Initial reacts to College Football 26, plus CFB’s hardest rivalry to rank

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Today in college football news, this week’s audio fixation is “To Someone Else” by Kacy Hill.

The Video Game: CFB 26 is so real, it hurts

Last night at 1 a.m., my daughter was semi-sarcastically cheering her heart out for a two-star center from Hawaii to finally agree to take his talents to the University of Delaware for the next 10 months or so.

Why was she so invested? Because his name is “Junior Mama.” We simply couldn’t miss on a guy with that name.

And why just 10 months or so? Because on default settings, College Football 26’s transfer portal is absolutely merciless toward small schools — making Dynasty mode feel like a Dark Souls-ass challenge for the first time in series history, pleasing those of us who want roster management to deliver fighting-for-my-life panic sweats. (You can tone down the max number of players who can leave each school per season.)

My other favorite stuff so far in the game that releases on Thursday:

Menu music is vastly improved. Band covers of songs by stars like the late Rich Homie Quan have replaced last year’s eternal drumline gauntlet. Generally, all the new presentation stuff is fantastic.
Road to Glory (the mode where you’re one athlete, not a whole team) is actually fun now, at least once. Central Pennsylvania two-star QB Caleb Jenkins flunked out of Arizona State, then became a model citizen at Marcus Freeman’s (!) Wisconsin. Never was a big fan of this mode, but its new high school recruitment phase provides enough depth.
Having real coaches adds both Ha Ha Jim Mora Finally Made It To Washington comedy and so much more immersion than I’d expected. Hiring current Arizona head coach Brent Brennan as OC wouldn’t dazzle Texas or Ohio State fans, but giving him a landing spot after his 2027 firing felt like a massive windfall for my poor Blue Hens.
My single biggest complaint from last year’s game was its lack of historical record-keeping. It now has an 1869-2024 record book that updates after each of your seasons. (It includes such minutiae as the New Mexico schools splitting 1938’s Border Intercollegiate Athletic Association title. And yes, it was that Woodrow Wilson who coached Princeton’s 1878 title season.)

And the stuff I hope can be fixed, in this life or the next:

In light of how hyper-realistically brutal the portal is, schools should be allowed to add more than 35 players per season, just like real-life 2023 Arizona State, 2024 Louisville, etc. It took me years to get Delaware up to 85 guys on scholarship.
Despite EA saying defensive backs will no longer magically whirl their way to no-look pass breakups, I’ve seen a few.
I’m already over both announcer crews (again), muting them both due to the yelling-at-cloud nagging of David Pollack.
Recruits having dynamically shifting preferences is a good change, but if one writes me off because of my 0-2 start and then comes back around once I’m 4-2, I shouldn’t have to re-offer him a scholarship. Also, yes, by year five of Dynasty, half your roster will once again be old-looking guys with perplexing facial hair and name/ethnicity combos.

Overall, this game made a thousand little improvements, and for now, I’d end this mini-review by giving it a A-. Oh right, that includes the gameplay itself. The actual football parts are noticeably better in just about every way, from having much fuller control over substitutions to RECEIVERS ACTUALLY COMING BACK TO THE BALL 🍾🙌📈. Almost forgot about those parts.

Ranking Rivalries: A simple top five, and then tough calls begin

This week, Scott Dochterman took on the difficult challenge — both in terms of the studying required beforehand and the inevitable internet hollering afterward — of ranking college football’s 100 best rivalries.

I think Scott’s top five is as close to indisputable as can be, with the only potential disputes in this opening cluster being the order of its middle three:

Michigan-Ohio State, the hands-down greatest rivalry in all of American sports
Alabama-Auburn
Oklahoma-Texas
Army-Navy
Notre Dame-USC

It might seem odd to include that No. 5 game among the other no-doubters, considering it’s been mostly skippable for a while now. But the OG interregional rivalry has altered so much CFB lore. On that note: One of the coolest things about Scott’s list is how it mixes history (former Game of the Year machine Nebraska-Oklahoma at No. 6 even though they’ve barely met since 2010) with recency (Alabama-LSU at No. 13 despite that series being nothing special until Nick Saban coached each side).

It’s after that obvious top five when the fun really begins. That’s when all the quibbles happen! Everybody’s gonna have a few!

I’d nominate the Magic City Classic between Alabama A&M and Alabama State for a spot, and I’d move a few — like No. 21 Oregon-Washington and No. 24 Clemson-South Carolina — ahead of the diminished UCLA-USC.
Additionally, I’d move your team’s biggest rivalry up to No. 2, because the rest of the country just doesn’t understand the unique levels of passion that can only be found within the immediate vicinity of you, my favorite reader.

In a followup explainer, Scott addressed both his detailed research process — and the hardest snubs, led by the frequently lopsided Michigan State-Ohio State.

As for the feuds that made the cut, I had one question for him: What was the hardest rivalry to rank?

“No. 25 Bedlam, by far. Oklahoma and Oklahoma State were ranked in 19 of their matchups and three times battled in the top 10. They played for 114 consecutive years. Those numbers are almost identical to Michigan-Michigan State. But Bedlam’s win-loss disparity was shocking. Oklahoma owns a 71-win advantage (91-20-7) and has gone 55-10 when at least one side has been ranked.”

It’s true. For a long time, all Bedlam had to offer as a supposed top-shelf rivalry was a cool name (more on that name below). But then in 2023, the Cowboys won what might be the final edition, so now it’s retroactively a great rivalry. Regardless, here’s Scott’s full list again.

Now it’s your turn. Proclaim your No. 1 rivalry, and list your top 10. Here’s my top 10 as of today — and I think I’m mostly good with this order, too:

Quick Snaps

😡 More rivalry! Chris Vannini explains his 25 picks for the best rivalry names in all of college football.

Chris and I ended up with the same No. 1 and aforementioned No. 2. A few years ago, I semi-ranked 178 of them.

💰 Texas Tech‘s lengthy NIL splurge has gone from fodder for “yeehaw oil money” jokes to “OK, hang on, everybody pay attention to this.”

As Justin Williams notes in that link: “The timing of (five-star OT recruit Felix Ojo)’s decision makes him the highest-profile recruiting commitment of the rev-share era, when the dollar figure attached to him will be coming fully and directly from the university.”

🐏 “Travis Burgess, the 17-year-old son of a retired U.S. Army captain.” As soon as I saw those words in Bruce Feldman’s profile of Bill Belichick‘s QB prospect, I felt pretty good about the young man’s chances.

🍀 Speaking of sons, prepare to feel old: Notre Dame‘s list of a million sons of former players now includes a commitment from three-star WR Devin Fitzgerald, son of Larry. Oh, and there’s more:

“The Irish pulled off a recruiting trick that’s been virtually impossible, taking a Longhorns legacy out of the Lone Star State. Four-star receiver Kaydon Finley’s father, tight end Jermichael Finley, starred in Austin before a six-year career with the Packers.”

🅾️ “Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione will retire this upcoming school year, he announced Monday, ending the longest active tenure for an AD in major college sports. It will also end the run for one of the most successful and respected administrative voices in college sports.”