The best rivalries in the Group of 6 — and the ones that should be

It started with a 6-11 center from South Georgia Tech.

Matt Mbole picked UAB over Memphis last Sunday, and then he told the Birmingham Banner's Steve Irvine why — publicly, pointedly and without much concern for Memphis' feelings. Memphis assistant Trevor DeLoach fired back on X. UAB assistant Jesse Bopp responded. Then Andy Kennedy dropped the hammer: "Buying vs Developing. #ExceedingExpectations." It drew 73,800 views. Coaches, fans, highlight reels and subtweets — all of it playing out in about 18 hours over a JUCO big man.

It was the best content the American Conference has produced all spring. It was also a reminder that the Group of 6 is starving for this kind of heat.

The G6 just came through the most chaotic period of conference realignment in college sports history. Schools scattered. Conferences got gutted. Rivalries that took decades to build died overnight. The dust is only now starting to settle — Louisiana Tech joins the Sun Belt this July, the rebuilt Pac-12 launches with eight members, Conference USA has a completely different roster than it did three years ago. So now what? What are the best rivalries in the Group of 6? Which ones should exist but don't? Which ones did realignment kill? And does the G6 have enough hate to sustain the ones it has left?

We started with UAB and Memphis. We ended up somewhere bigger.

The DNA

The Mbole beef didn't happen in a vacuum.

UAB and Memphis meet every year in the Battle for the Bones, a football series the Blazers lead 11-7 — including an upset of undefeated Memphis last October on a goal-line stand that spoiled the Tigers' playoff hopes. In basketball, Memphis leads 44-13 all-time. Nobody has beaten UAB more than Memphis, by a wide margin. In 2024-25, the Dain Dainja-Yaxel Lendeborg feud spilled from the court to social media across three Memphis wins. In March 2024, Kennedy got ejected during a 20-0 Memphis run in a 22-point comeback.

The beef runs in both directions, in both sports and now on the recruiting trail.

And the shared history goes deeper than most people realize. Gene Bartow led Memphis State to the 1973 national championship game — the greatest season in program history at the time — with Larry Finch as his star. Bartow replaced John Wooden at UCLA, then walked away from Westwood to build UAB from scratch. Finch became Bartow's assistant at UAB, then went back to Memphis as head coach. The arena UAB is spending $15.4 million to renovate this month? Named after Bartow.

Now look at the sidelines. Penny Hardaway played for Finch at Memphis in the early 90s. Kennedy played for Bartow at UAB around the same time — he's the program's second all-time leading scorer. Both became legends at their schools. Both came back to coach them. Two 90s-era icons from the same coaching tree, fighting over the same recruits in the same conference.

Memphis fans don't want this to be a rivalry. They see Louisville and Cincinnati — programs that left for power conferences — as their natural peers. UAB fans want it badly. Kennedy is forcing the issue. But whether Memphis fans like it or not, there's too much shared DNA for this to be anything else — as long as both programs do their part. Both have to win at the same time. They need to meet in February with the conference title on the line. They need to collide in the conference tournament final. Bragging rights keep a rivalry warm. Championship stakes make it real.

UAB-Memphis has the ingredients. The question is whether the G6 has many more like it.

RELATED: UAB fan brings new fire to Bones rivalry

No. 1 is obvious

Army-Navy. It has its own CBS television deal — a 10-year extension through 2038. The President of the United States signed an executive order trying to give it an exclusive broadcast window. The entire country watches, and nobody watching is thinking about conference affiliation.

Army-Navy is the ceiling. It transcends the G6, transcends the sport's tier, transcends everything. The G6 needs Army-Navy more than Army-Navy needs the G6.

The real question is: What's No. 2? Most people would struggle to answer that quickly. That gap between Army-Navy and whatever comes next tells you a lot about the state of G6 rivalries.

(Also, Army and Navy can't actually hate each other. They might need to share a foxhole someday. It's the most wholesome reason a rivalry has ever lacked venom.)

The survivors

The MAC might quietly have the best rivalry portfolio in the Group of 6, for one simple reason: nobody raided the schools that matter.

Sure, Northern Illinois is leaving for the Mountain West this summer. Marshall, Temple and others used the MAC as a parking spot before moving on to bigger conferences. But those were transient members, not the core. The Toledos, Bowling Greens, Miamis, Ohios, Kent States, Akrons — the midwestern schools that are synonymous with the MAC — nobody has touched them. Nobody wants to. And that's exactly why their rivalries are still intact.

Toledo-Bowling Green (Battle of I-75) has been played since 1919. The schools sit 25 miles apart on the same interstate. They've had a trophy game for decades — first the Peace Pipe, retired out of respect for Native American communities, then a 40-pound bronze and granite trophy designed by the same artist who created the Biletnikoff Award. The game has survived for over a century because both schools stayed put.

Ohio-Miami (Battle of the Bricks) is another. Named for the brick architecture on both campuses, it's been played over 100 times. Miami went 30-0 in basketball last season — 17-0 in the MAC — and the Battle of the Bricks finale was nationally televised on ESPNU. Miami cancelled its Victory Bell rivalry with Cincinnati after the Bearcats left for the Big 12. The Battle of the Bricks is what's left, and it matters more because of it.

The MAC will survive the apocalypse. Not because it's powerful. Because it's comfortable being exactly what it is.

The conferences that climbed — the old Big East, the American trying to be a power league, Conference USA jostling for position — got gutted. The MAC never tried to be something it wasn't. These are smaller regional universities, and for the most part, they're comfortable with that. A MAC school wants to win the MAC. A program like Memphis or Boise State wants to prove it belongs somewhere else.

When your ambition is to leave, you're not investing in the rivalries where you are. You're looking over your shoulder at the next conference up.

The ones that work

App State-Georgia Southern: Deeper Than Hate. That's not just a rivalry name — it's earned. These two combined for nine FCS national championships before moving to FBS together in 2014. They played twice in 2025 — Georgia Southern won both, including a 29-10 beatdown in the Birmingham Bowl. The series is 21-19-1 all-time. Geography, history, genuine resentment. The total package.

Boise State-Fresno State: The Milk Can. Decades of WAC and Mountain West history, now both moving to the rebuilt Pac-12 this July. Boise State spent 15 years as the "too good for this conference" program. Fresno State never agreed. Fresno has won three straight, even as Boise won three consecutive Mountain West titles. The rivalry survives the conference move — and it might matter more now that they're trying to legitimize a new league together.

UNLV-Nevada: The Fremont Cannon. In-state, Las Vegas vs. Reno, same university system, two cities that genuinely don't like each other. The cannon gets painted in the winning team's colors. And unlike most G6 football rivalries, this one carries real weight in basketball too. UNLV has one of the most storied programs in G6 history — Tarkanian, the 1990 national title, just six losing seasons ever. Nevada has had its own runs. The in-state basketball games have heat. This might be the most complete G6 rivalry outside Army-Navy — real venom in both sports.

WKU-Middle Tennessee: 100 Miles of Hate. Played since 1914. Over 250 all-time meetings across all sports. The name tells you everything. WKU has won seven straight in football, but the basketball games stay tight — an 82-80 WKU win in February kept it interesting. These are two programs that aren't going anywhere, play each other every year and genuinely don't like each other.

The broken ones

Realignment is a rivalry killer.

Southern Miss is the poster child. The Golden Eagles had real, bruising rivalries with UAB, Memphis and Tulane — all forged in Conference USA. Realignment scattered all four. Southern Miss is in the Sun Belt. UAB, Memphis and Tulane are in the American. That's three rivalries one program lost because conferences couldn't stop rearranging the furniture.

UCF-USF (War on I-4) should be the signature G6 rivalry outside of Army-Navy. Same state. Same metro area. Same interstate. Real hatred. It peaked when both programs were ranked. Then UCF left for the Big 12, and the football game hasn't been played since 2022. No game is scheduled through at least 2030. They still play in baseball and soccer. But the marquee game is dead, and there's no indication it's coming back.

Memphis-Cincinnati had genuine heat in Conference USA and the early AAC years. Cincinnati left for the Big 12. The dynamic died the minute one program "moved up."

That's the pattern. The best G6 rivalries keep getting raided. Houston-SMU. UCF-USF. Cincinnati-Memphis. Louisville-Memphis. Utah-BYU. Every time a program climbs to a power conference, it leaves a dead rivalry behind. The games that built those programs into something worth poaching are the first casualties of the poaching.

The avoided ones

Some rivalries don't need to be built. They just need to be scheduled.

Troy-Jacksonville State played 64 times dating back to 1924 — decades of Gulf South Conference battles in Division II. They have a trophy, the Ol' School Bell. They share a state. They should be playing every year.

They're not. They didn't play each other for 24 years — from 2001 to December 2025, when they finally met at a bowl game in Montgomery. Jax State won 17-13 and reclaimed the Bell for the first time since 1990.

It shouldn't take a bowl game to get these two on the field. But Troy is in the Sun Belt and Jacksonville State is in Conference USA. Different conferences, different schedules, no annual game. Fans on both sides want it back. The schools just haven't made it happen.

Louisiana Tech spent decades conference-hopping to avoid being grouped with Louisiana-Lafayette and Louisiana-Monroe. Sun Belt, WAC, Conference USA — anywhere those two weren't. That changes this July, when La Tech officially joins the Sun Belt. For the first time, all three Louisiana schools will be in the same conference. Whether they embrace it or resent it remains to be seen. But the games are coming whether they want them or not.

The forced ones

Some rivalries aren't born from history or hatred. They're born from circumstance.

Oregon State-Washington State played each other twice in 2025 — because there was literally no one else. When the Pac-12 collapsed, every other member left. Oregon State and Washington State were the two programs nobody wanted. They spent two years as the "Pac-2," operating under an NCAA grace period while scrambling to rebuild the conference.

In the old Pac-12, this game was four or five rivalry slots down on both teams' schedules. Behind Washington, Oregon, USC, maybe Stanford or Cal depending on the era. Nobody circled it. Now it's the biggest game on both schedules by default — two programs that got left behind together, rebuilt a conference together and need each other to validate that what they built matters. Shared trauma is a hell of a rivalry origin story.

And then there's the cautionary tale. In 2015, UConn head coach Bob Diaco decided the Huskies needed a rival. He picked UCF — without telling UCF. He commissioned a trophy, named it "The Civil ConFLiCT" (capital FL for Florida, capital CT for Connecticut) and unveiled it on UConn's Twitter account with a countdown clock to the next game.

UCF's response: "We have no involvement with the trophy or creating a rivalry game with UConn."

Diaco's response to that: "They don't get to say whether they are our rival or not. That is for us to decide."

A year later, UCF won and left the trophy on the field. Nobody picked it up. The trophy vanished — ESPN literally wrote an investigative piece trying to find it. Diaco got fired at 11-26. When asked years later about the trophy's whereabouts, he said: "I've eliminated it from my mind. I put the experience in a chest, locked it, dumped it into the ocean and I threw away the key."

You can't force a rivalry into existence. But you also can't build one if one side refuses to show up.

The hate deficit

Here's the uncomfortable truth about G6 rivalries: the hate is mostly gone.

In the Power 4, both sides lean in. Alabama-Auburn, Ohio State-Michigan, Duke-UNC — nobody pretends they're above it. Both fan bases show up ready to fight because acknowledging the rivalry doesn't diminish either program. The hate is the product.

In the G6, one side almost always has a superiority complex. Memphis won't fully engage with UAB because that means admitting UAB is a peer. UCF refused to touch the Civil ConFLiCT trophy because engaging with UConn meant acknowledging they were on the same level. The reluctant dance partner isn't just avoiding the rivalry — they're protecting their self-image. Participation equals acknowledgment, and acknowledgment equals equality.

So the programs that could generate real hate are the exact ones that refuse to engage. And the ones that want the hate can't create it alone. Kennedy can tweet "Buying vs Developing" all day. If Penny never responds, it stays one-sided.

There's another layer too. Think about how few G6 rivalries carry real heat in both football and men's basketball. The nastiest basketball rivalries in the mid-major world — Gonzaga-Saint Mary's, the Philly Big 5, Dayton-Xavier, VCU-Richmond — don't involve FBS football schools. Those programs built basketball rivalries because basketball is all they have. The G6 schools that play FBS football mostly care about football. Basketball is secondary, and the hoops rivalries reflect it.

UNLV-Nevada has heat in both sports. WKU-MTSU spans all sports. UAB-Memphis is building toward it. Ohio-Miami has moments. After that, the list gets thin fast. The year-round, multi-sport venom that defines a Power 4 rivalry barely exists in the Group of 6.

Why it matters

The G6 has a product problem, and rivalries are the fix.

Conferences are just logos and TV deals. Rivalries are what fans actually care about. The American means nothing to a casual fan. UAB-Memphis means something. The Sun Belt is a brand name. App State-Georgia Southern is a reason to watch. The Milk Can, the Battle for the Bones, 100 Miles of Hate, Deeper Than Hate, the Fremont Cannon — those are what give the G6 its flavor.

The migration period is winding down. The conferences are mostly set. Now the G6 has to build with what it has. That means leaning into the rivalries that exist, scheduling the ones that should (Troy and Jacksonville State, come on), letting the new ones develop (the Louisiana triangle, Oregon State-Washington State) and — this is the hard part — both sides showing up. Memphis pretending UAB isn't a rival doesn't help Memphis. It hurts the conference. It hurts the product. Kennedy is doing the American Conference a favor by starting beef. The whole ecosystem benefits when the games have heat.

The G6 needs UAB-Memphis. It needs more like it. It needs programs that are willing to engage, to talk trash, to compete for recruits and championships in the same conference and embrace the fact that the rivalry IS the product.

You need stakes to make a rivalry matter. But you need stability to make it last. The G6 finally has a window of stability after years of chaos. The conferences are set. The rosters are filling out. The question is whether the schools will use it — and how long it will last.

The "Buying vs Developing" tweet drew 73,800 views. The American Conference should be thanking Andy Kennedy, not hoping the whole thing blows over.

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