School rivalries

Bmop
Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:23:44 +0000

Each rivalry exists because of location and league.
All four schools play Division 1 sports and they’re all in the Pacific-10 conference, the most elite collegiate sports conference on the west coast. Each school has a minor rivalry with every other school in the Pac-10 just because they’re in the same league. Cal is probably UCLA’s #2 rival (and vice-versa) because they’re the other UC school in the Pac-10. Stanford and USC are minor rivals because they’re the only two private schools.
UCLA and USC are both in Los Angeles, Cal and Stanford are both near San Francisco. Both rivalries formed long before university rankings existed. More importantly, both rivalries existed before sporting events were televised. So like VTECaddict said,

It would not work so well to have a sports rivalry with Cal because games held at Cal would have very few UCLA fans in the audience, and vice versa…which wouldn’t promote a very fun/competitive/spirited atmosphere.

Fans want to stomp the other local school, not some school 300 miles away.
As far as NCAA titles won, UCLA, USC, and Stanford are the top 3 in the nation, in that order.