Some rivalries hand out swords, axes, or old brass bells. In Charleston, South Carolina, the winner gets dinner.
Charleston Southern sits at the center of the Lowcountry’s tangle of college feuds — a crosstown grudge with The Citadel now played for a trophy heaped with shrimp, sausage, and corn; a Big South blood feud with Coastal Carolina that produced one of FCS football’s wildest finishes; and a series with the College of Charleston old enough to be called the city’s original rivalry.
The Lowcountry Boil Bowl
Charleston Southern and The Citadel sit just 12 miles apart in the Holy City, and their football programs had been colliding on and off since 2002 — mostly on The Citadel’s terms, with the Bulldogs winning eight of eleven meetings. In July 2024, the schools made it official, christening the annual matchup the Lowcountry Boil Bowl and introducing the greatest prize in the sport: a trophy filled to the brim with actual lowcountry boil, the region’s beloved seafood feast, for the winning team to dig into.
The inaugural Boil Bowl, that August, delivered instantly. Charleston Southern jumped ahead 14-3 by halftime and still led entering the fourth quarter — before The Citadel closed on a 19-0 second-half surge to steal it 22-21, taking home the bragging rights and, more importantly, the shrimp. For the Buccaneers, it stung twice: their lone recent wins in the series (a 38-21 statement in 2021, a 32-29 escape in 2013) prove they can beat the Bulldogs. Now there’s crustacean-based hardware riding on it every year.
And the crosstown feud runs year-round. On the hardwood, the two have been trading haymakers since 1974, with The Citadel clinging to a 21-18 series edge — though Charleston Southern took the most recent meeting 96-86 last November. On the diamond, the Bulldogs got the last word this spring, burying the Buccaneers 14-6 behind four home runs in front of a thousand-plus fans at Charleston’s Riley Park. Twelve miles apart, three seasons a year, always something at stake.
The Blocked Kick That Made a Rivalry
Charleston Southern’s other football feud lives an hour up the coast. The Buccaneers and Coastal Carolina grew up together as Big South Conference rivals, and their series peaked in one of the most ridiculous finishes in FCS history: the 2016 meeting, which Charleston Southern won 59-58 in overtime — sealed when the Bucs blocked Coastal’s extra point — to lock up a Big South championship at the Chanticleers’ expense.
Then Coastal left for the Sun Belt and the FBS, and the series went dark for nearly a decade. It finally reignited in September 2025, when the two met on the football field for the first time since that blocked kick — the renewal of a rivalry that geography was always going to demand. With both fan bases separated by a short drive up Highway 17, this one has plenty of unfinished business.
The Original Rivalry
And on the diamond, the courts, and the fields, there’s a third thread: the College of Charleston, whose series with Charleston Southern is the Cougars’ oldest rivalry — two campuses in the same city trading games across the non-football sports every year, most recently renewing hostilities in softball. In a town this compact, everybody’s rival lives close enough to hear the celebration.
Why It All Works
Charleston Southern isn’t a blue blood. Neither is The Citadel, or Coastal, or CofC. What the Lowcountry has instead is density — four programs within an hour of each other, overlapping fans, shared recruiting turf, and now a trophy you can eat. The Boil Bowl gives the region an annual centerpiece, the Coastal renewal restores its best modern grudge, and every September the Holy City picks sides all over again.
Somebody’s going home with the shrimp. That’s reason enough. Think you know who? Lock in your prediction for the 2026 Lowcountry Boil Bowl before kickoff.
Lowcountry Boil Bowl (vs. The Citadel): Citadel leads the series; CSU is 3-8 in meetings since 2002 • Inaugural Boil Bowl: August 31, 2024 (The Citadel 22, CSU 21) • Next Boil Bowl: Week 2, 2026 • vs. Coastal Carolina: renewed September 2025, first meeting since CSU’s 59-58 OT win in 2016
