Over at the venerable publication The Athletic last week, B1G beat writer and Iowa insider Scott Dochterman ranked the top 100 CFB rivalries. The metric appears to take into account the frequency of games played, importance of each rivalry to the CFB landscape, the intensity of the hatred, and the quality of the games. It's a fun list, especially in a very dreary July!
But working through 100 different rivalries is a lot to parse and argue about. And even when I just included rivalries with at least one B1G team, it was still pretty excessive for this here humble blog to discuss. Also, like 4 of the rivalries are Notre Dame against XX. We all hate Notre Dame. Carry on, wash rinse repeat, etc.
So I took Dochterman's top 100 and selected for dual B1G teams only. Much more manageable! Let's dive in.
- Michigan-Ohio State
- Ohio State-Penn State
- Minnesota-Wisconsin
- USC-UCLA
- Michigan-Michigan State
- Washington-Oregon
- Iowa-Wisconsin
- Iowa-Minnesota
- Iowa-Nebraska
- Michigan-Penn State
- Indiana-Purdue
- Michigan-Minnesota
- Michigan State-Penn State
- Penn State-Iowa
- Illinois-Northwestern
- Ohio State-Illinois
My immediate take is that Ohio State-Penn State is far too high. The second-best rivalry in the entire conference? No. Perhaps this is the bias that comes from marrying into Buckeye fandom, but OSU fans just don't think about Penn State in that way. It's not your fault, Nits.
And relatedly, I don't know what the hell the Ohio State-Illinois game is doing on this list. My goddamn WiFi router is called Illibuckeyes and I still wouldn't rate that game in the top 150 college rivalries.
Michigan and Penn State have played 27 times total and had never played until Penn State joined the conference in the 1990s. That one's definitely too highly ranked, while Indiana-Purdue is probably too low. And no Purdue Cannon with Illinois-Purdue at all. Really?!
Readers, what say you?
