at least they didn't say:

1. Yankees-Red Sox....."We know it's a colege football list, but this rivalry is just so freakin' intense and our heads are so far up its ass that it spills over into any sport, any genre."

I see where you're coming from, but I can see why they put most of these teams on here. Florida-Georgia is unique in that it's played on a neutral field, and maybe the author got smashed at the "largest outdoor cocktail party" so it has a place in his heart or something. It doesn't have anywhere near the intensity of these others, though. Hell, you can argue that UGA-Tennessee/Auburn or even Florida-LSU or Auburn is better than this one. It's just a big SEC game, that's all. Also, to have this and not Stanford-Cal is absurd.

Notre Dame-USC is on there because it's the oldest non-conference rivalry in college football. It's also decided a lot of national championships, and 2005 wasn't the only great game. They played some monster games in the 60s and 70s. It should be bumped down a little, however, because with the advent of the BCS and conference championship games, this won't have that same impact on the title game. This is a nostalgia pick. And Notre Dame-Michigan, while one of my favorite games I look forward to, have only been playing somewhat consistently for  30 years (Michigan leads 19-14-1). Truly great rivalries don't take two year breaks like they did in '95-'96 and '00-'01. By the time we're old, though, this will easily be #1.

Miami-FSU is just hype, that's all. It was pretty intense in the 90s with classic games, but no way it's the top 10 in college football. Plus, the blatant disrepect these two schools show each other and everybody else almost makes it unwatchable for me.

And I apologize for my comment being longer than your entry.

I disagree about the Miami-FSU rivalry, which is definitely one of the great rivalries of sport. It's simply not true that Miami has never been FSU's biggest game. The 1991, 1992, 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2005 Wide Right/Left/botched field goal games speak to this, and the first four of those games had national title implications, FSU being denied titles in '91, '92 because of losing that. I actually think this rivalries has produced the (second) most consistently entertaining game, with so many outcomes being decided by a field goal or less.

First most entertaining? UGA v. Ga Tech. I don't know what the Florida-Georgia pick is about, because Georgia's biggest rival is Georgia Tech, and this is a rivalry that has produced tons of heart-pounding games and is as huge in North Georgia as Auburn-Alabama is in that state, and more intense than UCLA-USC. This is probably the most undervalued rivalry.

Florida-FSU deserves mention, USC-Notre Dame used to be more important, but it still belongs as well. The glaring omission here is Cal-Stanford. The hatred between the two schools is monumental, and of course, this rivalry produced the single greatest college football game of all time in 1982.

All the other games on ESPN's list are valid, except for the Leighigh-Lafayette and Harvard-Yale games. I'm sorry, but if the students don't care about the game, it's not a rivalry. Empty seats in a rivalry game? Not exactly intense.

Go to a Lehigh Lafayette game and say that again.

It's the longest running rivalry in the country for a reason.