The Results of the Top College Football Rivalry Poll

A few weeks ago I wrote an article that I had hoped would give me some insight on what the biggest college football rivalry is. This idea had originally come to me because I am currently deployed to Iraq and am surrounded by thousands of people from all over the US. Some of the biggest conversations here as of late have been about football.

Now of course I too am a football fan, but overall I am a sports fan and I have always admired the big games. The Yankees-Redsox games are huge, but college football rivalries are only played once a year.

One of the lessons I learned from creating such an article is to have more choices. For instance, when I first created this article I only had 14 rivalries on the list and a 15th selection for other. I had a feeling that the last choice, other, would be a popular one but I had no idea.

Cal-Stanford seemed to draw the most attention of the others. Fans of that game were down right nasty about this game not being on the list. The other game that drew a lot of attention was Texas-Texas A&M. Texas A&M fans seemed way more upset about this than Texas fans, since Oklahoma-Texas had made the list.

As I began to count the votes, it occurred to me that I could not in good conscience count all of the votes. This is because some of the comments would say something like this. “No Cal-Stanford? This list sucks.” There are two problems with that comment, one being that the voter never implies that Cal-Stanford is the best game, he just implies that it should have been on the list. The second is that he was crude about it, which of course there is no need. His comment would have been better received if he hadn’t of worded it in an attempt to insult the author. Therefore, the vote did not count.

I did this with several of the comments but did grant every single BYU-Utah vote because they were not like the Cal-Stanford voters. The ones that voted for BYU-Utah either just stated that was their game or gave good reason why it should be the top rivalry. Therefore, I counted all of their votes.

As it turned out, Cal-Stanford lost out on at least 8-10 votes. Texas-Texas A&M lost out on about 6-7 votes as well. Oklahoma-Texas, Michigan-Notre Dame and Harvard-Yale are more examples of games that lost out on votes due to derogatory or unclear comments. I will say again, I could not in good conscience post a vote that was not given clearly or was tainted by cruel and ridiculous verbiage.

Another lesson learned is to not only provide more options for a poll that is so big, but also give more information on each choice, that way the voter could base the choice off of facts rather than just being a fan.

Nonetheless, it was a success. So here are the Top Five College Football Rivalries based on the comments I received.

1. Ohio State-Michigan

This Rivalry was a heavy favorite going into this article, but I had no idea it would come out so far ahead. This game received 10 more votes than the second place game did and it also received a second place vote and a third place as well.

2. Texas-Oklahoma

This one barely squeaked in at number seven. I know that these two teams have a very big fan base, which probably helped them out in this one. It is one hell of a rivalry though and proved by the number of votes that it deserved to be on this list.

3. Alabama-Auburn

The Iron Bowl showed how big it is by gaining the third most votes on the poll. I will say this though, not one of the Alabama-Auburn voters complained or dogged on the author, which made them a favorite of mine.

4. Cal-Stanford

This rivalry drew the most controversy of all the rivalries. I quickly learned by the voters comments that I should have put this game on the list. One thing that seemed odd though was most of the voters referred to The Play, which is actually one of the worst officiating mistakes in college football history. In that play, there was a forward lateral pass, which is illegal. Still it is one of the most talked about plays in history.

5. South Carolina-Clemson

I knew this was a fierce rivalry but I had my doubts that it would do any good in this pole. But the SC-Clemson game got plenty and made it to number five. There may not be another rivalry with so much violent history, as there have been many a brawls in the last century.

6. Army-Navy

This game has more heart and soul to it than any other. However, as far as a fan base and the teams being competitive on a national level, this game doesn’t quite match up with the ones above. Still, you cannot deny that a football game that features future veterans and Americas finest as just another football game.

7. Harvard-Yale

I was originally going to put this game on the list but decided not to because I thought it wouldn’t merit very much attention. Well I was wrong, this game almost beat out Army-Navy and it is the oldest rivalry in college football. My bad.

8. Florida-Florida State

I had originally named the Florida-Georgia rivalry (which received only one vote) and the Florida State-Miami rivalry (Which received none) but this game seemed to matter the most between the two schools. So to all the football fans of the state of Florida, I will admit I had no idea that this rivalry was the biggest in the state.

9. Texas-Texas A&M

This rivalry was one of the biggest ones I missed. I had many upset voters (Almost all of them were A&M fans) that were willing to let me know just how wrong I was. If only they hadn’t been so crude in their comments, this one would have probably been number 6, which would have been a huge surprise.

10. 5 Tied at Number 10

Utah-BYU

This game is called the Holy War and if you aren’t from Utah I can only suspect that this game means absolutely nothing to you. But in the State of Utah, this is the Ohio State-Michigan of games.

Washington-Washington State

This game is about the same as the Utah-BYU game except there is no separation of church and state aspect to it. Still, both of these teams have a good history in the sport and this is definitely a tough rivalry.

Oklahoma-Nebraska

Another game which I should have added to the list but I didn’t because they only meet twice out of every four years now. There is no doubt that during the 80’s this game meant a lot in the championship picture and there were some very great games. How could we football fans forget?

USC-UCLA

These two teams are from the same city and have a rich history, but the Cal-Stanford game seems to be the California favorite.

Iowa-Iowa State

They are from different conferences but still meet annually and over the last ten years have had some really good games. Due to the recent success of both Universities, this game is becoming more and more popular in Iowa.

There were of course other rivalry games that grabbed votes but I’m sorry to say that I am not going to list them all. One thing I cannot help but think though, over the next ten years this list may change some. As some programs rise, others are falling and with it seems to go the old rivalries.

One example of this is the Georgia-Auburn game. This is the oldest rivalry in the south, there is so much history there and the teams have almost the same amount of wins in this series yet there was not one vote for this game. Very odd to me, but then again I’m not from the south.