The Science Behind a Rivalry

Tomorrow at "high noon" - as all the ESPN pundits have been saying this week - there will be a top-5 showdown in Dallas, the result of which has the potential to loom large in the BCS "National Championship" picture (however, without a true playoff system the FBS championship requires quotation marks). Hopefully this game will have a better outcome than the last time ESPN and ABC hyped up a #1 vs. #5 contest, in which USC took Ohio State to the woodshed and revealed not only OSU's true colors but those of the entire Big Ten conference (if only "weak" was a color).

But this game between #5 Texas and #1 Oklahoma already has a leg up on the then-#5 Ohio State v. then-#1 USC game, and it's the fact that these two teams are bitter, heated rivals. College rivalry games are always must-see, but when the stakes are as high as they are in tomorrows game then usually the result is something special; something that has the potential to elicit memories that will live on for many seasons to come.

College football rivalry games are some of the most special events in all of sports. Unique from most other professional and college sports, college football rivalries happen but once a year. Meaning that for an entire year all of the spoils belong to the victor, and no matter what the teams records are at the end of the season, the winning team can always claim their superiority over their rival because in a head-to-head match up, they came out on top. There is a different aura that surrounds the rivalries in college football, and it is that which makes them not only special, but the best rivalries in all of sports.

But what makes college football rivalries so unique and special? Surely there are the intense yearly contests between the likes of Yankees/Red Sox, Cowboys/Redskins, Lakers/Celtics, Red Wings/Avalanche, and so on, and so on. But these games can't live up to the intensity that surrounds the Michigan/Ohio State, Auburn/Alabama, Oregon/Oregon State, Texas/Oklahoma, Army/Navy, or any other game in the plethora of rivalries in college football. The reason behind this? It's not exactly concrete, but I have a theory that might explain some of what goes into a college football rivalry game that makes them so much more special than any other rivalry in any other sport.

For one thing, the amateurism that goes into college sports greatly contributes to what makes these games so special. In professional sports, the athletes are not as much into the games as they are into their contracts. Too many times fans have seen their favorite players switch allegiances at season's end only to end up on the roster of their most hated rival. And while fans might be intense, the players are less likely to buy into the fervent hatred that fans have for the opposing team. In college football, however, rivalries are sold to the players starting in the recruiting stage. If they don't buy into it the minute they reach campus, they will the moment they walk onto the field and feel the mass of people both rooting against them so ardently. The minute a player commits to one school, fans of that school's rival immediately hate him and will spew some of the most foul and obscene comments about them for the rest of their lives. Without pay getting in the way and making the rivalries hazy like in professional sports, college players don't need any extra incentive to go out and kick the ass of their rival school.

Perhaps the biggest reason why college football rivalry games are much more intense than any in professional sports is because colleges represent more of a territorial connection that professional sports do. While pro sports teams represent teams and states the same way colleges and universities do, the players on a college football team most resemble the surrounding area then a professional team would. Pro teams have a mixed bag of players from all over the country and, as stated above, are their mainly because of financial reasons then anything else. For the most part college football programs recruit their players from that state and the surrounding area, so the battles between two schools not only represent a battle between the two institutions but the regions of the state and country as well. It's why when Michigan and Ohio State play it's a contest not just between those two schools, but those two states. At the same time, if the Detroit Lions beat the Cleveland Browns or Cincinnati Bengals, it does not elicit the same type of response. No rivalry in professional sports can live up to the kind of hype that surrounds a college football game.

The Texas/Oklahoma game would have been a great game no matter the rankings coming in, and so goes for the rest of the impending college rivalry games in store for this season. Because of all the ingredients that go into these games, the recipe always calls for bubbling emotions that usually end up in scathing burns and fantastic explosions.

It's like a science experiment gone terribly right.