Maybe it’s best to start this celebration of Rivalry Week, and what we’re thankful for as a college football community, with a rare moment that will never, ever, be duplicated.
The Choke at Doak.
We’re 30 years this week from that magical day in Tallahassee, when Florida State came back from a 31-3 deficit in the fourth quarter to tie Florida 31-31. A year later, the NCAA instituted overtime play.
And 30 years later, there’s not a sane person on the planet who doesn’t think the Seminoles would’ve converted a two-point play in the closing seconds had it tried to win the game instead of tie it.
Even Florida State coach Bobby Bowden, who made the call to kick the conversion and tie the game in the first place.
Years after the fact, Bowden told me although he never regretted kicking the extra point, he too knew what would’ve happened had the Noles attempted a two-point conversion.
“Yeah, they’re on their heels,” Bowden said. “(We) probably would’ve scored, too.”
Welcome, everyone, to Rivalry Week. The joyous occasion of throwing every record and rhyme and reason out the proverbial window because, well, the hates runs deep, baby.
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Despite what seems like a tsunami of change in the sport, and some classic rivalries abandoned or moved off the final week of the regular season, there is no other week on the college football calendar quite like this one.
More to the point with the current state of the sport: there are numerous games with College Football Playoff implications — despite the doom and gloom predictions that the final few weeks of the sport would be minimized by the new 12-team format. If anything, the new system has enhanced Rivalry Week.
We begin with Michigan and Ohio State, because what would any Rivalry Week be without the best hate in the sport? This one, like so many others, transcends any drama swirling in the sport and focuses purely on the machinations inside it.
Specifically, the job status of widely successful Ohio State coach Ryan Day.
He has beaten the brakes off everyone in the Big Ten, and has brought the Buckeyes multiple playoff appearances. He has also lost three in a row in the series.
It should come as no surprise then that Day began this week comparing The Game to war. Yes, war.
Because even though another Michigan win won’t knock Ohio State from the CFP, it will knock the Buckeyes from the Big Ten championship game — and will lead to Day’s firing.
Unless, that is, Ohio State can come all the way back and win the national title. Because you can’t fire a coach who just won the national title, can you?
“This game is a war,” Day said. “And any time there’s a war, there’s consequences and casualties.”
Not to be dramatic, but he just nailed it.
And that’s only the beginning of this make or break week all over the college football landscape.
Vanderbilt, with a home win already over Alabama (and another near home win over Texas), can knock rival Tennessee out of the playoff race with a win.
Southern California, whose five losses have all been one-possession games, can beat Notre Dame and possibly eliminate the Irish from the field.
Auburn can snuff out all Alabama hope of returning to the CFP with a win in Tuscaloosa, where the Tigers haven’t won since Cam Newton and The Lutzenkirchen in 2010.
Arizona has lost six of its last seven games, but can eliminate Arizona State’s CFP hope by winning its third consecutive game in the series — something it hasn’t done since the mid-1990s.
Oregon coach Dan Lanning is 0-3 vs. Washington, an underrated rivalry that was pushed to Rivalry Week when the two schools left the Pac-12 for the Big Ten. Washington hasn’t won four in a row against the Ducks since the early 1990s.
Then there’s Texas and Texas A&M, which haven’t played since 2011, when Texas A&M left for the SEC. The Aggies weren’t happy in 2021 when Texas announced it was leaving the Big 12 to join the SEC, and are more tweaked that Bevo is two games from doing in Year 1 what the Aggies haven’t come close to accomplishing: winning the SEC.
We’re 25 years from the somber, touching moment of the two schools symbolically locking arms in College Station after the bonfire tragedy the night before the 1999 game. The Aggies outscored Texas 14-0 in the second half, and scored the winning touchdown with five minutes to play.
Then held on for a win that will never be forgotten.
Rivalry Week is here. Celebrate it, everyone.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Spots Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.
