Researchers find ASU-UA most intense football rivalry
The academic verdict is in supporting what Arizona State and Arizona fans always claim.
The Territorial Cup, coming up Friday, is the most intense rivalry in major college football according to a study by Dr. Joe Cobbs of Northern Kentucky and Dr. David Tyler of Western Carolina.
"It's eye catching to say most intense and in some ways it is," said Cobbs, who has studied sports rivalry for five years with Tyler and created the web site knowrivalry.com to showcase their research. "You can think about it with another term as the most focused rivalry. We're careful as researchers with the language we use, but the word intensity is more fun."
What Cobbs and Tyler discovered through fan surveys is that the ASU-UA rivalry rates higher in their aggregated points system than any other Football Bowl Subdivision rivalry.
Out of 100 rivalry points, UA fans polled allocated 89.25 to ASU while Sun Devil fans awarding 82.51 to UA. That's a total of 171.76, more than No. 2 Ohio State-Michigan (159.55), No. 3 Toledo-Bowling Green (152.32), No. 4 Utah-BYU (152.25) and No. 5 Central Michigan-Western Michigan (151.08).
"I was surprised it (ASU-UA) was No. 1 but not surprised it was in the top 10," Cobbs said. "Like most college football fans, you think Ohio State and Michigan. I thought Oklahoma and Texas (No. 9) might be a little higher." He said Army and Navy did not make the list because those military academies did not have enough respondents. There were 5,317 full usable responses, Cobbs said.
Cobbs said Ohio State and Michigan wound up below ASU-UA because Michigan fans allocated a combined 28.83 rivalry points to Michigan State and Notre Dame and most of the rest (68.84) to the Buckeyes. Ohio State fans were more focused with 90.71 rivalry points assigned to Michigan.
There was a similar dilution of the USC-UCLA rivalry (No. 15) by USC fans giving 45.37 points to Notre Dame and only 35.35 to the Bruins. UCLA fans are more focused on USC as a rival, assigning 80.48 points to the Trojans.
Southeastern Conference rivalry points are allocated to a variety of schools. The top rated rivalry involving an SEC school is South Carolina-Clemson (ACC) at No. 6. Alabama-Auburn came in at No. 17.
Notre Dame doesn't show among the top 20 most intense rivalries because the Irish fan base is splintered in its rivalry choices, giving 58.24 points to USC and 24.46 to Michigan. Boston College sees Notre Dame as its main rival (74.17), but the Eagles barely register with Notre Dame fans (1.71).
Cobbs believes ASU and UA should use their No. 1 rivalry status for marketing including finding a new title sponsor for the Territorial Cup Series and for leveraging television coverage. "If a conference has a good understanding of what rivalries are most important to fans it will work to make sure games don't overlap for maximum TV ratings," he said. "Leagues are already on to this, but research helps quantify the passion."
The Territorial Cup is college football's oldest rivalry trophy, first being awarded in 1899. When No. 13 ASU (9-2) and No. 15 UA (9-2) play in Tucson at 1:30 p.m. Friday, it will be the first meeting with both teams having at least nine wins since 1975.
Most intense FBS college football rivalries
1. ASU vs. UA
2. Ohio State vs. Michigan
3. Toledo vs. Bowling Green
4. BYU vs. Utah
5. Western Michigan vs. Central Michigan
6. Clemson vs. South Carolina
7. UNLV vs. Nevada
8. Missouri vs. Kansas
9. Oklahoma vs. Texas
10. Indiana vs. Purdue
11. Louisville vs. Kentucky
12. Mississippi State vs. Mississippi
13. UCF vs. South Florida
14. Duke vs. North Carolina
15. UCLA vs. USC
16. Auburn vs. Alabama
17. Virginia vs. Virginia Tech
18. Oregon State vs. Oregon
19. Cal vs Stanford