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Big Games: College Football's Greatest Rivalries
Ahhh, fall. When the air turns crisp and cool, the leaves start turning red and orange and yellow, and a person’s fancy turns to one thing-college football! And there’s not much better in college football than the Big Game, the rivalry that can make or break your season. Your rival is the school where even if you’re 1-10, if that one win is against Them, your season is a success. Big Games celebrates the biggest of the big games in college football and looks inside ten of the greatest rivalries the sport has to offer.
Michael Bradley puts you in the stands to witness the history and the heroes of each rivalry. There are the in-state clashes of Auburn-Alabama, Miami-FSU, and Cal-Stanford; the border wars of Georgia-Florida, Texas-Oklahoma, and Michigan-Ohio State; lower-level but still passion-evoking scraps like Harvard-Yale and Lehigh-Lafayette; and nationwide rivalries like Notre Dame-USC or the service rivalry of Army-Navy. With fans of the schools numbering in the millions nationwide, these tilts are often given national television exposure, lending an even greater air of importance to the events.
Each rivalry gets its own chapter, and Bradley takes an in-depth look at why its participants are rivals and how the rivalry manifests itself each year. In each chapter he gives the history of the rivalry overall; takes a look at the five greatest games and their historical context; presents a feature on a player, coach, or single-season team that stands out; highlights a collection of anecdotes on pranks, family feuds, famous participants, and wild celebrations; singles out heroes from each school and superb individual performances in the rivalry game; and includes a game-by-game list of scores. Big Games brings the traditions, thrills, and passion of gridiron grudge matches to life.
Michael Bradley puts you in the stands to witness the history and the heroes of each rivalry. There are the in-state clashes of Auburn-Alabama, Miami-FSU, and Cal-Stanford; the border wars of Georgia-Florida, Texas-Oklahoma, and Michigan-Ohio State; lower-level but still passion-evoking scraps like Harvard-Yale and Lehigh-Lafayette; and nationwide rivalries like Notre Dame-USC or the service rivalry of Army-Navy. With fans of the schools numbering in the millions nationwide, these tilts are often given national television exposure, lending an even greater air of importance to the events.
Each rivalry gets its own chapter, and Bradley takes an in-depth look at why its participants are rivals and how the rivalry manifests itself each year. In each chapter he gives the history of the rivalry overall; takes a look at the five greatest games and their historical context; presents a feature on a player, coach, or single-season team that stands out; highlights a collection of anecdotes on pranks, family feuds, famous participants, and wild celebrations; singles out heroes from each school and superb individual performances in the rivalry game; and includes a game-by-game list of scores. Big Games brings the traditions, thrills, and passion of gridiron grudge matches to life.
377 pages, Hardcover
First published October 20, 2006
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February 6, 2009
By Bradley's brother. A look at ten different college football 'rivalries.' I did learn stuff, but maybe he should have limited it more. There's a lot of repetition (sorry, but there's really not that much difference between all the rivalries, or the stars and coaches of different schools). Only so many superlatives to go around. Goes pretty fast, because there's a thousand or so games to describe. I skimmed over a lot of it. I know some about, say Army/Navy, Harvard/Yale, and Cal/Stanford, and am not sure he really got the essence of them. But I did learn some history and some details I didn't know before (Yale had six turnovers in that 1968 tie?), and it's pretty much as advertised.
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