Rivalry Week is an endurance test. You start out on Thanksgiving, full of food and spirits, watching something chaotic and messy happen in the Egg Bowl. Then, rendered logy from leftovers, you get two mostly full days of plot lines and constant plot twists to track.
There are so many games over this long weekend that are important for different reasons -- College Football Playoff stakes, New Year's Six bowl stakes, conference races, bowl eligibility, just plain old hateful rivalry stuff -- and it's almost impossible to keep up. Allow me to help. Rivalry Week is a smorgasbord, and you've got to have a plan to get through it all. So here are all the different categories of stakes, and the games that matter most in each category.
From the College Football Playoff quest to Group of 5 title races to small-school playoffs, here's what you need to know about 55 different Rivalry Week games. We'll get through all this together. (The food and drink will help.)
Jump to a section:
An epic in Michigan | CFP plot twists
Conference races | New Year's Six races | Bowl eligibility games
For funsies | Best bets | Small school playoffs
