Arkansas fans sure were hoity-toity when they were told their favorite school was going to play Missouri every year in football for a trophy. The Battle Line Rivalry, it would be called.
Many in Hogs country took offense. Missouri was the newcomer to the SEC. The Tigers didn’t really belong, supposedly. Arkansas would have to deign to play Mizzou and it was just plain disrespectful.
Maybe that was a projection of inferiority.
The Tigers have owned the series since yearly meetings began in 2014. Arkansas has two wins since: one in 2015 and the other in 2021. Two wins in nine tries suggests Arkansas be made of sterner stuff before its fans go on about Missouri not being a rival.
Rivalry games only really matter to the fans, anyway, by the way. A majority of players do not get extra excited because of an opponent. Maybe a little exists for a trophy. Maybe a little exists because of a geographical connection. Maybe a familial one from the past. But by and large, no. How many times have you heard “It’s not about them. It’s about us, what we do” from a coach or player?
Try a zillion. And what Arkansas has done against Missouri over the course of the last decade has simply been, well, not enough.
Undoubtedly, take all sports into consideration and Mizzou cannot touch Arkansas. The Diamond Hogs are perhaps one of the best 10 programs in the nation, whereas the Tigers are perhaps the worst program in the SEC. Arkansas basketball, buoyed by the last three seasons, has an edge on Missouri over the last decade or so (although we might not want to go back, say, 20 years). Track-and-field, it’s the Hogs by a mile.
You could keep going down the list, the list of secondary sports.
They’re not secondary to this author’s fandom. I prefer all three of those sports, generally, to football. But in the grand scheme, the sport that a plurality, if not a majority, of Arkansas fans says is the one they’d most like to win a national championship, it’s going to be football.
And, frankly, Missouri is just better and has been for a good, long time now.
But that gives Sam Pittman and Co. something to play for Saturday. The Razorbacks cannot go bowl-ing. They can’t send KJ Jefferson (probably) out with the season the greatest (numbers-wise) quarterback the school has ever known deserves. They can’t even save Pittman’s job (it’s already been done).
What they can do, what’s of more import, is beat Missouri. Not for this season. Not, really, even for just next season. Arkansas needs to beat Missouri so the Razorbacks can claim, for real, that they have an actual rival.
And in turn, a Razorbacks program with a rival is a stronger Razorbacks program. A stronger Razorbacks program is one that gets out of the SEC cellar. From there?
Well, let’s take it one step at a time, shall we.