Xavier/UC: Nation's 21st Best Rivalry

[Drew's Crew]

That list is terrible. How many times have Tennessee and Memphis actually played? And UCLA/USC? That's been a "rivalry" for about a year! Really, that's a bad list.

That's what I was thinking! UCLA/USC, Memphis/Tenn??? This list ia such a freaking joke. One rivalry they have that should be ranked way higher is MD/Duke.

Trust me, from being at those games multiple times, it is NASTY. It is way more than the 17th most heated rivalry.

[xubrew]

These matchups are ranked by not only historical terms but the "hotness" of the rivalry and the level of competitiveness

with that in mind, i think the list is pretty good. the thing about rivalries is that fans are so absorbed in their own that they don't pay any attention or give any thought to other rivalries. if you experienced some of the others you'd see that they actually are pretty big. the crosstown shootout doesn't mean much outside of cincinnati. many folks who have never experienced it would say the same thing about our rivalry that we're saying about there's.

byu vs utah isn't even on the list, yet those fans will swear up and down that their rivalry is the most bitter.

gonzaga vs washington is bitter. that's not on the list either. granted the two don't play anymore, but that's because washington opted to quit. that's evidence as to how much the two administrations don't like each other. gonzaga fans would swear up and down that the game with washington was the most bitter and look at you like you were crazy if you tried to suggest the shootout was anywhere close to it.

that's one of the things that i've always found interesting about rivalries. they're so heated for the teams that are involved, but for the fans that aren't they don't really care all that much. in many cases they don't even notice. as for the fans of a certain rivarly, they don't notice that no one else notices. if i were to ask everyone on this board to name a bitter rivalry, iowa vs iowa state probably wouldn't even come up. if you ask that question in iowa, though, that's all anyone would say and if you tried to argue that it wasn't big they'd think you didn't know what you were talking about. i guarantee you a lot of people looking at that list are saying "what's so big about xavier vs cincinnati??"

[xubrew]

That list is terrible. How many times have Tennessee and Memphis actually played? And UCLA/USC? That's been a "rivalry" for about a year! Really, that's a bad list.

it's funny that you say this. in the early to mid 1990s, which is the time most people remember the shootout as being the most intense, neither xavier nor cincinnati had been all that good for that long. someone from the 1990s who was reading a similiar list would have said the exact same thing about the shootout that you're saying about tennessee vs memphis or ucla vs usc.

[BBC 08]

Everyone knows that the real rivalry in the nation is the St. X Trinity rivalry down in Louisville.