6 new college football rivalries we can look forward to thanks to conference realignment

For more Rivalry Week content, check out FanSided's Ultimate Guide to College Football Rivalries, an in-depth and interactive look at the deep traditions, rich history, iconic venues and memorable moments of college football's biggest rivalries.

Conference realignment has turned college football upside down in the past decade. Texas and Oklahoma are in the SEC. The Big Ten stretches from New Jersey to Los Angeles. Stanford-Louisville is now an ACC game, for crying out loud. And amid all that change, plenty of history and heritage has been lost — long-standing rivalries like the Bedlam game between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, the Civil War between Oregon and Oregon State and plenty more are now in serious jeopardy, especially as programs prioritize the new 12-team College Football Playoff.

Which really, really sucks. College football is defined by its traditions, passed down from one generation of fans to the next, and a century of history shouldn't be tossed aside in the name of fatter TV contracts.

But while we mourn the rivalries we may be losing, we can also get excited about some new matchups to come. Conference realignment has created some interesting bedfellows, and some of those bedfellows are going to realize very quickly that they really don't like each other. Here are six matchups we can't wait to see blossom into full-blown rivalries moving forward.

6. Washington State-Boise State

Don't sleep on this one. The two things that any rivalry needs to get off the ground are 1. Stakes and 2. Familiarity, and this game figures to check both boxes in the coming years.

First, the familiarity: The University of Idaho may be Washington State's traditional cross-border rival, but Pullman and Boise are separated by under 300 miles, and there's no love lost between Idaho and western Washington. Second, the stakes: It remains to be seen how future College Football Playoff formats will handle the new-look Pac-12, but an automatic bid for the fifth-highest-ranked conference champion changes the calculus considerably. And with the Broncos joining the Cougars as conference-mates starting in 2026, that conference title figures to run through this game.

5. Cincinnati-West Virginia

This is the renewal of an old rivalry, one that in football dates back over a century. These two schools spent a lot of time together in the old Big East, and now that they're reunited in the new Big 12, expect things to get chippy in the very near future — even the schools themselves are calling this a "natural rivalry".

West Virginia had been a bit adrift geographically after jumping to the Big 12. With the Bearcats on board, though, they now have another school in close proximity, and it just so happens to be one that they're intimately familiar with across both football and basketball. The two teams had some epic battles on the gridiron in the late 2000s, and West Virginia broke Bearcat hearts by knocking off one of Bob Huggins' best Cincinnati teams on a game-winning three in the second round of the 1998 NCAA Tournament.

In an era in which regionality seems to mean less and less across college sports, Cincinnati and West Virginia feel spiritually linked, and the fact that they're battling for limited space in the Big 12 pecking order will only help pour fuel onto this fire.

4. Utah-TCU

It wasn't so long ago that this was among the most underrated rivalries in the country — just in the Mountain West, rather than the Big 12. From 2005 to 2008, these two schools waged absolute war against each other, as Gary Patterson and Kyle Whittingham vied for the title of the country's best G5 program. Utah very nearly spoiled a dream season for the Horned Frogs in 2005, and TCU repaid the favor in 2008, coming within a field goal of ruining the Utes' undefeated run.

We've come a long way since then. Sonny Dykes has taken over for Patterson in Fort Worth, for starters, and both teams have taken a bit of a tumble in 2024. But the new Big 12 is wide, wide open, and Utah and TCU are as well-positioned as anyone to climb to the top of the conference's pecking order. This isn't a rivalry of geographic convenience, but just ask any fan who lived through those 2000s battles what they think of each other.

3. Oklahoma-Missouri

This one is another revivalry, dating all the way back to 1902. These two teams have played nearly 100 times in all, with the winner taking home the Tiger-Sooner Peace Pipe (a tradition that began after a Missouri alum donated an Indiana peace pipe to serve as a traveling trophy back in 1940, with the winner of each game inscribed on its sides).

It got left on the back burner when the Tigers bolted to the SEC; the teams didn't play between 2011 and 2024. But if you want to know whether each fan base still remembers those old Big 8 and Big 12 battles, just listen to the reaction after Missouri scooped and scored a game-winning TD against the Sooners earlier this month. (Or just ask any Tigers fan where they were when Oklahoma dashed Mizzou's national title hopes in the 2007 Big 12 Championship Game.) This was always meant to be a rivalry, and now it can finally flourish again.

2. Texas-Georgia

You could choose Texas and any number of traditional SEC schools, really; LSU has the geographic advantage, while Arkansas has hated the Horns dating back to their days in the Southwest Conference. But for my money, Georgia feels like the best and most compelling bet. The foundation was laid before these two programs even shared a conference, when Bevo took a shot at Uga and Texas QB Sam Ehlinger declared the Longhorns definitively back after beating the Dawgs in the Sugar Bowl. (Ehlinger may have jumped the gun by a couple years there.)

And now it figures to get really kicked into gear. Georgia humbled the Longhorns in Austin earlier this year, and that's going to be just the first of many matchups that will decide conference and national titles in the year to come. These are two blueblood programs that don't take kindly to getting knocked down a peg, and it won't take long for tempers to start flaring.

1. Oregon-Ohio State

Nothing will ever measure up to Ohio State-Michigan. But especially with the Wolverines floundering a bit post-Jim Harbaugh, there's room on the Buckeyes' dance card for another rival, while Oregon seems to have more or less left Oregon State in the dust.

These are the two clear best programs in the Big Ten right now, and two of the very best in the country. They compete on the recruiting trail already, and now we get to see them compete on the gridiron — and if the 2024 edition is any indication, we're really in for a treat. In this era of 18-team megaconferences, it remains to be seen just how frequently the Ducks and Buckeyes will actually play each other. But they could meet in Indianapolis on a regular basis, and something about seeing those two helmets on the same field brings a classic Rose Bowl vibe even in the regular season.

Oregon is desperate to prove that it runs its new conference, and Ohio State doesn't take kindly to West Coast interlopers. This one is a culture war as much as it's a football game, and it figures to only get saltier with time.