(This Photo is from the Birmingham News)

We continue our series on best and worst of college football by tabbing the ten best rivalries. For us, rivalries need to be current, annual - sorry Nebraska-Oklahoma - are defined by the following:

1. Stakes (What are the teams playing for? Championships? Pride? A funny trophy?)
2. Relative Competitiveness
3. Fan Investment

With that, here’s this:

Michigan-Ohio State: Great for hundreds of reasons, we’re often captured by the sheer level of skill talent in each game. Some college football’s premier NFL quarterbacks, running backs and receivers cut their teeth in this game, and victory often turns on some superlative performance. We like that the timing of it never changes either.

Alabama-Auburn: The Iron Bowl’s even better now that it’s transitioned to the campus sites instead being housed at Birmingham’s large, impersonal Legion Field. The Tide, of course, has won far more national titles, but Auburn only trails the series 40-33. A game you hope to see, once, before you rage against the dying of the light.

Army-Navy: The game has diminished in importance - how many high school All-Americans want to sacrifice four years of their lives after college to mandatory military service? - but increased in meaning, especially in times of war. Fathers should pass this game onto their sons.

Oklahoma-Texas: The states are different, the fans are different, and the setting - Dallas’ austere Cotton Bowl, at the height of the Texas State Fair - is a perfect reflection of that. Since 2000, the game has featured two of the nation’s best teams and the best athletes. It hasn’t always been so, but it is now, and you wish Nebraska had an equivalent.

California-Stanford: The modern Harvard-Yale, a game that’s more about celebrating a kind of academic arrogance - nobody argues the excellence of either school - with a not-so-friendly football game. The fan investment is most petty and personal, and since that can adequately describe academia at times, it’s a bit of a throwback reflection of why colleges were created in the first place.

Florida-Georgia: The Bulldogs tortured the Gators for years in this rivalry - until coach Steve Spurrier took over coaching for his alma mater. Since then, the rivalry has been painfully lopsided. He lost a single time to UGA.

Notre Dame-USC: Well, we like it. There’s something about the clash of long-standing cultures that appeals to our sense of gridiron conflict. Every few years, USC-ND engage in a classic, and we’re talking about it for two days, and we’re reminded that the history of the game still manages to overshadow the current pulse of the moment. And that’s a good thing.

Mississippi State vs. Ole Miss: Rarely a game for on-field stakes, The Egg Bowl is another interesting social experiment: Watching two universities, really different as could be, trying to settle cultural differences over three hours on a football field.

BYU vs. Utah: The Holy War is personal and, over the last decade, the stakes have been really high in terms of conference titles and potential BCS berths. These schools have an unusual distaste for one another.

Kansas vs. Missouri: Just think: It could come to an end if Mizzou jumps to the Big Ten. And believe us: Mizzou would do that in a heartbeat. For now, we enjoy the bad blood that predates the 20th Century, much less the 21st Century.

See also:

The 16 Best Mascots
11 BCS Coaches on the Hot Seat
5 Things CFB Can Learn from the NFL
Best Fans/Worst Fans
Best Helmets/Worst Helmets

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