It's Rivalry Week(s)!
By Bruce Marshall
There really isn't another sport that's defined so well by its rivalries as is college football. True, college hoops has its share, and the NFL schedule matches many bitter, long-time antagonists. Major League Baseball, too. And the NBA. And the NHL. What makes college football unique, however, is that unlike the other sports, these gridiron blood rivals get only one crack at each other during the campaign.
Times have changed a bit, however, and the old pre-Thanksgiving "Rivalry Week" is not quite the climax of the campaign anymore. Indeed, the Pac-10, which used to annually play four of its five "rivalry" games this week (Arizona-Arizona State traditionally played a week later), has only one such matchup this season (Cal-Stanford). Expanded conferences, league championship contests, and TV-dictated switches have pushed some of those traditional matchups until after Thanksgiving, and in some cases into early December. And this year, the regular season will be ending December 12, when Army and Navy renew their hostilities. That will be the latest-ever conclusion to a college campaign.
Nowadays, let's just call it "Rivalry Weeks" instead.
Rivalries are always a big deal for the schools involved, but even the significance of the best of them doesn't always endure beyond their locales and into an entire region; fewer still maintain relevance for an extended period on a national scale. Still, there are a handful of "special" rivalries that have been bubbling under the surface lately, and have the potential to become nationally significant once again. Following are some of our favorites with colorful and important pasts that we hope become nationally significant again, and soon.
Southern Cal-UCLA...The best intra-city rivalry in college football has lost a lot of glamour from its heydays in the early '50s, again in the late '60s and throughout most of the '70s and early '80s. Most longtime West Coast observers believe the real boiling point of the series came between 1965 to 1969, when USC's John McKay and UCLA's Tommy Prothro turned the Battle for L.A. into a fascinating chess match, mostly pitting the Trojans' brawn against the Bruins' guile. Highlights from those "golden years" include UCLA's dramatic late comeback in 1965, with a pair of TDs in the last four minutes, including a game-winning 52-yard TD bomb from Gary Beban to Kurt Altenberg, to pull out an unlikely 20-16 win and send Prothro's first Bruin team to the Rose Bowl, where it upset top-ranked Michigan State. There were even more implications in 1967, with not only the Rose Bowl, but also a number one ranking on the line as well as a Heisman battle between top candidates Beban (the eventual winner) and O.J. Simpson, the latter ending up deciding a back-and-forth affair with a 64-yard, 4th-Q TD jaunt to give Troy a 21-20 win. The most dramatic of all, however, might have been a 1969 battle of unbeatens, a fierce defensive war not settled until SC's Jimmy Jones lofted a 32-yard rainbow TD pass to Sam Dickerson in the corner of the Coliseum end zone with 1:32 to play for a 14-12 win and Rose Bowl bid. It was said that Prothro never had the same appetite for the college game after that defeat; he resigned to take the L.A. Rams job after the following 1970 season.
Auburn-Alabama...The Iron Bowl has stopped the state and entire SEC region many times in the past. But there were a couple of truly memorable encounters in the early '70s, including 1971, when both entered the game unbeaten after accepting bids to bowls (Bama the Orange to face Nebraska, Auburn the Sugar to face Oklahoma) that hoped to feature national title showdowns. The "bowl winner" that year was the Orange after the Tide whipped the Tigers and Heisman winner Pat Sullivan, 31-7, to set up another battle of unbeatens vs. Nebraska, which had played "Game of the Century 1971-A" on Thanksgiving vs. the Sooners. "Game of the Century 1971-B" in the Orange Bowl was hardly as dramatic, with the Huskers routing the Tide 38-6. But Shug Jordan's Auburn got its revenge on Bear Bryant's Bama the next year, wrecking a Tide unbeaten season in bizarre fashion when blocking a pair of punts and returning both for TDs in the final 5:30 of action for an unbelievable 17-16 win at Birmingham's Legion Field.
Michigan-Ohio State...We alluded to OSU-Michigan 1969 a week ago when referencing the historical consequences of the Wolverines' 24-12 win. But that was hardly the only OSU-UM "Titanic" over a stretch between 1968-80 that defined Big Ten supremacy and often had serious national implications as well. Things became even more intense starting in 1972 when the Big Ten lifted its outdated "no repeat" rule for the Rose Bowl. For nine straight seasons, OSU-Michigan would decide the Pasadena bid, although the fury and intensity of the three games between 1972-74 would be hard to top. All were violent defensive wars, each coming down to the final moments, with Woody Hayes' Buckeyes managing a pair of narrow wins (14-11 in '72 & 12-10 '74) and a tie (10-10 in '73) and advancing to the Rose Bowl each year (including via a very controversial conference vote after the '73 game) at the expense of Bo Schembechler's Wolverines, who missed the postseason each of those campaigns despite an overall 30-2-1 mark (the few blemishes courtesy of OSU). After the '74 collision, the Big Ten finally decided to allow its non-champs to participate in bowls...too late, however, for some of Schembechler's best-ever teams to go "bowling."
Many other traditional season-ending blood feuds are on deck; following are some of those worth noting over the next few weeks.
Games of November 21: Ohio State at Michigan...Buckeyes 5-0 SU, 4-1 vs. line last 5 meetings; Minnesota at Iowa...Hawkeyes have covered 8 of last 10 and 13 of last 16 for Floyd of Rosedale; Purdue at Indiana...Home team 9-2 vs. line last 11; Vanderbilt at Tennessee...Road team has covered last 4; UL-Monroe at UL-Lafayette...Road team has covered last 6. Games of November 27-28: Wyoming at Colorado State...Home team has covered 5 of last 6; Alabama at Auburn...Favorite has covered last 4; Nevada at Boise State...Broncos have won last 10 SU, covering 9; Virginia Tech at Virginia...Hokies have covered 4 of last 5; Clemson at South Carolina...Tigers have covered 6 of last 8 Palmetto State showdowns; Tennessee at Kentucky...UK hasn't won the Barrel since 1984!; Ole Miss at Mississippi State...Rebs 7-2-1 vs. line last 10 Egg Bowls; Oklahoma State at Oklahoma...OU has won last 6, covering last 4, and 5 of 6 in Bedlam; Florida State at Florida...Chalk 9-2 last 11 battles; Georgia at Georgia Tech...Road team 5-0-1 last 6, 9-1-1 last 11 vs. line; Utah at BYU...Underdog has covered 9 of last 12 for Beehive Boot; Rice at Houston...Owls have won last 3, all as dog, and have covered 4 of last 5 meetings; Washington State at Washington...Dog team has covered last 8 Apple Cups; Arizona at Arizona State...Road team and dog 13-4 last 17 Territorial Cups; UCLA at Southern Cal...Bruins have covered last 3, and 4 of last 5, all as substantial dog; Games of December 5 & 12: FAU at FIU (12/5)...Owls have won and covered last 3; Army vs. Navy (12/12)...Mids 7-0 SU, 6-1 vs. line since '02 vs. Black Knights.