Coined as the "Oldest Rivalry in the South", the Capital Cup is one of the longest-running

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

rivalries in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Contested yearly between the

University of Richmond The University of Richmond (UR or U of R) is a private liberal arts college in Richmond, Virginia. It is a primarily undergraduate, residential institution with approximately 4,350 undergraduate and graduate students in five schools: the School ...

Spiders Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species dive ...

and

College of William & Mary The College of William & Mary (officially The College of William and Mary in Virginia, abbreviated as William & Mary, W&M) is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Founded in 1693 by letters patent issued by King William III ...

Tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English language, English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in p ...

, only three rivalries in

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of College athletics, intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major ...

have more games played: Lafayette–Lehigh, Princeton–Yale, and Harvard–Yale.

History

The Capital Cup is one of the oldest collegiate

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

rivalries, played between the

and

. The yearly contest is the fourth most played game in college football, and through the 2019 match-up has been played 130 times. Though starting six years later than what is more commonly called the

South's Oldest Rivalry The South's Oldest Rivalry is the name given to the North Carolina–Virginia football rivalry. It is an American college football rivalry game played annually by the Virginia Cavaliers football team of the University of Virginia and the North ...

between Virginia and North Carolina, this rivalry between Richmond and William & Mary was more often played twice per year in its early days instead of just once. In 1905, it was played three times. Played nearly continuously since 1898, there have only been four years that the game did not occur: 1900, 1902, 1943, and 2020.''The Collegian'' – UR defeats W&M 23-20
. Retrieved on November 28, 2008. The game had until recently been dubbed the I-64 Bowl, from 1984 though 2008. Beginning in 2009, however, the game was officially renamed the Capital Cup, for which a new trophy was created. The Capital Cup name was chosen to honor the entire 119-game history of the rivalry between the two schools and the status of the two cities as two of the historic capitals of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The match-up is typically played as the final regular season game for both teams, but for many years used to be played on

Thanksgiving Day Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden a ...

. The November 21, 2009 game marked the 119th meeting between the schools. The Richmond win placed the all-time record at 59–55–5, remaining in favor of William & Mary. The Richmond Spiders won this inaugural Capital Cup by a final score of 13–10, simultaneously giving Richmond a share of the CAA Football season championship. Place kicker Andrew Howard converted a game-winning 48-yard field goal as time expired. Then, in 2010, William & Mary clinched a share of the conference with the Capital Cup win. The Tribe had to beat Richmond and have Villanova upset Delaware in order to share the championship with Delaware, and both of those results occurred. With CAA Football not playing in fall 2020 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, the Spiders and Tribe did not meet during a calendar year for the first time since 1943. Instead, the two teams were scheduled to meet twice in the spring of 2021 as part of a pared-down schedule of conference games, although the second meeting ended up being canceled due to COVID-19 related protocols.

Trophy

The I-64 Trophy was a

trophy that went to the winner of the annual

versus

football game from 1984 through 2008.College Football Rivalries Q-R
Retrieved on November 27, 2008.
. Retrieved on November 11, 2009.
"Up Next: The Spiders bring the 2008 regular-season to a close next Saturday with the I-64 Trophy on the line at William & Mary." Retrieved on November 28, 2008. Both Division I schools participate in the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

Football Championship Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), formerly known as Division I-AA, is the second-highest level of college football in the United States, after the Football Bowl Subdivision. Sponsored by the National Collegiate Athleti ...

(formerly Division I-AA). The name for the trophy came from

Interstate 64 Interstate 64 (I-64) is an east–west Interstate Highway in the Eastern United States. Its western terminus is at I-70, U.S. Route 40 (US 40), and US 61 in Wentzville, Missouri. Its eastern terminus is at an interchange w ...

, which connects the schools through the short distance between

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, ...

and Williamsburg. The I-64 Trophy was replaced in 2009 with the Capital Cup, which honors the entire history of the rivalry between the two schools and the status of the two cities as the last two capitals of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Game results

Game MVPs

Most Valuable Player In team sports, a most valuable player award, abbreviated 'MVP award', is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particu ...

(MVP) Award was established 2009, coinciding with the rivalry's renaming to Capital Cup.All-time results
. University of Richmond Spiders football. Retrieved on November 12, 2009.

Notes

References