The best rivalry

ESPN has a live poll asking people to rank the top 15 rivalries in college football. Personally, I think Utah-BYU trumps them all because of the underlying religious battle which defines the whole state. This clearly makes is more important than Florida v. Florida State or the Texas rivalries even though more people watch either of those.

Where you stand on Utah-BYU says a lot about who you are and where you stand politically, or where you live, or what you believe in your gut. The hatred for each other is friendly yet strong. Why else would they call it "The Holy War?"

Obviously, I have always been a Utah Man, even if I never went to school there until law school. The campus was in my neighborhood until 4th grade. As a non-Mormon, I always identified with the Utes even if many of the players had to miss whole seasons because they were off on LDS missions.

I would rank Southern rivalries higher than the Midwestern ones (but Midwestern over Pacific Coast rivalries and certainly higher than New England rivalries) because football is so fundamental to live in many small towns in places like Texas. Just watch "Friday Night Lights" to see that.

As dumb as college football is, I am happy to have a the team I root for to finally be good. Brown really only could beat places like Forham and occationally an fellow Ivy. The whole time they were any good and won a co-Ivy League championship, it turned out the school and the late Dave Zarconi violated the Ivies recruiting and scholarship rules.

Dave by the way was a great man, and treated me to a awesome lobster dinner I will never forget.