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MV from Fringe Bowl Team wrote a blog post about 10 years ago about how intense college football rivalries are. I'm trying to find it on the wayback machine.

Minnesota's rivalries with Wisconsin, Iowa, and to a lesser extent the U of North Dakota vary greatly depending on what part of the state you're in.

I don't have a lot of heat towards Iowa myself, but it gets very ugly along the I-90 corridor. Many friends of mine grew up in rural southwestern Minnesota, and those that came to Minneapolis for college have a much deeper and more visceral dislike of Iowa than I do. Oddly enough, Iowa State is a popular destination for Twin Cities-area high schoolers for studying engineering.

One reason why there is so much heat towards Wisconsin is reciprocity. Some years ago, the Legislatures of Minnesota and Wisconsin came to an agreement to allow students to attend college in the other state and only pay the in-state rate while doing so. As such, the outstate UW schools (most notably Stout, Eau Claire, and LaCrosse) are very popular destinations for Twin Cities-area students. Likewise, a large fraction of UMN undergrads come from southeast Wisconsin (the Milwaukee burbs, Madison, Green Bay, etc.). They tend to bring their childhood Badger gear with them to college, and then wear it to the Axe game, and elsewhere around campus. Between this and some awful losses to the red weasels during undergrad, this used to make my blood boil. Add in the stupidity from the Brewster-Fat Bret era that has thankfully been dialed down, and I was getting REALLY pissed off losing to Wisconsin.

But then, PJ's Gophers brought the Axe back from Madison in 2018. You have no idea how much bad juju that win resolved on the Minnesota side. 

Since then, between that and my mellowing in my old age, I've gotten a lot more zen about how wins and losses affect me. I still love watching college football, both on TV and in person. I enjoy pregaming. And I am grateful for the friends I've made along the way, including many on this forum.

I have found the blog post in question. 

This was originally posted on the Fringe Bowl Team blog on September 25, 2012. 

It's a curious sort of thing, these college football rivalries.

Perhaps more than any other major American sport, matched in intensity only by Euro League and World Cup level futbol, the passion and unadulterated ire that seeps from the pores of college football fans in the weeks, days and moment of a true rivalry game is what makes the sport so special.

In the NFL, intra-division rivals -no matter how much history of hate is involved- take almost a backseat to reaching the playoffs for most teams and fans. Winning the Super Bowl is every team's goal to begin the season and, as parity and free agency go, is not so ludicrous a premise for even the most forlorn of franchises (OK, except for Cleveland. You guys are forever screwed.) Moreover, if the Vikings were to knock off the Packahs at Lambeau Field early in the season, the Cheeseheads get to mobilize their rage efforts for another go-round later in the year. Splitting a season rivalry is so anticlimatic -- though it's also very NFL in the most derogatory of terms. Redemption and a shot at payback arrive several weeks later; there's simply not enough time to let the fire of a loss burn in the cauldron.
Baseball? Selig's league arguably has only one rivalry of note, and the rest of the non-New York and New England residing population could care less about Yankees-Sox ad nauseam.
Basketball? Rivalries in basketball died back in the 80's, along with calling traveling for taking three steps.
Hockey? Better, still not great, if for no other reason than the NHL authorizes the contractual employment of sociopaths to retaliate against cheap shots to your team's star player(s).
Yet pro sports are missing the critical elements that let any good rivalry develop and stew from the primordial soup: time, and importance.
***
When the Gophers capture Floyd of Rosedale, the Hawkeyes and their fans can neither drape themselves in black and gold to Minnesota's agony nor get a shot at revenge for at least another a year. That's 40-52 weeks to let that ember burn, a boiling anger that spills over and is left to simmer for the better part of 300 days. Each and every day, Kirk Ferentz and his players stare at a glass enclosure where Floyd would rest if they'd have earned him on the field. That absence serves as a painful, heartburn inducing reminder of their collective failure in a game that matters so much to so many.

Likewise, rotating schedules within the Big Ten allow for a scenario like the one in which the Gophers have experienced over the last two years, a multiyear gap between defending Floyd in Iowa City. That only adds to the intensity of Iowa's desire to redeem themselves at home, in front of their fans. It's been three years since the Iowa City faithful have seen their beloved Squawks hoist Floyd at Kinnick, a fact that's not lost on Ferentz, the Iowa players or their fans.

Still, it's not as if the Gophers are going to simply roll over for Herky and their asinine, psychological warfare inspired pink visiting locker room. These Gophers have just as much to prove, and as much at stake, to retain Floyd and notch a victory at Kinnick. Minnesota is out to avenge the previous five iterations of Maroon and Gold warriors who fell short in the Iowa City, and perhaps deal a little retribution right back to the abhorrent and boorish Iowa fanbase who see fit to perform lewd acts in public and treat the Metrodome goalposts as their own totemic symbols of triumph. The former is a thread of tapestry between dueling fanbase banter that keeps the stove burning. The latter serves as a constant motivational tool for Minnesota coaches since 2002 to set the players' hair and souls ablaze with hatred -- not that they needed much coaxing to get into hate week.

See, it matters what happens on the field between true rivals such as Minnesota and Iowa. In a sport where the regular season takes on far more significance than any other, a weekly discriminator between ultimate glory and the throws of lesser fortunes, nothing takes on more importance than beating your bitter rivals. Coaches lose their jobs, despite nominal achievements otherwise, for losing too many of these games. Entire seasons boil down to the result of one game, reducing the weight of everything else that happened in the other 11-13 weeks. Certainly for Minnesota fans, the torturous 2010 campaign was rewarded by the football gods, a devil may care interim head coach and a record setting quarterback looking to top off his sigmoidal career with the one realistic accomplishment he'd yet to achieve. Likewise, a difficult and bruising transition the following year pivoted between utter hopelessness and a crawl towards competency on a recovered onside kick and a suddenly demonstrative quarterback refusing to let his team lose.

That's the beauty of these games. It creates legends and lasting echoes to be remembered long after the final whistle and results are tallied in the league standings. Ten years later, we are still seething with hatred at Iowa's coronation at the Metrodome. My jaw still clenches when I recall the following year, when Glen Mason fielded the best Gopher team in three decades and one of college football's most unstoppable offenses, letting the game slip away as Asad Abdul-Khaliq and Laurence Maroney -two of the best Gophers in a decade- fumbled inside the redzone, in the first half. The Gophers would turn the ball over 5 times that awful November afternoon, including 4 fumbles from a team that had lost only 5 fumbles all season. The very next season, my anger would reach Fukoshima reactor levels as the Gophers nearly overcame another turnover riddled game to steal a victory in the waning seconds against Iowa behind the strong leg of Rhys Lloyd, though a Marion Barber III rush stuffed behind the line of scrimmage pushed the upcoming field goal try beyond 50 yards, and the furious Gopher rally came up short.
It would take Mason until 2006, in his penultimate game as Gophers head coach, to best Ferentz and end a half decade of misery. And yet, that half decade of futility was nothing compared to the ether fire that was the Tim Brewster era, three years of embarrassing failures that accentuated just how overmatched and outclassed the snake oil salesmen was against his Big Ten "peers." The Gophers were outscored 88-16 during this period.

However, from agony comes ecstasy, as Brewster's departure gave way to heroics from Jeff Horton, Adam Weber and a burgeoning Hawkeye killer: MarQueis Gray. There was Horton's YOLO style predetermined move to kick the onside after the Gophers' first possession. Weber's unbelievable pitch and catch to Da'John McKnight for 40 yards that the Dallas native plucked an inch off the frozen TCF Bank Stadium turf, followed by even more YOLO for Horton with a halfback pass from Duane Bennett back to Weber with Iowa's star defensive end Adrian Clayborn barreling down. Then, Gray uncurled "The Run," by far the hardest, iron willed yards MarQueis has gained to date as a Gopher, tackle breaking and spinning for six yards. Bennett finished off the drive with a 6 yard touchdown stake through the heart of the Iowa defense a play later, though it was one generation of Gopher signal caller (Weber) passing the torch on to another (Gray) that captured the narrative on the day. Of course, Troy Stoudermire would save one last bit of magic to cap the moment, a fitting end to an improbable story of resolve and refusal of a 4 year starter to end his career without a single trophy game win. For their gratitude, the student section showered Weber and the Gophers with praise at midfield.

Of course, Gray's work as Minnesota's newest Hawkeye slayer wasn't done. A year later, in Jerry Kill's inaugural season in Minneapolis, the freshly demonstrative Gray led the Gophers, down 11 in the fourth quarter, marched down the field for a quick score with eight minutes left. Then, this happened -- a perfectly orchestrated sequence between Jordan Wettstein, Lamonte Edwards and Kim Royston to give the Gophers another shot. Destined to top himself from the previous acts of football heroism, Q pulled down the best 3rd yard touchdown run of his career -- a marvelous and exhilarating run in which everything just worked, from Bennett's block that took out both a linebacker and a safety, to Brandon Green's slant route that pulled the Iowa corner inside just enough to allow Q to race towards the pylon. 
It was precisely that moment when the team, begrudgingly tolerant of an interloper from DeKalb up until then, began to believe in their head coach -- and likewise, believe in themselves. Kill referred to the win in the locker room afterwards as the most proud he's been of a team in his 29 years of coaching, and a pivotable turning point for the program. He was right, as the team left behind the woes of 2011 and 2010 and has been steadily improving every game since, notching 5 straight wins from Illinois to Syracuse.

And it circles back to keeping Floyd, the task at hand for this week, another patch in the ever growing tapestry of hatred that blankets Minnesota and Iowa football every fall. The crochets of this doily has been spun since 1891, though the threads really started to needle both sides when Bernie Bierman requested police assistance after Iowa's Governor Clyde Herring got involved, making not so subtle threats to the Minnesota players about perceived racist barbarism toward Iowa running back Ozzie Simmons. [The irony of this allegation in the prism of history is just lucid. Minnesota, of course, would field one of the first black starting quarterbacks in college football 26 years later when the Southern universities were still segregated, with Murray Warmath long holding the reputation for welcoming African-Americans on his team with equality. That QB, Sandy Stephens, led the Gophers to a national championship in 1960 and was a unanimous All-American -- the first Black QB to earn such a distinction. Leave it to Hawkeye hooligans to resort to vigilantism when they not only get their asses kicked on the field (Minnesota beat Iowa 48-12 in 1934) but their ridiculous charges of racism are thwarted.] To combat the silliness spun from lunatic Hawkeye fans (they haven't changed much in 80 years), Minnesota Governor Floyd Olson used charm, wit and a friendly wager via telegram to quell the brewing bloodlust:

Quote

Dear Clyde, Minnesota folks excited over your statement about the Iowa crowd lynching the Minnesota football team. I have assured them that you are a law-abiding gentleman and are only trying to get our goat. The Minnesota team will tackle clean, but, oh! how hard, Clyde. If you seriously think Iowa has any chance to win, I will bet you a Minnesota prize hog against an Iowa prize hog that Minnesota wins today. The loser must deliver the hog in person to the winner. Accept my bet thru a reporter. You are getting odds because Minnesota raises better hogs than Iowa. My best personal regards and condolences.
Floyd B. Olson Governor of Minnesota

If that's not an iron fist in a velvet glove, I don't know what is. The Gophers did indeed tackle Iowa clean and hard, as the Hawkeyes lost 13-6, just as they would lose each of the next four years at the hands of Bierman's Minnesota championship dynasty, just as Iowa would go on to lose 14 out of the next 20 years.

As it turns out, the racist allegations against Minnesota by the Hawkeyes were better directed at their own players and coaches, given the rumors of non-inclusion and lack of proper blocking (intentionally) by Simmons' white teammates.

We've certainly come along way as a rivalry between Minnesota and Iowa where we no longer have an undertone of racism and buffoonish politicians threatening mob violence against college students. While the games have moved towards more civility, the ever burning thread of gridiron hatred interwoven throughout this series remains. Rather than take to lynch mobs at Kinnick, fans on both sides will trade barbs over Twitter and the blogosphere. A lot has changed since 1934, though  some things still spin as true as they did back in the FDR era. Generations of Minnesotans and Iowans will care deeply about the result of this game, with one side earning bragging rights for a full year, the other a cycle of misery and both factions talking about the events of the contest years afterward. Someone on either squad will step up to make himself go down in the lore of the series etched on the side of a bronzed pig, both revered and cursed upon one's perspective. 

And that's what happens when you spin importance of an outcome and time needed to thread again into the living fabric of an old rivalry. 

Kettle Moraine HS and West Allis Hale HS.   Wrong sport?  Those were my personal rivals in football.

I think Fearless is right.  Nebraska finds themselves in a very ambiguous time in the rivalry continuum.  Signs point to it needing to be Iowa, especially around I-29 but Nebraska has to compete.

Nebraska OU was diminished and then cashed out.  As a non Nebraska native I can say this, most Nebraskans simply ignored KU, Mizzou and CU, though a decent window of years CU filled the void of OU.  Miami and FSU got their attention more than anybody else once OU faded.

Honestly, Nebraska's best rivalry is with Penn St especially in volleyball and I think they have a lot in common in football, though it may not be very evident. 

3 different ones in 3 different ways:
1 - FSU - hate them, want them to lose every game.  I want their girlfriends to cheat on them, their houses to burn, and their plane to crash.
No, that's not okay.  No, I'm not kidding.
2 - Tennessee - I just love clowning on these guys.  It used to be because they were elite and we'd beat them every year, but now it's the fact we physically don't know how to lose to them.  It's hilarious.  Our QB gets hurt on the 2nd play of the game?  The backup wins.  4th and 14?  Long TD pass.  Tied in the last 10 seconds?  Hail Mary answered.  It's a joke.  
3 - Georgia - well they've finally won another NC, lol.....they were our bitch in the 90s, but things have evened out since then.  The novelty of the game in Jax is a cool dynamic.  They are the older fans' most hated rival.  
I hate them, but at least they matter and can put up a fight.  Kind of replaced FSU in that respect.  

One reason why there is so much heat towards Wisconsin is reciprocity. Some years ago, the Legislatures of Minnesota and Wisconsin came to an agreement to allow students to attend college in the other state and only pay the in-state rate while doing so. As such, the outstate UW schools (most notably Stout, Eau Claire, and LaCrosse) are very popular destinations for Twin Cities-area students. Likewise, a large fraction of UMN undergrads come from southeast Wisconsin (the Milwaukee burbs, Madison, Green Bay, etc.). They tend to bring their childhood Badger gear with them to college, and then wear it to the Axe game, and elsewhere around campus. Between this and some awful losses to the red weasels during undergrad, this used to make my blood boil. Add in the stupidity from the Brewster-Fat Bret era that has thankfully been dialed down, and I was getting REALLY pissed off losing to Wisconsin.

That was done at the time Wisconsin didn't have a vet school and Minnie didn't have something UW did.

But, for me, VT is a bigger rivalry from a personal standpoint.  I live in the southern part of the state.

I can relate.  If you ask most Iowa fans who it's main rivals are,  they will tell you Minn, Wisc, Neb and Iowa State.

BUT I grew up in southeast Iowa.  I grew up hating Illinois.  Before the internet and cable tv,  the only way to get the scores from that day's games was watching the local news at 10pm.  And we got our local news from Quincy Illinois.  So they always gave the Illinois score first,  then eventually the Iowa scores.  I hated Illinois, but ironically, now live in the Chicago suburbs.

3 different ones in 3 different ways:
1 - FSU - hate them, want them to lose every game.  I want their girlfriends to cheat on them, their houses to burn, and their plane to crash.
No, that's not okay.  No, I'm not kidding.

Get that dosage adjusted and put away the Ouija Board