When the SEC expanded in football late last year and each team was provided two permanent opponents, a segment of the Arkansas football fan base clamored for LSU.
The segment was small, but many of the people within it had something in common: they were old.
Arkansas and LSU have played for the Golden Boot Trophy since 1996. The Tigers have claimed it 19 times. Arkansas, on the other hand, doesn’t even have 19 winning seasons 1996. The rivalry game mostly just came to fruition because of geographical border touching, though it bore fruit when a number of games in the late 1990s and early 2000s proved climactic, leading that aforementioned generation of people to hold tightly to game.
Arkansas-LSU is a rivalry, certainly. But it isn’t because of football.
The two teams are set to go for a three-game series inside Baum-Walker Stadium starting on Thursday with the Razorbacks the No. 1 team in the nation and LSU at No. 6. Both teams are considered national-championship contenders.
Which is nothing new. LSU has made nine College World Series and won two national championships since 2000. Arkansas has not captured a crown yet, but coach Dave Van Horn has taken the Diamond Hogs to Omaha, Nebraska, seven times since becoming Arkansas head coach in 2003. The teams are almost always next to each other in the SEC West pennant race and standings throughout the year.
LSU is a little more dinged entering the series this year. The Tigers have lost both their first two series in SEC play this year (Mississippi State and Florida), whereas Arkansas is sitting pretty atop the league with just one conference loss – Sunday’s finale against Auburn.
By no means will the winner of the series this weekend in Fayetteville seal up some sort of magical honor as the SEC’s best. The league is too deep, too tough to make such proclamations three weeks into conference play. It isn’t SEC basketball, after all. But for the purposes of the king of the mountain in the best baseball conference in the country, the Diamond Hogs-Tigers rivalry will provide some firepower.