The dormant rivalry between Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher erupted in the public eye last month, with Fisher calling his former boss “despicable” after Saban raised concerns over how opaque guidelines related to name, image and likeness have helped Texas A&M and others change the national recruiting landscape.
It’s not uncommon for two coaches to be linked by a rivalry between programs yet remain friendly off the field — one example is Arkansas coach Frank Broyles and Texas coach Darrell Royal, who had 19 heated meetings in the Southwest Conference but whose families vacationed together during the offseason.
More often than not, relationships between Football Bowl Subdivision head coaches can be described as cordial, with some drifting toward the Broyles-Royal level of friendship but the majority landing solidly in the range of mutual respect.
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SABAN AND FISHER: Acting like children in grown-up world of NIL | Opinion
And then there are those that have leaned firmly in the direction of hate. Joining the Saban-Fisher spat, these pairings represent the most venomous off-field rivalries in the history of college football coaching.
Fielding Yost (Michigan) vs.
Knute Rockne (Notre Dame)
Yost does the heavy lifting in a rivalry between two legendary coaches headlining the two dominant FBS programs of the first 40 years of the 20th century. Fresh off an upset loss to Notre Dame in 1909, Yost canceled the Notre Dame series in 1910, when Rockne was an underclassman; the series would temporarily restart after Yost stepped down as Michigan’s athletics director in 1940 but wouldn’t resume in full until 1978.
He also attempted to convince other members of the Big Ten to boycott Rockne’s program through the 1920s, though he was only partially successful. Multiple times in the same decade, Yost rallied opposition to block Notre Dame’s efforts to join the Big Ten. That turned out to be a blessing: The Fighting Irish…