COLLEGE GUIDE

The 12 Top Rivalries

Harvard and Yale officially deny any competition between the two Ivies. Ditto Annapolis and West Point. But Ohio State and Michigan invite students to bring it on. Who's really the best? You decide.

By Jay Mathews | NEWSWEEK
Published Aug 9, 2008
Aug. 18-25, 2008 issue

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  • Posted By: lancemh @ 11/22/2009 11:23:24 PM

    Maybe they should rename the magazine News Weak!

    The earth has turned upside-down. I AGREE with Mizzou79 - and I am a Kansas Jayhawk fan (actually, Mizzou79, half my buddies are Tigers and we love to give one another interminable Chit about one another).

    Hey, Jay Matthews. Maybe if you didn't get an East or West coast college degree (or, more likely, you did not even get a degree given the lack or research into the subject), you would understand the history, depth and intensity of this rivalry between the University of Kansas (Jayhawks) and University of Missouri (Tigers). Google Quantrills' Raiders and read about the attack on Lawrence,Kansas. This is a very famous Civil War skirmish that epitomized the hatred between the North and the South.

  • Posted By: daviddjones1 @ 11/21/2008 8:53:28 PM

    This guy must be from a different planet. Has he not heard of Duke vs UNC.

  • Posted By: daviddjones1 @ 11/21/2008 8:52:13 PM

    This guy must live another planet. Has he never heard of Duke and UNC. DDJ

  • Posted By: senior-chief @ 11/13/2008 2:15:27 PM

    Yankee gator fan, I'm orginally Boston raised. Back in the 50's & 60's, USC vs UCLA, TEXASvs Oklahoma, AUBURN vs Alabama, MICHIGAN vs OHIO ST., HARHVARD vs YALE, a fun game. Actually the band is great. So stop your whining, retired E-8 senior-chief,30 yrs served. But keep writing, you kids are great...... GOOO Gators

  • Posted By: Bluedevil Girl @ 09/26/2008 7:00:32 PM

    Newsflash to Jay Matthews: Your 'top 12' list is a load of poorly researched, ill-considered horses*%#. How can you title something 12 Top Rivalries, and omit Duke and UNC? Did you draw these names out of a toilet bowl with your mouth? Meanwhile, you include half a dozen schools that most of the country has never even heard of? Good god, man, where did you go to school? UNC?

  • Posted By: Mizzou79 @ 09/04/2008 8:17:35 AM

    Rivalry? Try University of Missouri-Columbia vs University of Kansas. The origins of this rivalry are in the pre-Civil War days of "Bleeding Kansas", cross-border raids, quasi-open warfare that pre-dated John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry (now W. VA.) and the firing of shots at Ft. Sumnter, Charleston, SC. MIZZOU-KU battles are the on-going legacy of these real battles. The rest of the rivalries are fun, interesting, but pale in comparision. Having grown up in Missouri and Kansas (graduating in Kansas), being a 3rd generation MIZZOU graduate, and still proudly wearing Old Gold and Black, I annually enjoy this rivalry rich in spirit, tradition and REAL history!

  • Posted By: Mizzou79 @ 09/04/2008 8:17:21 AM

    Rivalry? Try University of Missouri-Columbia vs University of Kansas. The origins of this rivalry are in the pre-Civil War days of "Bleeding Kansas", cross-border raids, quasi-open warfare that pre-dated John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry (now W. VA.) and the firing of shots at Ft. Sumnter, Charleston, SC. MIZZOU-KU battles are the on-going legacy of these real battles. The rest of the rivalries are fun, interesting, but pale in comparision. Having grown up in Missouri and Kansas (graduating in Kansas), being a 3rd generation MIZZOU graduate, and still proudly wearing Old Gold and Black, I annually enjoy this rivalry rich in spirit, tradition and REAL history!

  • Posted By: PeteyM127 @ 09/04/2008 12:44:28 AM

    I am shocked and appalled by the failure to even mention the most storied college rivalry in the country, mostly athletically, but also academically. That is, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University. I am a student at UNC and a fourth-generation legacy from Connecticut. The exclusion of this rivalry leaves me speechless because of the inclusion of so many other ridiculous rivalries. Being from the North i can attest to the fact that many of these Northern rivalries Newsweek mentioned in the "Top 12" are exaggerated in this article and are essentially fabricated to make this article even worth reading. Unfortunately, Matthews has no periscope of the college world outside the Northeast, and it is sad to think that he actually makes money writing books about this world of which he has shown no true knowledge. The UNC-Duke rivalry is easily one of the oldest and strongest in the nation, both athletically and academically, the competition between the oldest public university and the so-called "Ivy of the South." Please, next time, or maybe for your next book, do some research Matthews and stop making up rivalries that don't exist while exaggerated ones that are friendly. Thanks.

  • Posted By: weloomis @ 09/02/2008 2:26:21 PM

    Everyones comments I've read make good points. It seems to me the writers point was "oldest rivalries". I was the only Indiana graduate among Purdue Engineers in my family, It was easy to stop any remarks from my Purdue relatives, "Can you say 5 NCAA Championships? " any Thanksgiving conversation changed immediatly too how good the food was!!!

  • Posted By: weloomis @ 09/02/2008 2:25:47 PM

    Everyones comments I've read make good points. It seems to me the writers point was "oldest rivalries". I was the only Indiana graduate among Purdue Engineers in my family, It was easy to stop any remarks from my Purdue relatives, "Can you say 5 NCAA Championships? " any Thanksgiving conversation changed immediatly too how good the food was!!!

  • Posted By: revbo @ 08/28/2008 2:07:16 PM

    All this seems to be is a list of Northern Rivalries. Take out Howard v. Morehouse & Spellman, and what do you have? Another Northern "elitest" article that all but totally negates anything southern. One more reason to NOT subscribe to Newsweek! Damn Yankees!!! ;-)

  • Posted By: -=PDM=- @ 08/21/2008 11:22:41 AM

    Ever heard of Alabama vs Auburn? Go to one of those games and tell me it's not the biggest rivalry in the country.

    • Posted By: c'osh @ 08/22/2008 12:29:07 PM

      The ACC's isn't the biggest - Michigan vs Ohio State IS - the schools are bigger and more often than not it's a championship game on the line to boot.

  • Posted By: gazpacho @ 08/13/2008 1:00:11 PM

    What a regionally slanted article. Are you nuts? You totally neglected the South and Southwest where many of the fiercest deepest rivalries exist. Are you telling me Purdue and Indiana is more exciting and deep as Alabama-Auburn, Florida-Georgia, FSU-Miami, Clemson-South Carolina, Texas-Texas A&M or UNC-Duke. This article sucked.

    • Posted By: cajademierda @ 08/20/2008 5:37:18 PM

      Though I'm a Purdue grad I have to agree with you. They could've picked Texas/A&M here or a lot of other intrastate rivalries. For that matter they could've replaced Michigan/OSU with a dozen other football rivalries. I think the point of the article was to get into academics and to some extent similar applicants. Maybe Purdue and Indiana have the most common applicants. OSU and UM sure don't as they're both public schools in different states. But that's why they picked NYU/USC (film), Caltech/MIT (technology) because they're the best at what they do and most people that go to one probably applied to the other. If it was purely a sports rivalry column, you'd think they'd factor in recent performance of the teams.

  • Posted By: cultusdeus @ 08/14/2008 9:36:57 PM

    Not one word about UT Austin vs. Texas A&M or UT vs.OU. Did this brainless turd think at all? Why are morons like this allowed to write for public consumption. I feel I should be paid for the wasted time to just this joke of an article.

    • Posted By: cajademierda @ 08/20/2008 5:25:26 PM

      I think the point of the article was more academic rivalries than sports ones. They did mention UM/OSU though, and IU/Purdue who have few majors in common and thus don't really compete academically. So I guess it was a little bit of both, but there's tons of intrastate and sports rivalries that could have been mentioned.

  • Posted By: GCW50 @ 08/19/2008 8:43:12 AM

    How did you miss Lehigh-Lafayette, the most played college football rivalry in the nation, and in fact, simply referred to as "The Rivalry".? They've played each other 142 times, missing only one year since 1884, before most of the colleges mentioned where even founded!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    • Posted By: cajademierda @ 08/20/2008 5:20:59 PM

      "missing only one year since 1884, before most of the colleges mentioned where even founded!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

      That's a long time for a rivalry, but most of the schools in this article were around before 1884.

  • Posted By: tdanielreynolds @ 08/20/2008 4:15:54 PM

    GCW50 is right! Lafayette v. Lehigh is filled with as much hate as you can get.
    BTW, to all those Lehigh fans out their, thanks for losing four years in a row. It made my college experiance all the better never seeing us lose to you. O, and charging YOUR field this year chanting "This Is our House"

    • Posted By: tdanielreynolds @ 08/20/2008 4:18:46 PM

      btw, yes Lehigh fans....i noticed i said their instead of there...so Lafayette wins....and proofreads...all be it a little to late.

  • Posted By: GCW50 @ 08/19/2008 8:40:32 AM

    How did you miss Lehigh-Lafayette, America's most played college football rivalry, and in fact simply referred to as "The Rivalry" ? They've only played each other 142 times and only missed one year since 1884, before most of the schools that you've listed even existed!!!

  • Posted By: Truman Angell @ 08/18/2008 4:23:28 PM

    What about the Holy War? Utah vs BYU - One of the most heated rivalries in the nation!

  • Posted By: Truman Angell @ 08/18/2008 4:22:22 PM

    What about the Holy War? Utah vs BYU - One of the most heated rivalries in the nation!

  • Posted By: hrob27 @ 08/15/2008 10:11:15 PM

    No mention in this article of the greatest of all college sports battles: the Battle of Los Angeles. If anybody from Newsweek had actually bothered to ask anybody out West, they would know that the most bitter rivals are UCLA and USC. GO BRUINS!!!!

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