What should college football’s rivalry weekend look like?

In a time of change, college football has never needed to lean more into its roots — when it can — than on rivalry weekend. As conferences change membership and familiarity diminishes, it is important for the sport to maintain tradition. Improving the rivalry weekend is the best way to do that.

Many of the sport’s Thanksgiving weekend streaks surpass 100 games played, and several debuted in the 1890s. History and proximity play a role in series that pit family members, friends and neighborhoods against each other. Sometimes relief usurps happiness like the immediate feeling after a win.

Rivalry weekend is about teams gaining conference title berths – or losing them. Traveling trophies provide programs with symbols of victory or exclamation marks of heartbreak. Wins help programs toward bowl eligibility while losses cost them recruits. Coaches earn extensions or pink ribbons based on results. Gamers gain lifelong adoration for game-changing gameplay.

For the rivalry weekend to matter, everyone needs the right kind of enemy. For many leagues, these plays are in place and immovable. Others, especially those in the midst of transition, need adjustments or date changes. A few require smoothed over hard feelings. The conferences must work together for the good of the sport.

Starting with league games, let’s take a look at how big college football should place rivalry weekend. Games already scheduled for Rivalry Weekend 2024 are in bold.

Big Ten

The first four are historic rivalries that form the backbone of Big Ten football. The only time Michigan and Ohio State fans ever united in a common cause was in 2010 when the Big Ten briefly considered bumping “The Game” off the final weekend. As for the bottom four, Nebraska–Iowa have built equity on Black Friday amid fans’ growing disdain for each other. Maryland-Rutgers has little history other than entering the league together, but their closeness makes the series worth returning to on rivalry weekend.

Penn State thinks it’s unbeatable but you can’t have a rivalry weekend without a dedicated game. In the pre-Legends and Leaders era, the Nittany Lions finished their season against Michigan State. The teams were regularly paired on Thanksgiving weekend as East Division rivals as well. Although neither program classifies 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. Previously, UCLA would face either Cal or Stanford opposite 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.

SEC

Losing Texas-Texas A&M was arguably the biggest casualty of the 2012 realignment, so it’s great to have the rivals back on the field where they belong. It must remain so permanently. The Iron Bowl and the Egg Bowl are sacred. Tennessee finished SEC play against Vanderbilt from 1946-2000 and then the in-state foes returned to the rivalry weekend as an annual fixture in 2014.

Arkansas–LSU feels a little like Michigan State–Penn State. They had some great matches against each other, especially on Black Friday, but there are mixed reviews as to whether the Golden Boot is a primary or secondary series.

Big 12

Keeping the Territorial Cup (Arizona-Arizona State) and returning The Holy War (Utah-BYU) to the rivalry weekend is important. Farmageddon (Iowa State-Kansas State) has become one of the league’s best rivalries, and the universities have played annually since 1917. They are scheduled to cycle off their schedules in 2027, which would be a shame.

The Texas schools have checkered municipal histories that coincide with their entrances into the old Southwest Conference. That makes the rivalry weekend problematic. Baylor-TCU qualifies as probably the state’s second-best college football rivalry (outside of Texas-Texas A&M) but TCU-SMU is also a longtime Metroplex clash. Although Texas Tech was a later SWC entry (1956), the Red Raiders and Baylor have played 82 times. They entered the Big 12 together, so it’s a cherished streak.

acc

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 keeps the Cavaliers and Tar Heels from moving here, but the other two are a coin flip. NC State-Wake Forest (117 meetings) and Duke-Wake Forest (103) also have history befitting the rivalry weekend, so any of the four North Carolina schools is fine here.

Syracuse and Boston College are longtime regional foes despite only 57 games played. It’s wild to write Stanford-Cal as an ACC series but here we are. Currently, Stanford alternates with USC as Notre Dame’s annual trip to the West Coast on Thanksgiving weekend. That would end on Thanksgiving weekend because Cal can’t sync with UCLA every other year. It is a consequence of the changeover.

Automatic non-conference

• South Carolina-Clemson
• Kentucky-Louisville
• state of Florida-Florida
• Georgia-Georgia Tech
• Washington – Washington State
• Oregon-Oregon State
• Colorado – State of Colorado
• Notre Dame Army/Navy

The first four rank among the better non-conference rivalries across the board and have no business leaving Thanksgiving weekend. The Apple Cup (Washington-Washington State) and the Civil War (Oregon-Oregon State) thankfully remain annual rivalries despite realignment, but those games will seem out of place come September. This year, Washington-Oregon and Oregon State-Washington State are playing on Thanksgiving weekend — which is … good — but the Apple Cup and the Civil War were scheduled conference finals all but once from 1947-2023. That’s the right move.

Notre Dame currently plays at either USC or Stanford on Thanksgiving weekend. With the changeover, that tradition becomes a problem. But the Fighting Irish’s legendary series against the service academies would fit right in on rivalry weekend every year. Colorado previously finished its regular season against Nebraska in its original Big 12 days and Utah in the Pac-12. The Buffaloes still play Colorado State so a change from September to late November makes sense.

Challenging rivalries

These are the problem areas of the rivalry weekend. The Backyard Brawl (West Virginia-Pittsburgh) has been revived in recent years with six more games scheduled for 2032. Returning to the Thanksgiving weekend adds to its significance.

TCU and SMU are set for a break after the 103rd meeting of the season. Outside of SMU’s two-year program suspension in 1987-88, the programs scheduled each other every year except one (2006) from 1926 through the fall. Since the Southwest Conference broke up, they have been at different levels of competition with TCU soaring in terms of brand name and success on the field. At least now with SMU as an ACC member, they are both power conference teams.

Missouri–Kansas remains one of college sports’ most bitter feuds more than a decade after the Tigers cracked the Big 12 for the SEC. Unless one has lived through the build-up 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. Bedlam is the biggest collateral damage of the latest realignment, and there are hard feelings attached to the Sooners leaving for the SEC. But restoring this series takes the sting out of the recent reshuffle.

Houston and Rice have bounced around to different conferences since the SWC disbanded in 1996 but have played 20 times in the last 25 years. They are 4.6 miles apart and play for the Bayou Bucket. Cincinnati and Miami (Ohio) began their Victory Bell streak in 1888 and have played 127 times.

Finally, UCF and Miami are the rest. They reside in the same state in comparable conferences. Obviously, Miami’s history dwarfs UCF’s steady climb to the Big 12. But in the College Football Playoff era, UCF has more wins (80) than Miami (73). The teams have only played twice, but there are more similarities competitively than differences.

(Top image: Bryan Terry / USA Today)