Rivalries are a person of the items that make university sports activities excellent. They deliver out some of the fiercest opposition of the year for both equally teams and bragging rights go to the victors for a total 12 months.
University baseball is no distinctive. Feelings operate superior for players and followers alike through rivalry online games, no matter if they’re played on a Tuesday or unfold throughout a 3-game weekend series. They attract big crowds, make major times and a lot of tension.
While some of college or university baseball’s ideal rivalries double as wonderful rivalries across all sports—think Ohio Condition vs. Michigan or Alabama vs. Auburn—there are many that are both exclusive to baseball or basically operate hotter on the diamond then they do on the gridiron or hardwood.
Right here, we rank the 25 very best rivalries in school baseball.
1. Mississippi vs. Mississippi Condition
The Egg Bowl rivalry is a single of the best in college or university athletics in normal, but it has been especially spicy on the baseball diamond of late, as both of those programs have produced groups with real University Earth Collection aspirations time and time once again. The in-state rivalry in one particular of the most rabid college or university baseball states in the nation never disappoints. In addition to their annual SEC series, the teams play a midweek video game for the Governor’s Cup in Jackson.
2. Cal Point out Fullerton vs. Very long Seaside Point out
This rivalry runs so scorching that an annual weekend collection among the two groups isn’t plenty of. As a substitute, they perform two weekend series—one that counts in the Major West standings and a person that is officially a nonconference established. The rivalry had a recent peak in 2017 when the Titans and Dirtbags confronted off in the Long Beach front Tremendous Regional in entrance of raucous crowds and with a excursion to Omaha on the line.
3. Clemson vs. South Carolina
The state of South Carolina enjoys its college baseball, and that passion gets expressed in how it supports the yearly early-season collection concerning its two largest applications. Considering that 2010, the sequence has featured one activity at every single property park with a 3rd recreation played at a neutral web-site, giving followers throughout the entirety of the point out a prospect to see one of the very best rivalries in the sport.
4. Florida vs. Florida Condition vs. Miami
Despite the fact that Florida has dominated this a few-way rivalry in the Sunshine Condition these days, this has almost everything you want when on the lookout at the greatest rivalries in faculty baseball. Allegiances are blended all throughout the condition, it’s three of the most storied courses in the activity and they normally have to go by way of each and every other on the path to the CWS.
5. Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma Point out
Bedlam operates incredibly hot on the diamond, just like it does in every single sport Oklahoma and Oklahoma Point out contend in. Followers have turned out for neutral web-site showdowns in Oklahoma Metropolis and Tulsa, but in the latest yrs the two teams have returned their weekend series to campus, splitting the 3 games in between Norman and Stillwater.
6. Louisiana State vs. Mississippi Condition
Two of the most notoriously rabid fanbases in college or university baseball. Two cathedrals in Alex Box Stadium and Dudy Noble Discipline. Two of the most storied programs in the place. Each and every time these two groups perform a sequence, it’s appointment viewing, a key social function in the metropolis in which the games are getting performed and a pivotal series in the SEC standings.
7. North Carolina vs. North Carolina State
The better athletics planet is common with UNC’s rivalry with Duke on the hardwood. But on the diamond, it is the series amongst the Tar Heels and Wolfpack that is the most compelling. The two admirer bases basic never like every single other and they pack Boshamer Stadium and Doak Park for this 1. The rivals took it to one more stage in 2013 when they confronted each and every other two times in the CWS.
8. Southern California vs. UCLA
Separated by about 10 miles in Los Angeles, the Trojans and Bruins have 1 of the Pac-12’s best rivalries. Their weekend sequence carries the conference title-race implications, but the custom of their annual activity to shut the Dodger Stadium Traditional adds some thing more to the rivalry. Participating in a Sunday afternoon video game at Dodger Stadium at the conclusion of a leading nonconference match, the two groups the two carry robust crowds, pep bands and a lively ambiance.
9. Army vs. Navy
This is a person of college or university sports’ biggest rivalries, no issue the activity. The stakes on the diamond have been elevated not too long ago, as the two programs have emerged as the two very best in the Patriot League. Now, not only do their weekend sequence have considerable implications on the convention standings, they have faced off in the Patriot League Match championship series in back-to-back again yrs with a journey to the NCAA Tournament on the line. Their common period meetings are also mounting in prominence, as they have played in Camden Yards and Fenway Park in new seasons, even though a conference at Citizens Financial institution Park in 2020 experienced to be canceled.
10. Texas vs. Texas A&M
The video games among Texas and Texas A&M could not be a conference matchup any more, but the groups on the diamond have done a improved job of scheduling every other and keeping the rivalry likely than in other sporting activities, even if it is just a solitary midweek video game each and every period. There’s no appreciate misplaced between these two plans and fan bases.
11. Georgia vs. Ga Tech
The three video games concerning rivals Ga and Ga Tech employed to get area about 3 midweek video games, but in 2020, it was performed as a weekend collection and there is hope among both sides that it carries on that way into the foreseeable future. The Bulldogs have gained 11 of the very last 12 game titles in the rivalry, but the Yellow Jackets have program momentum suitable now and will look to tilt issues back again in their direction in the several years to come.
12. Louisiana Condition vs. Tulane
LSU’s rivalries with SEC foes are a lot more nicely-regarded nationally, but among the baseball diehards in the condition of Louisiana, the rivalry between the Tigers and the Green Wave will often be specific. Whilst the groups go on to enjoy video games every year, the rivalry ran hottest again in the early 2000s, with Tulane’s super regional gain more than LSU in 2001 in entrance of ability crowds at Zephyr Subject serving as possibly the most memorable conference through that period.
13. Houston vs. Rice
Recognized as the Silver Glove Collection, Houston and Rice yearly compete for supremacy in the town of Houston, even as they now obtain them selves in distinct conferences, just as they did prior to Rice signing up for Convention United states in 2005. This rivalry reached a fever pitch in the early 2000s, when Houston eliminated Rice in a regional in 2000, the teams have been just one Houston win absent from the two getting to the CWS in 2002 and the Owls took down the Cougars in a tremendous regional in 2003.
14. Texas A&M vs. Texas Christian
Though Texas A&M and TCU had been conference foes in the Southwest Convention times, the rivalry amongst the two on the diamond genuinely came into its possess in 2015 and 2016, when the Horned Frogs obtained to the CWS 2 times at the Aggies’ price in
two of the most hotly contested super regional series in current memory. Now, anytime the groups square off, it would make for appointment viewing.
15. Arizona vs. Arizona Condition
The rivalry acknowledged as the Territorial Cup on the soccer industry is a storied 1 on the diamond as perfectly. Arizona Condition is 1 of the most profitable college or university baseball applications of all time, but relatively quietly, Arizona is on the short record as effectively. And as considerably criticism as the West Coastline will get from time to time for not obtaining fanbases as engaged as those in other locations of the state, supporters of the Sunlight Devils and Wildcats consider their baseball really severely.
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16. Michigan vs. Ohio Condition
The rivalry concerning these two Major 10 powerhouses did not require any assist in earning its place amid the ideal to be had in the Midwest, but it undoubtedly did assistance that Michigan and Ohio State (together with Minnesota) ran the Huge Ten from the 1960s up till the 2000s, when the meeting obtained a great deal a lot more competitive from top rated to bottom. Because 1960, the Wolverines have the edge more than the Buckeyes in phrases of Significant 10 championships—14 to 11—and they now have the higher hand with their run to within one particular sport of a national title in 2019. But Ohio State has gotten the greater in head-to-head matchups lately—the Buckeyes are 15-5 in opposition to the Wolverines above the very last 10 years.
17. Florida vs. Vanderbilt
The Gators and Commodores are not normal rivals but just after a ten years of competing at the top of the SEC East, their yearly sequence carries sturdy fat year following year. Add in the link between coaches Kevin O’Sullivan and Tim Corbin, who worked jointly on Jack Leggett’s employees at Clemson, and the ingredients for a potent rivalry have taken root.
18. Creighton vs. Nebraska
It’s no surprise that followers in the University Earth Series’ property state love college or university baseball and these two packages generate a fantastic in-point out rivalry. Their midweek showdowns are yearly between the best attended in the state and their 2019 conference at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha drew much more than 10,000 fans. With each programs competing for NCAA Event berths, it is hard to ask for extra.
19. Louisville vs. Vanderbilt
The Battle of the Barrel is a single of the number of trophy game titles in faculty baseball. The trophy is continue to rather new—it started in 2012, nevertheless the two systems have been taking part in every other for much longer—but the program’s around parallel rise to faculty baseball’s elite have helped gasoline the rivalry. Even though it hasn’t had some of the historical juice of other leading rivalries on the listing, the two team’s conference in the 2019 CWS may possibly assist construct that historical past as the near elimination recreation obtained tense late.
20. Arkansas vs. Louisiana State
When you’ve been at the major of the mountain in higher education baseball as long as LSU has, you are likely to have amassed some rigorous rivalries, and though it may perhaps count Mississippi State and Tulane as greater rivals on the diamond, there’s no doubting the intensity of its video games versus Arkansas. Like the online games concerning LSU and MSU, there usually seems to be so a lot on the line when LSU and Arkansas get collectively, and which is going to make them must-check out events. The sequence also helped produce the legend of the Rally Possum.
21. Central Florida vs. South Florida
The ideal rivalries crop up normally when two groups occupy a identical place in the pecking order and have incredibly related targets. Most these rivalries created many years back as college athletics were escalating into what we know them to be nowadays, but the rivalry between UCF and USF, acknowledged as the War on I-4, is a newcomer to the fray. Both equally schools have scrapped in their fairly short histories to improve their athletic departments into thriving Division I operations, and when the pair will usually be in the shadow of powers Florida, Florida State and Miami in their own point out, there is price in getting the very best Florida workforce outdoors of all those a few, and in a very good meeting like the American, that’s superior enough to be a perennial postseason team and 1 with a shot to get to the CWS.
22. Cal State Fullerton vs. Stanford
This rivalry has a historical part to it, as the two are nationwide title-successful programs that are also between the most prosperous on the West Coast. Moreover, recently the groups have performed a time-opening nonconference sequence, and there is also some recent history at enjoy. In 2017 and 2018, Cal Point out Fullerton traveled to Stanford for regionals and ousted the host Cardinal.
23. Louisville vs. Kentucky
For a extensive time, this rigorous rivalry that played out annually on the basketball court and to a lesser degree on the football field was not specified a great deal of a possibility to take off on the diamond. Louisville did not have significantly record of accomplishment until finally Dan McDonnell arrived and Kentucky’s historical past has always been marked by ups and downs. But maybe improved fortunes for both of those get-togethers, and extra exclusively, the 2017 Louisville Super Regional amongst the teams, will spark some thing larger in this rivalry.
24. St. John’s vs. Seton Corridor
The Massive East has spurred several rivalries amid its authentic users around the decades. On the diamond, this just one
stands out the most. Separated by a lot less than an hour, they have a lengthy, storied background. They have been between the conference’s greatest teams for the past four many years and have had luminaries such as Frank Viola and Mo Vaughn participate in for them. There is a good deal of spice to this Northeast rivalry.
25. Alabama vs. Auburn
Positive, you assume football when you believe about the rivalry among Alabama and Auburn, but the depth is there when these two groups satisfy, no matter the activity. Furthermore, there is opportunity for this rivalry to go to the up coming stage in the years to come. Auburn has been on the increase for several several years underneath Butch Thompson, highlighted by a journey to the CWS in 2019, and Alabama now has a younger staff that appears to be poised to make a leap quickly.