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These once-annual college rivalries used to define college football and need to make a comeback ASAP
By Austin Perry
Published August 11, 2026
College football is a rapidly changing sport, and with the recent news that the Save College Sports Act has once again been kicked down the road, it doesn't look like the game will be given some much-needed guardrails any time soon.
You'll hear fans of an older generation (and even some younger ones) lament the fact that college football isn't as good as it was in their youth, and while a lot of that can be chalked up to nebulous concepts like nostalgia, there is one concrete example of the sport being vastly different today: rivalries.
Just taking a surface-level glance at the landscape of modern college football shows us that some of the best rivalries from yesteryear may be a thing of the past.
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Some of that is due to conference realignment while other rivalry games have been cut thanks to power conference teams being incentivized to remove harder non-conference games from their schedules.
Either way, I've compiled four great rivalries from the golden age of college football that are either completely dormant or are played sparingly thanks to the new parameters of the sport.
The Oklahoma Sooners celebrate after defeating the Alabama Crimson Tide at Saban Field at Bryant-Denny Stadium. (David Leong/Imagn Images)
If you pick pretty much any era of college football between the 1970s and early 2000s, at least one team from this annual conference rivalry was firmly entrenched in the national championship conversation.
Although the regular season matchups became quasi-annual after the 1996 merging of the Big 8 and the Southwest Conference to create the Big 12, the two teams still managed to find a way to one up another with some high stakes on the line.
The Sooners and Cornhuskers met nine times as top-five teams and even have the distinction of playing in the first ever BCS 1. vs. 2. matchup in college football history.
No matter how you slice it, the Oklahoma and Nebraska rivalry is college football personified, but the two teams haven't met since 2022, thanks to Nebraska bolting for the Big Ten in the early part of the 2010s and Oklahoma opting to join the SEC a few seasons ago.
A mini revival is set to take place between the two teams in 2029, but as we've established, that game is likely to get canceled so that both teams can pad their schedule with some cannon fodder by then.
West Virginia running back Jahiem White (22) celebrates after scoring against North Carolina during the second half of an NCAA college football game at the Duke's Mayo Bowl, Dec. 27, 2023, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson, File)
While the Backyard Brawl might not have the pop and pizzazz of Oklahoma and Nebraska's rivalry, it was still one of the most vitriolic annual rivalries the sport had to offer.
If you know nothing about the rivalry between Pitt and West Virginia, look no further than their 2007 meeting, when the Mountaineers welcomed the Panthers to Morgantown sporting a shiny number two ranking in the BCS only to have their hopes and dreams of a national title get nuked on their home field by a team that wasn't even heading to a bowl game.
It's such a famous (or infamous) game that Pitt fans will still tease West Virginia fans by only chanting the score at them, "13-9! 13-9! 13-9!"
What made this rivalry so special was the proximity of the two campuses and the fact that they both resided in the now-defunct Big East.
After the resolution of the conference, Pitt joined the ACC and West Virginia became a member of the Big 12, and 2011 was the last time these two met as members of the same conference.
The rivalry would remain dormant for more than a decade, and although they have played each other on an annual basis since 2022, the game isn't set to be played again until 2029 with the long term status of the rivalry in limbo.
Kansas Jayhawks wide receiver Quentin Skinner, left, and Kansas wide receiver Trevor Wilson, right, celebrate a recovered fumble, during the second half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Nov. 16, 2024, in Provo. (AP Photo/Rick Egan)
Part of what makes college football so special and something that Playoff expansionists fail to realize is that a rivalry game isn't great because of the national championship implications, and nowhere is that more evident than the Border War (or Border Showdown, if you're a snowflake) between Kansas and Missouri.
When these two teams stopped playing their annual matchup after the 2011 season on account of Mizzou leaving for the SEC, the Border War was the second-most-played rivalry in the history of Division I-A/FBS college football.
The rivalry dates all the way back to the 1890s, when proximity and hate fueled one of the coolest regional rivalries in the sport.
It had controversy, it had violence, and it even had a few high-stakes matchups for good measure, like when Kansas ruined Missouri's shot at winning the 1960 national title, or when the two teams randomly met as top-five opponents in Arrowhead Stadium in 2007.
As with most of the other games on this list, the Border War was briefly reanimated in the mid 2020s, as the two teams met last season and are slated to play again this season in a home-and-home to stoke the flames of nostalgia.
Outside of that and a one-off meeting in 2031, though, no one knows what the future holds for this rivalry, making the Border War just another casualty of conference realignment and CFP expansion.
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish showed off their football facility, the Jack and Kathy Shields Family Hall, and it's very impressive. (Photo by Jeffrey Brown/Icon Sportswire)
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While the other three games on this list share the distinction of being axed thanks to conference realignment in some way, shape, or form, one of the most classic college football rivalries can't even lean on that excuse thanks to Notre Dame's Independent status.
Much like Oklahoma and Nebraska, Michigan and Notre Dame are two of the bluest bloods in college football history, and from about the late 1970s onward, these two royals were destined to meet on an almost annual basis for bragging rights and national relevance.
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It's hard to even imagine college football without the Irish and Wolverines doing battle, and a good chunk of their showdowns from the 80s, 90s, and 2000s are some of the most legendary games that are still talked about to this day.
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The first home night game in Notre Dame's history was played between these two in 1982, and the 1988 matchup came down to the final minute of the game with eventual national champion Notre Dame eeking out a 19-17 victory.
The Irish opted to end the rivalry after the 2014 season, meaning one of the most tradition-rich meetings in all of sports came to an end outside of a home-and-home in 2018 and 2019.
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Another one is scheduled in 2033 and 2034, but with the aforementioned incentive to soften schedules thanks to an expanding Playoff and Notre Dame's increasingly guaranteed path to the big dance, we might not even see those games take place.
https://www.foxnews.com/outkick-sports/once-annual-college-rivalries-used-define-college-football-need-make-comeback-asap