The three most overrated rivalries in college football

A rivalry can be important and still produce bad television.

Nobody wants to say that because college football fans treat criticism of a famous game like someone spray painted the school mascot. The history is real. The hatred is real. Sometimes the football is not very good.

These three rivalries have received enough help from their reputations.

3. Alabama-Tennessee

The Third Saturday in October sounds important even when the calendar refuses to cooperate and the game lands on a different Saturday.

For years, that name carried more suspense than the game.

Alabama beat Tennessee 15 consecutive times from 2007 through 2021. Several of those games were not close enough to justify leaving the starters on the field.

Tennessee’s 52-49 victory in 2022 gave the rivalry a badly needed jolt. Fans stormed the field, tore down the goal posts and carried one of them out of Neyland Stadium. It was one of the best finishes of the season.

The celebration also showed how desperate Tennessee had become to win once.

Recent meetings have restored some competitiveness, but two entertaining games do not erase a decade and a half of Alabama treating the rivalry like another conference obligation.

Alabama-Tennessee has plenty of history and hatred. For most of the modern era, it has lacked the one ingredient a rivalry needs most: uncertainty.

2. Army-Navy

This where the audience may become unruly.

Army vs. Navy is one of the greatest rivalries, but also overrated for its low scoring affairs.

Army vs Navy has everything college football claims to value. The players are easy to respect. The pregame ceremony is terrific, and watching both teams remain on the field for the alma maters never gets old.

Then they kick off and spend the afternoon combining for 27 points.

The past 10 games have produced an average total of 28.7. They have not all been close, either. The average difference was more than 12 points.

Navy also won 14 consecutive games between 2002 and 2015. Fourteen years is not a rough patch. It is practically a mortgage.

Last season gave us a genuinely good one. Navy won 17-16 after trailing in the fourth quarter. 

The tradition deserves its national stage. The actual game does not always justify four hours without competing football on another channel.

1. Bedlam

The name fooled us.

Anything called Bedlam should be unpredictable. Oklahoma and Oklahoma State should have spent more than a century trading wins, ruining each other’s seasons and making the entire state unbearable for whichever fan base lost.

Instead, Oklahoma built a 91-21-7 advantage.

That is not some narrow historical edge created by games played before helmets had face masks. Oklahoma also won 10 of the final 15 meetings before leaving the Big 12.

Yes, some of the recent games were excellent. Oklahoma State won the last one in 2023. The series produced wild finishes, enormous point totals and a few days Oklahoma fans would rather have erased.

Still, Oklahoma won more than three out of every four meetings. The Sooners once put together a 19-game winning streak. Imagine losing to the same rival every year from first grade until finishing college. Then imagine being told it remained one of the most competitive rivalries in the country.

Bedlam should return because Oklahoma and Oklahoma State belong on the same field. Regional games are one of the best parts of the sport, even when one side owns most of the history.

Just call it what it was. A great name, several memorable games and an awful lot of Oklahoma victories.