With sec making plans for a convention program for the 2020 school football season, a handful of key non-convention rivalries will remain in the assembly room.
However, the focus is on “manage,” as there are many SEC groups planning the same opponent that is not a conference year after year. Just for that list to reach seven games, we had to come with a game that hasn’t been played since 2011 and another that can only be considered a rivalry due to recent school playoff matchups.
However, the 2020 season will appear incomplete without the four pairings on this list.
Clemson and South Carolina have been playing every year since William Taft took office. Georgia and Georgia Tech have not missed an assembly since the president of Calvin Coolidge. And while Kentucky-Louisville and Florida-Florida State are two more recent rivalries, they’ve been big end-of-season battles for several years.
Hopefully we can watch the matchups in 2021 or, better yet, this year’s bowling season.
History of the series: 118 of 1894; Texas leads 76-37-5
Last match: Texas 27, Texas A-M 25 in 2011
Getting rid of Texas’ annual showdown with Texas A-M was the biggest casualty of the big 12 who wasted Texas A-M and Missouri against the SEC after the 2011 season. The “War on the Frontier” (Kansas vs. Kansas. Missouri) was also a remarkable loss, it is hard to overly regret when the Jayhawks have not even been applicable for more than a decade.
Prior to 2012, Aggies and Longhorns had faced each and every season since the year following the outbreak of World War I (1915). Similar to Michigan unlike Ohio State or Alabama unlike Auburn, it was one of the longest annual battles, and was played on the last Saturday of the regular season, which made it feel much more important.
For 22 of those competitions, Texas or Texas A-M placed on the AP Top Five at the time of this game, adding the 197five Classic when No. 2 A-M beat No. 5 from Texas to move to 10-0.
None of the teams qualified for the last game, but it remains a gem, with Texas erasing a 13-0 deficit and winning through two in a basket in Justin Tucker’s last second.
Unfortunately, Texas had no interest in keeping the rivalry alive when A-M moved to the SEC. But it still sounds like an active rivalry, because there’s a lot of mutual hatred between those Lone Star State schools. If they ever revived this, it would soon become one of the most productive rivalries in the country outside the conferences.
History of the series: 61 dating back to 1921; Ole Miss leads 47-12-2
Last meeting: Memphis 15, Ole Miss 10 in 2019
For a long time, it was not so much a rivalry as a sacrificial supply from Memphis to Ole Miss.
The Rebels won the first game in 1921 with a score of 82-0, and not even the unbalanced maximum result. There was also a 92-0 bombing in 1935. In the first 15 meetings between these systems (1921-1959), Ole Miss beat Memphis 691-40 and awarded no more than seven numbers once.
In the end, much more interesting things. From 1972 to 1994, Ole Miss still led the series with a 14-7-1 record, however, 8 of the victories were seven numbers or less.
Since then, they have faced each other with a little less frequency, but still enough (12 games since 2002) to be regarded as an active rivalry. And it’s still relatively well balanced, as evidenced by Memphis’ victory in Week 1 of last season and the annoyance of the ‘Thirteen Tigers’ rebels in October 2015.
They were not scheduled to play in 2020, however, that would have been an intriguing war between new head coaches Lane Kiffin and Ryan Silverfield, especially given the skill on the Memphis list.
History of the series: 19, 1900; Alabama leads 14-5
Last match: Clemson 44, Alabama in 2019
Until five years ago, it was the furthest part of a rivalry.
Alabama and Clemson played 10 times between 1900 and 1966. Nine of the matches were bleached and the other was a 74-7 Victory by Crimson Tide. They’re not smart games. And when those groups faced off at the 2015 national championship, Alabama was on a 12-game winning streak that spanned more than a century.
But in the days of the school football playoffs, it became perhaps the sport’s most productive almost annual game. However, due to the brevity of this rivalry, we need to put the other 4 ACC-SEC pairs with a deeper story.
Alabama beat Clemson at the 2015 national championship, but Clemson returned the favor after the 2016 season thanks to Hunter Renfrow’s last-second friction course/game. The following year, Alabama took over the business when Tide and Tigers faced off in the national semifinals. But after the 2018 season, it was time for another battle for the national championship, which Clemson convincingly won, 44-16.
Clemson made his component to make sure they would face each other for the fifth year in a row, but Alabama was unsuccessful at the PCP for the first time last season. Maybe they are to solve the pseudo series at best of five in a few months.
History of the series: 32 dating back to 1912; Kentucky leads 17-15
Last match: Kentucky 45, Louisville thirteen in 2019
It’s strange that it wasn’t until 1994 that these groups searched for 80 miles on the route. 64 between them and in an annual face-to-face can be a smart idea, especially since they already had a wonderful rivalry in basketball.
But, hey, bigger back than ever, right?
Kentucky and Louisville faced each other six times from 1912 to 1924, however, the Wildcats won the games of one with a combined score of 220-0. Given this information, it is probably certain that it is the cardinals who put the rivalry on hold for seven decades.
Since his return, however, Louisville has had a slight advantage over Kentucky. Although they have gone from being independent to the U.S. Conference. In the Great East, from the AAFC to the ACC for more than 26 years, the Cardinals went 15-11 against a Wildcats team that has been part of the SEC since the start of the league in 1933.
However, the last two years have belonged to Kentucky. In addition to winning up to 32 points in 2019, the Wildcats have scored 46 issues in 2018. They also won by a narrow margin in a basket beaten in 2016, despite the 452 yards and 4 touchdowns of Louisville Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson.
Of the last 26 games between those Bluegrass State rivals, 11 have been for possession. And it’s a shame that this game doesn’t take place in 2020, because Kentucky and Louisville are about to break into the 25 most sensible preseason ap. time of the game.
History of the series: 117 of 1896; Clemson leads 71-42-4
Last match: Clemson 8, South Carolina in 2019
There’s a lot of history in the Palmetto Bowl. Last November marked the 111th consecutive season in which the Tigers and fighting cocks led the war for South Carolina supremacy. The most productive thing I can say is the longest active rivalry outside the conference between FBS programs. And even though Clemson won more than 60% of the matches played between those rivals, it was not a one-sided affair.
Historically speaking, it is. There haven’t been a lot of competitions lately. Clemson has an average margin of victory of 25.3 points in the school football playoffs, which is no surprise, given the diversity of expectations of those groups over the more than six seasons.
However, there is no love lost among those rivals separated by about two hours by car. And just before Clemson, South Carolina’s reign of terror on a five-game winning streak, each with a double-digit margin. That includes one of the most notable games in the history of this rivalry, when The No. 10 AP of South Carolina eliminated No. 6 Clemson at the end of the 2013 normal season.
Although identified as a rivalry in North Carolina and South Carolina, Clemson-South Carolina does not rank third on this list, as South Carolina has never been more applicable nationally. The Gamecocks had a wonderful run from 2011 to 2013 and a year higher in 1nine84, however, they never qualified above number nine at the time of that setting and qualified in the Top 25 for only 11 of the matchups. Training
However, it is an annual culture that will be missed a lot in November.
History of the series: 114 of 1893; Georgia leads 68-41-5
Last meeting: Georgia 52, Georgia Tech 7 in 2019
Just as Clemson opposed South Carolina, Georgia, unlike Georgia Tech, has been around for years. They have played 95 consecutive seasons with over 100 games in all time.
But at least in this case, the one with the maximum losses in the rivalry was looking for a national championship. Hell, Georgia Tech has won more national championships (four) than Georgia (two).
In 1927, Georgia headed for a title, beating its first nine warring parts with a combined score of 248-26. But Georgia Tech scored a big early victory in that rivalry, discarding the Bulldogs 12-0 and denying them that championship.
In 1942, Georgia ranked number five and Georgia Tech number 2. But by smoking the Yellow Jackets undefeatisfied 34-0, the Bulldogs climbed to number 2, then beat UCLA in the Rose Bowl and claimed their first national team. Championship.
It was a similar story four years later, when Georgia No. 3 effortlessly beat number 7 Georgia Tech 35-7. The Bulldogs finished 11-0, the first of two seasons on the hitale program without defeat or a draw. (However, there was no jump in the vote that year. UGA finished at number 3 behind Notre Dame and the Army).
In a less ancient story, there have been 8 clashes since 1998 in which any of them has been classified.
The 8 games went through 14 numbers or less, and the distribution was fairly even, as Georgia Tech won five of those 8 games. Of course, 2014 (Georgia’s No. 8 vs. Georgia Tech No. 16) was the only time any of the teams ranked among the 10 most sensitive AP in a ranked counter-ranked game, so end-of-season games were not. Important. But 8 matchups ranked in the last quarter century are correct compared to all other options.
Except one …
History of the series: 64 dating back to 1958; Florida leads 36-26-2
Last meeting: Florida 40, Florida State 17 in 2019
Although the duration of the Sunshine Showdown rivalry is slightly part of the Clemson-South Carolina and Georgia-Georgia Tech rivalries, it occupies our top spot because it is a fundamental game from a national point of view.
Clemson and South Carolina have played more than a hundred times, however, there have only been six iterations in which either group has been ranked on the AP ballot, and none of the teams have been ranked in the top five in any of those contests. Similarly, Georgia and Georgia Tech have had only 11 ranked battles compared to ranked battles, and it has been more than a century since both sides ranked seventh or more in one of those games.
Meanwhile, 23 of the 64 meetings between Florida and the state of Florida, in a different way read as 36% of them, were of the Top 25 vs. Top 25. For 14 of them, both groups qualified in the Top 10. Six times, they ranked in the top five.
Hell, there were two games of this type only in the 1996 season, when Florida’s No. 2 state cut Florida No. 1 24-21 in November, followed by the No. 3 Gators beating Seminoles No. 1 52-20 at Sugar. Bowl, which was the de facto national championship game that year. For the 1998, 1999 and 2000 games, both groups ranked in the top five, and the state of Florida won each time.
It’s not as wonderful a five-year career as the aforementioned four-year alabama and Clemson PSC series, but it’s close. And there’s a more than enough story between those two schools beyond this half-decade that it’s been simple to put it in the front row.
Moreover, it is detrimental that there has never been an extended dominant position on either side.
Even when Florida won nine in a row between 1968 and 1976, five of the only games were by 11 issues or less. The only time there was a three-year era in which the same team won in more than 11 issues was from 2007 to 2009, when Florida had Tim Tebow and the state of Florida was spitting until the end of the Bobthrough Bowden era. Apart from this circumstance of execution, those sour rivals have been quite equivalent for decades.