re: ESPN: Alabama-LSU tops the national rivalry list

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It's played out so that anytime that Ole Miss has a pretty good football team, they beat LSU.

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2003 called, it wants its fake divisional championship back

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2003 called, it wants its fake divisional championship back

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I'm sorry.

Since Saban was coaching at LSU, every good Ole Miss team has beaten LSU.

ETA:
And I don't know if you've noticed, but our coach has us heading in that direction.

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so was 2012 Ole Miss bad?

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They were a 6-6 regular season team, had serious injury issues in that game, and still almost beat ya'll in Baton Rouge.

Rivalries that are more hate-filled and important to their own fans and players than LSU-Bama:

UM-OSU
ND-USC
USC-UCLA
A&M-texas
OSU-OU (okla)
OSU-OU (oreg)
Wazzu-UW
OM-MSU
bama-AU
UT-AU
UA-UGA
UF-UGA
USC-Clem
WVU-Pitt
Arky-texas
OU-texas
NMSU-NMU
Ariz-ASU
LSU-Louisiana State Penitentiary @ Angola
Kansas-Miz
IU-ISU
A&M-TTU
Grambling State-Southern
MSU-UM
UF-FSU
Canes-Anyone

look, most normal (ok, rational) LSU fans know auburn/bama is way ahead of lsu/bama in terms of rivalry.

to the mizzou count that thinks ohio state/michigan is bigger than bama/auburn hasnt been in the middle of a fist fight in the middle of a chicken processing plant in the middle of march because one guy said his teams recruiting class was overrated.

true story. i got a bloody nose trying to escape that madness. alabama folk are nuts.

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My friends dad locked out one of my other friends because he said he was rooting for michigan. (He was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and it was snowing outside

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Lived in the midwest for a few years, and I can tell you OSU-Michigan is every bit as vinegary as any rivalry out there. BUT -- it's far more globally-spanned, there's tons more money (bankers vs doctors) and reps involved, and, frankly, they're a much better educated bunch than, say, Auburn-Bama (whose fanbases are more or less relegated to the southeastern US; welders vs bus drivers).

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Congrats on your good teams beating our most recent bad teams.

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My point is that your bad teams are becoming more frequent. #tDecline

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Ole Miss is 3-3 against LSU over the last 6.

It's played out so that anytime that Ole Miss has a pretty good football team, they beat LSU. If that continues, the Alabama-LSU game won't mean anything.

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It's nice to see the resurgence at Ole Miss. Good for the conference, good for college football.

No poll of fans...just one writer's opinion. And then he proceeds to contradict himself.

"The animosity and disdain that seeps into every major rivalry isn't really there for this one. Sure, there was the Saban storyline that lingered for a few years because he's coached and won a national championship at both schools, but the loathing between players and fans in other rivalries really doesn't exist here."

Then it isn't a rivalry.

"No, this game's winner is looking for bigger, more important awards, such as a division title and national championship."

So is the winner of the Bama-Chattanooga game. LSU has very little chance of winning the West, and no chance of getting to the BCS. According to this standard, Bama-LSU isn't even remotely close to being as big of a rivalry game as Alabama-Auburn.

So even according to the author himself, this game fails to meet the standards of being a rivalry game.

I think in recent history, Bama-LSU has been the biggest divisional/conference game in College Football. I don't know about calling it the biggest rivalry... I don't think it has a lot of the history or tradition surrounding the other match-ups mentioned.