College Football: 5 best small-school rivalries of all time

College football small-school rivalry No. 5: Lehigh vs Lafayette

This FCS battle of Patriot League rivals is simply known as “The Rivalry.” It’s famous for being the most played college football game and the game played with the fewest interruptions.

In fact, this game was played every year from 1897 until 2020, when the game was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to that, the only interruption in the rivalry took place in 1896 as the two programs met even during the Second World War.

Uniquely, the game was often played twice, which is another reason it’s the most-played rivalry game in college football history. It’s also so old that the winner doesn’t even get a trophy. The winning team simply keeps the game ball.

Of course, it’s probably a little more complicated than that, since there is more than one game ball used nowadays and teams generally use their own, as well as multiple footballs per game.

Still, you have to love the idea of the score being written on a football and that being taken home as a trophy for the winning school. The series may also hold the record for longest play as Lehigh halfback Raymond B. “Snooks” Dowd reportedly scored a 115-yard touchdown in 1918. Dowd later became a major league baseball player.

Apparently, Dowd ran the wrong direction, circled his own goalposts (which were actually IN the end zone at that time), and then ran the other direction for a touchdown.

However, Lafayette has had some memorable plays too, such as a game-winning touchdown pass on 4th-and-10 by Pat Davis to give the Leopards a 23-19 comeback win in 2005, as well as the second Patriot League title in three years.

The 150th meeting (and first neutral-site game) between the two teams was back in 2014 at Yankee Stadium and in a ranking by ESPNU, it was No. 8 in College Football rivalries.