Two of the oldest universities in the country, more than a century of football, and a rivalry so old-school the prize is a coffee mug.
Some rivalries are named for a bay, a highway, or a mascot. This one is named for the mortar the two schools are built from.
The Battle of the Bricks pits the Miami University RedHawks against the Ohio University Bobcats, and the name is a nod to the historic red brick that defines both campuses, the Georgian rows of Oxford and the old walkways of Athens. It is one of the longest-running rivalries in the sport, 102 games and counting, and it belongs to two schools old enough to have watched most of American history happen. If you have never heard of it, that is your loss, not theirs.
The two oldest names in Ohio
Start with the pedigree. Ohio University, founded in 1804, and Miami University, founded in 1809, are the two oldest universities in the state of Ohio and among the oldest public institutions in the entire country. These are not upstart programs chasing relevance. They were educating Americans before there were 30 states.
They do not share a fence line the way some rivals do. Oxford sits in the southwest corner of Ohio near Cincinnati, Athens in the rugged southeast, roughly 160 miles apart across the bottom of the state. What binds them is not proximity but heritage: two ancient, brick-laid campuses, two proud student bodies, and a shared membership in the Mid-American Conference that has turned a matter of state seniority into an annual football grudge.
The Cradle of Coaches
Miami University carries a nickname that punches far above the program’s mid-major weight: the “Cradle of Coaches.” For a stretch of the 20th century, an astonishing number of the men who would go on to define college and pro football passed through tiny Oxford, from Paul Brown and Woody Hayes to Ara Parseghian and Bo Schembechler. Few campuses anywhere have exported that much coaching genius.
Ohio has built its reputation more quietly, as a steady, hard-nosed MAC program that rarely beats itself. Its own coaching landmark is Frank Solich, the former Nebraska boss who spent the better part of two decades building Athens into a MAC power and now has the Bobcats’ home field named in his honor. That contrast, the storied incubator against the gritty grinder, gives the Bricks its texture. One school made its name teaching coaches. The other just kept beating them.
Playing for a mug
Here is the detail that tells you everything about the spirit of this rivalry. There is no towering trophy, no gaudy traveling prize. When Ohio beats Miami, the Bobcats’ players and staff simply receive a commemorative mug, stamped with the details of that year’s win.
A mug. In an era of college sports awash in money and spectacle, the Battle of the Bricks hands the winner something you could drink your morning coffee out of. It is humble, a little funny, and perfectly in character for two old schools that have never needed glitz to take a game seriously. You do not play 102 times over 117 years for the hardware. You do it because beating the other guys is its own reward, and the mug is just proof.
The ledger
For most of the rivalry’s life, this was Miami’s game. The RedHawks lead the all-time series 56–44–2, a margin built early and often. Miami hung a 45–0 beating on Ohio in just the second meeting, in 1909, still the largest margin in the series, and later ripped off eight straight wins from 1945 to 1952 as part of a remarkable 15-game unbeaten run that stretched to 1959.
But the Bricks has always swung. Ohio has strung together its own dominant stretches, and the two have traded blowouts and heartbreakers across the decades, including a pair of ties and a long list of games decided by a single possession. Lately, though, the momentum has swung decisively east to Athens. Ohio has taken 13 of the last 17 meetings, the most successful stretch the Bobcats have ever managed in the series, and the most recent chapter was the most emphatic in years.
Twice in one autumn
The 2024 season gave the rivalry something it had almost never produced: a rematch. The first meeting, in October, happened to be the 100th Battle of the Bricks, and Ohio marked the milestone in perfect fashion for a rivalry named after masonry, taking the field in helmets stamped with a brick pattern. Miami spoiled the party that day, winning 30–20 in Oxford. Then, remarkably, the two were thrown back together five weeks later in the MAC Championship Game in Detroit, the conference title on the line. This time Ohio left no doubt, hammering Miami 38–3 to win the league.
The Bobcats kept the good times rolling in 2025, taking the next meeting 24–20 for their second straight win in the series and their most satisfying run against Miami in a generation. The teams line up again on November 10, 2026, back in Oxford, where Miami will be trying to reclaim a rivalry it has led for more than a century but no longer controls.
The Tale of the Tape
- The rivalry: Miami RedHawks vs. Ohio Bobcats, the “Battle of the Bricks,” two Mid-American Conference programs in Ohio
- All-time series: Miami leads 56–44–2 (102 games)
- First meeting: Oct. 17, 1908: Miami 5–0
- Latest meeting: Nov. 4, 2025: Ohio 24–20
- Biggest blowout: Miami 45–0 (1909)
- Longest unbeaten streak: Miami, 15 games (1945–1959)
- The prize: a commemorative mug, awarded to Ohio for each win over Miami
- Current streak: Ohio, 2 (including the 2024 MAC Championship)
- What’s next: the 2026 Battle of the Bricks, November 10 in Oxford
The send-off
The best thing about the Battle of the Bricks is how little it cares about being noticed. It has no billion-dollar television window, no national narrative, no giant golden trophy. It has two of the oldest universities in America, a century-plus of football, brick campuses that have outlasted nearly everything, and a coffee mug that means more in Athens and Oxford than a crystal trophy would anywhere else.
That is the quiet genius of an old rivalry. It does not need the spotlight to matter, because it was built, quite literally, to last. Brick tends to do that.
A rivalry this old runs on the players who show up for it. Fuel them. Back the RedHawks and the Bobcats on RallyFuel.
