Thursday’s question of the day: What is the best non-in-state rivalry in college football?

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Reporters from around the Tribune family tackle the question of the day, then you get a chance to chime in and tell them why they are wrong.

Chris Dufresne, Los Angeles Times

For pageantry and turkey legs, there’s nothing like the annual State Fair game between Oklahoma and Texas in Dallas, with carinval barkers, the smell of Cotton Bowl candy in the air and the stadium split down the middle in the colors of the competing teams. For myth and mystery, though, give me USC at Notre Dame in October in South Bend. And don’t be afraid to add some rain. Even though the rivalry has suffered a bit of late with USC’s dominance, and the internet has narrowed the literal and culteral gap between Hollywood and Drizzlyland, the idea of USC-ND does not wane. The series harkens to Knute Rockne and long train rides and later, L.A. Times’ columnist Jim Murray penning poetry in the Irish lilt of the leprechauns. The 2005 game at Notre Dame, the Bush Push classic, in the long shadows and tall grass, consolidated in 60 game minutes what the series, at its best, has meant since Rockne began barnstorming decades ago. The only thing missing at the end was Murray’s column.

Desmond Conner, Hartford Courant
West Virginia has dominated the Big East since 2002, finishing either first or second in the league. But then there’s this little rivalry against league nemesis Pittsburgh.
The 102nd edition of the game, “pitting” teams some 70 miles apart, will be played on Nov. 27.
The Mountaineers don’t roll over the Panthers like they do everyone else in the league. It is a true rivalry where the most dominant team doesn’t always win — evidenced by their 2007 meeting.
All West Virginia had to do was win the game and it would have been playing for the national championship. But a 4-7 Pitt team went into Morgantown and stopped West Virginia 13-9.
Pitt leads the series 61-37-3 and won the game last year, but the teams are 5-5 in their last 10 games. The series is believed to be the first college football broadcast on radio – in 1921. And it just might have the best name of all the rivalries – the Backyard Brawl.

Andrea Adelson, Orlando Sentinel
Texas and Oklahoma will play in a huge game Saturday, but the Red River Rivalry has nothing on Michigan-Ohio State.
The Wolverines might be down. Ohio State might have seven wins in the last eight games meetings. But no college football rivalry is more heated. These two fanbases despise each other – perhaps because their actual states were also once bitter rivals.
You don’t have to take my word for it. In 2000, an ESPN poll rated Michigan-Ohio State as the greatest sports rivalry of all time. Not the greatest college football rivalry. The greatest sports rivalry.
Michigan-Ohio State has no need for monikers, or corporate sponsorships. It shuns neutral sites. Instead, you must go into enemy territory, in front of 90,000-plus roaring fans, to win. On top of all that, most of their games over the last four decades have had Big Ten or national title implications.
You don’t have to know anything about college football to know Michigan and Ohio State hate each other. That right there is the definition of a rivalry.