Dud3s

From the choices above I'd go with, in order of best, B, C, A, E, D. I'm biased towards basketball so take my best with a grain of salt. Celtics vs. Lakers just doesn't have the juice anymore. I'd go with Cowboys vs. Washington over the old AFL rivalries but I've always been an NFC East guy.

Being down south now I feel obliged to add an SEC rivalry. Take your pick:

Alabama vs. Auburn
Florida vs. Georgia
Tennessee vs. Alabama

I am going to have to add Florida vs. Florida State. That is a huge game every year.

I would add F) Most in-state rivalries. I've not come across very many states that don't have at least one kick-@$$ in-state rivalry going on which crosses all sports boundaries. University of Colorado/Colorado State, University of South Dakota/South Dakota State, Montana/Montana State, Florida/Florida State (as mentioned above, etc, etc. Oh, how I love in-state rivalries!

If I have to pick one of the real options, I'd have to go with A.

I'm excited for the OH/MI game. I'm betting Michigan has what it takes to win it all this year.

I would love the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry even more if they didn't play so much. Just make it two series per season at the end of the year and then we can start talking. After a while it will just get played out again. College rivalries will always be the best though. Can't point to one being the best since it simply boils down to who your team is. Your rival is always your best game.

Devin: that hurts my heart. I definitely don't want to see Michigan win it all this year. Maybe I'm biased because I went to Michigan State, but I don't think they can beat OSU.

Of course if that happens, I will not be returning to this thread or any others regarding college football! :)

If I had to choose from those options, I'd say Red Sox & Yankees. Yes, they play each other a lot, and the East Coast hoopla can get tiresome, but they have one of the longest rivalries by far, and there's so much to its history, starting with the Ruth trade and the curse, down to how their owners/GMs try to get certains players simply because they think the other team might want them.

Otherwise, I'd agree with Scrivs that college football rivalries seem to be the most passionate, at least. Even high school football rivalries, in a lot of states.

I give honorable mention to Packers-Bears. I'm from Minnesota, so Vikings-Packers is the biggest rivalry I'm close to, but the Packers-Bears rivalry is extreme.

Yeah I can vouch for the Packers-Bears rivalry. I thought about mentioning that as well.

Personally speaking, I love the 'Bama/Auburn rivalry (which resumes this Saturday, 2:30pm CST on CBS-HD), but I didn't want to be biased and throw it up on the list. :)

Bears/Packers is huge as well...I'm just not a huge NFL fan, so I forgot that one.

Thinking about the Packers/Bears and Yankees/Red Sox, it occurred to me that a fun way to judge the intensity of a rivalry is to consider how the typical fan of one team reacts to even just the mention of the other team's locale in regular conversation.

Yeah try that out with an OSU/UM fan this week! Punches might get thrown. On the news today it was giving tips for Michigan fans going down to Columbus for the game, some tips included were:

* don't have a Michigan license plate
* avoid wearing clothes that say Michigan on it
* don't react to people taunting you

That's crazy and pretty funny.

There will be plenty of U of M fans in Columbus this weekend, and I bet the vast majority of them will be sporting their Wolverine gear (as they should). The key is to travel in packs of 4-8 folks, the more people you have in your group, the less likely it is that you'll get jumped.

I don't know if international team rivalries qualify, but AC Milan versus Inter Milan carries a lot of baggage. But, in terms of the number of people involved, fan craziness, politics, things at stake etc, I have seen nothing approach the fervor of an India-Pakistan cricket match.

Wow, that's pretty interesting. I would have never guessed something like cricket.

How about the US and Russia in Olympic hockey?

Nothing really comes close to Pakistan v India, you can image 1 billion Indians and 160 million Pakistanis...The Ashes are on right now and that is pretty big both here and England.

I'm biased (I live in Boston) but the Red Sox - Yankees rivalry has more drama, history, and passion than any other two teams out there. College or Pro, it's hard to top the Sox and Yankees.

I think you've forgotten the biggest rivalry ever

The Indianapolis Colts & The New England Patriots

The Colts and Pats do have a pretty good rivalry but it began fairly recently. No offense but I really don't think that it can be compared to the Sox and Yanks...