We Owe You Won: The 10 Best Revenge Games in College Football History

This weekend has rightly been dubbed revenge weekend for fans and followers of college football.

Tennessee looks to defend the fighting words of its coach, while Florida looks to avenge them. Texas faces the team that likely knocked them out of contention for the national championship last year. Kentucky and Louisville take their age-old rivalry to the gridiron.

Though the matchups are new, the concept remains as old as the sport itself.

Following up on my Twenty Best of the NFL, I'd like to take a look at what I consider some of the best revenge games in college football history.

These may not have made your list, so feel free to argue away in the comments.

1. A Gator Never Forgets

Unfortunately for Tennessee, Urban Meyer is no stranger to revenge games.

When Mark Richt encouraged his Bulldogs to celebrate on the field after their first touchdown against the Gators in 2007, he says he didn't foresee his entire bench clearing to make way for the end zone.

He also must not have had a clear idea of what kind of coach Urban Meyer is.

The answer? Vindictive. The Bulldogs won that game in Jacksonville, but the next year, despite guarantees that the Gators were not motivated by revenge, Meyer's team overwhelmed the Bulldogs, 49-10.

More importantly, Meyer called two timeouts in the fourth quarter just to prolong the game. As the Bulldogs watched their preseason dreams of an SEC title shot die on the field, Meyer quietly celebrated.

Every college football team takes on the character of its coach. Heads up, Vols.

2. 1969, The Beginning of the Ten-Year War

In 1968, the Michigan Wolverines had lost the most lopsided game in the history of the storied rivalry, the last of coach Bump Elliott's tenure. Buckeye coach Woody Hayes had even called for a two-point conversion after a touchdown to run up the score. When asked why he went for two, Hayes famously replied, "Because I couldn't go for three."

Bo Schembechler, hired out of Miami of Ohio to be Michigan's head coach, avenged the Wolverines' 1968 defeat by beating the No. 1-ranked Buckeyes in Ann Arbor, 24-12, in possibly the biggest upset by the Wolverine program in its long history.

Schembechler's past with Hayes—he'd been an assistant under the Buckeye coach before leaving to join Hayes' most reviled team—sparked the "Ten-Year War" between the coach and his pupil. The two would nearly split the series, 5-4-1 in favor of Schembechler, before Hayes' unfortunate firing in 1978.

3. The Crescendo of the Border War

Kansas and Missouri face off every year for bragging rights in the Border War, technically the oldest rivalry in sports, since it originated in bloody border skirmishes during the Civil War.

But no meeting between the two Plains powerhouses held more national relevance than the 2007 game, the final matchup of the regular season. The Kansas Jayhawks faced the Missouri Tigers for a berth in the Big 12 Championship game as the North's representative, with the game played at the Chiefs' stadium in Kansas City.

The criticism was that Kansas' schedule had been super-soft, while Missouri had faced the Fighting Illini, eventual Rose Bowl contenders, and Texas Tech, boasting the conference's best receiver in Michael Crabtree. Missouri was ranked below Kansas, who at that time had been ranked No. 2 in the country, because of a loss to the Oklahoma Sooners.

Missouri avenged the slight in rankings, leading the entire game and holding off a late Kansas surge as Jayhawks quarterback Todd Reesing was sacked in the end zone to put the Tigers up 36-28, the game's final score.

However, Missouri would go on to lose to Oklahoma again in the Big 12 championship game and get snubbed by the BCS. Meanwhile, it was the Jayhawks who received the at-large bid to play in the Orange Bowl, defeating the Virginia Tech Hokies, 24-21.

Thus, the bad blood continues this year, when Kansas and Missouri face each other in the last game of the season on Nov. 28.

4. The Irish, Spartans Avenge a Tie Game from the Past

I've had older sports fans tell me they stopped watching college football in 1966. That's the year Notre Dame coach Ari Parseghian ran out the clock on a 10-10 tie against the Michigan State Spartans with two minutes to go instead of trying for the win.

Going into that game, the Irish and MSU were both nationally ranked at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively; Notre Dame would win the national championship that year, benefiting from the tie and beating USC the following week, 51-0, to finish at 9-0-1.

Forty years later, the two teams would meet and commemorate the fateful game; the Spartans wore throwback jerseys, and many of the game's original participants were in attendance.

The Spartans played well and were set to avenge the tie, leading Charlie Weis's Irish team by 16 points going into the fourth quarter. Windy conditions and rain had prevented Notre Dame's passing attack from maintaining consistency throughout the game.

Instead, the Spartans gave up 22 straight points, the largest deficit overcome in Spartan Stadium, as Brady Quinn's passing came alive in the fourth quarter.

The Spartans have won the last few meetings, but the Irish look to run up the score this Saturday. Don't be surprised if the two rivals play each other close.

5. Spurrier Tops the Seminoles on His Second Try

Steve Spurrier's 1996 Florida Gator team, led by Heisman-winning quarterback Danny Wuerffel, was almost perfect.

Their only loss was to their hated rivals, the Florida State Seminoles, coached by Bobby Bowden. During the regular season, the hard-fought game ended 24-21 in Tallahassee's favor.

Florida would still go on to win the SEC title and a bid to the Sugar Bowl, where they would face...Bobby Bowden's Florida State Seminoles.

Their revenge was sweet, and barely close. The Gators blew it up in the second half, going up by 28 on their in-state rivals, who had no answer for Spurrier's offensive play calling. Wuerffel found Ike Hilliard four times in the end zone, the score wound up a lopsided 52-20, and the Gators were crowned National Champions.

6. Vince Young Begs to Differ on Your Choice for Heisman

In hindsight, it's easy to see how Heisman voters might have been deluded by the glamor, but during the 2005 Heisman race, they were giving USC some real love.

Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart were electrifying the country in offensive output, and the USC "Team of the Century" of the year was winning by double-digit margins over every poor squad they faced.

They beat Notre Dame when that still meant something.

Of course, it wasn't like Vince Young was flying under the radar. His breakout performance in the 2005 Rose Bowl had many believing (correctly) that superior athleticism and escapability were the future of the college quarterback.

But in the final vote, it would be Bush who took home the stiff-armed man, beating Vince by 900 votes. Vince, then, would have to be the one to score the revenge when his Longhorns met the Trojans in the Rose Bowl to decide the 2005-06 National Champion.

In possibly the greatest championship game in the BCS area, Young's ability to overwhelm the USC defense both with his legs and with a stellar passing game kept the game close. It took the (probably) longest play in history in Pete Carroll's mind to ice the game for good.

The image of Young striding, untouched, into the end zone will be etched forever into any college fan's mind.

Or, at least for longer than any of Reggie Bush's runs.

7. Revenge of the Mid-Major Conference

Prior to 2009, there were no guarantees that a mid-major team would even be in consideration for a BCS game, undefeated or no. The kerfuffle over Utah in 2004 had subsided temporarily, and the battle remained uphill for teams not in the Bix Six Conferences.

The 2006 Boise State Broncos therefore had to face a lot of criticism for their at-large bid to the Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma. Weren't there more deserving teams from the other conferences, even if they had losses? Wouldn't Oklahoma just run wild on them en route to a blowout? The Sooners had Adrian Peterson, remember. This was a reasonable thing to assume.

Instead, the game is representative of the "any team can beat any other team, anywhere" meme. Boise State jumped out to an early lead, contained Peterson for 77 yards, and never gave up despite a late Oklahoma surge. They forced overtime and won, both in spectacular trick play fashion.

The revenge of the mid-major team was complete—if you forgive, of course, what happened the next year to Hawaii.

8. The Saban Bowl

Nick Saban has worn many polos in his time as a football coach, but none more ill-fitting than the polo of a liar.

Despite reports to the contrary, Saban promised the media and his LSU Tigers that he would not be coaching anywhere other than Baton Rouge, where he'd won a National Championship in 2003, at 2004's end.

So that didn't really happen. Saban jumped ship from Baton Rouge before LSU's game against Iowa in the 2004 Capital One Bowl, accepting a head coaching position with the Miami Dolphins on Dec. 25, 2004. Clearly the man misunderstands the idea of giving.

LSU had their chance to exact revenge when Saban reappeared in the SEC Conference as the coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide, his current position.

LSU faced the turncoat coach on Nov. 3, 2007, in what was dubbed "The Saban Bowl I." The game was made more dramatic because Saban's departure had been recent enough that many of LSU's players had been recruited by him.

The revenge for the LSU Tigers wasn't coming easily either. LSU raced out to an early 17 points, but the Tide fought back to take the lead at halftime, 20-17.

In the end, the LSU defense proved too much for Saban: LSU scored 17 in the fourth, with the final touchdown off a John Parker Wilson fumble, to win, 41-34, in an excellent shootout that saw revenge fall on the side of good.

9. A Tie for the Red River Rivals

In 1976, the annual Red River RIvalry game between the Oklahoma Sooners and the Texas Longhorns was overshadowed by allegations from Texas coach Darrell Royal that Sooners coach Barry Switzer had orchestrated spying on his practices.

The intensity of the feud was such that then-president Gerald Ford chose to sit down with both coaches before the game.

Either the allegations were false or Switzer's spies weren't too bright, because the teams played close all game, and the Rivalry ended in a 6-6 tie.

Royal retired as Texas's head coach after that year, but his Longhorns would prevail the next year despite losing both first- and second-string quarterbacks to a killer Sooner defense. All-American Earl Campbell would scamper 24 yards for the game's only touchdown in the revenge classic.

At this time, I think we should all thank our local NCAA committee-person for making sure ties are no longer a possibility.

10. Les Miles, with a Golden Boot in His Mouth

There's another SEC personality who gets tied to revenge a lot—but not in the same way as Meyer.

In 2007, Les Miles decided to give the Arkansas Razorbacks a little lip before the two teams met in the Battle for the Golden Boot.

Miles, ever inventive at finding ways to question a team's legitimacy, got under the Razorbacks' skin when he intentionally mispronounced Arkansas "ar-Kansas."

But when Miles' No. 1-ranked Tigers faced the visiting Razorbacks in Baton Rouge, they quickly learned the right way to pronounce Arkansas: "tri-ple-o-ver-time-loss." The Razorbacks' two-headed tailback monster known as Felix Jones/Darren McFadden compiled 385 rushing yards en route to pushing the Tigers to the brink three times.

One of the greatest games of 2007 ended when the Tigers' Matt Flynn threw an incomplete pass while going for the mandatory two-point conversion. 50-48 was the final score; Miles, momentarily, was forced to shut up.

But expect more revenge games for LSU and Miles, whose brash personality makes it so appealing to beat.