alabama is intense. It might not be as intense as its partisans make it out to be, though. I recall in Bill Curry's first year at Alabama lots of the local media types scoffing at how "unprepared" he was for the intensity of that game. Sheesh, I thought, this guy was a starting center for Vince Lombardi in Green Bay. He started in three Super Bowls (OK, this was before they got so big, but still ...). Maybe he never walked the sideline of an Iron Bowl, but I'd wager he's been around intense before.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

By "intense" those commentators did not mean the intensity level of the competition itself. They mean all the pissing and moaning they planned to do about whichever coach lost the game.

 

[dixiehack]

At 0-3, Bill Curry wasn't ready.