4. TEXAS vs. TEXAS A&M
First game: 1894
Series: Texas leads 76-37-5
What’s most significant about this rivalry? It just ended. The third-longest-running rivalry in all of college football took place every year on Thanksgiving Day — this year, Texas won 27-25 on a last-second field goal. The Showdown is so entrenched in Lone Star lore that both schools’ fight songs are largely devoted to dissing the other, but A&M leaves the Big 12 Conference to join the SEC after this season. The Aggies say they want to keep the intrastate matchup on the schedule anyway as a non-conference game, but UT views A&M’s defection as a betrayal and hasn’t accepted that offer. So there’s going to be plenty on the line when the two meet up again for the 97th consecutive year this November. However, we’re sure the UT faithful will never stop telling “Aggie jokes.” Such as, Q: How do you get an Aggie off your front porch? A: You pay for the pizza.)
3. ARMY vs. NAVY
First game: 1890
Series: Navy leads 55-49-7
For a couple of years back in the 1940s, the military academies boasted the top two teams in the country when they faced off at the end of the season. These days, neither makes it anywhere near January bowl games, but the Army-Navy game itself remains a spectacular event. Always played at a neutral site (usually in Philadelphia, though this year will be in D.C. on December 10), the stands are filled with top political and military brass, often including the President himself. Extensive pre-game pageantry features the ultra-precision March-Ons of the Cadets and the Midshipmen and the on-field “Prisoner Exchange,” in which groups of select students who have been spending the semester at the opposite academy are officially granted their “freedom” to rejoin their own side in the stands for the duration of the game. And, obviously, there’s plenty of flyovers and patriotic music and whatnot.
