With Missouri on the horizon, Razorback fans would love to end the year with a win over their rival to the north. The Hogs, after all, have never won in Columbia, and a win there could set Arkansas up for a big eight-win season. But where does Mizzou actually rank among Arkansas rivals?
Decades ago, there was zero question who took billing among Arkansas’ rivals. But the clarity of Texas as Public Enemy No. 1 has been lost since Arkansas left the Southwest Conference in 1990. Nowadays, the answer is more likely to correspond to the age of the Arkansas football fan than to anything else. As a 19 year old sophomore at the University of Arkansas, I can attest to this.
Many Hog fans born in the 2000s have only heard stories of epic battles between these old rivals from their parents or grandparents, but have had many more opportunities to build disdain for foes like Texas A&M, LSU, Ole Miss, or most recently; Missouri.
Last November after the Tigers wiped the floor with the Razorbacks in Fayetteville by a score of 48-14, freshman wide receiver Davion Dozier seemed to take kindly to Drinkwitz & Co. Dozier went so far as to comment “spots open?” on Missouri star WR Luther Burden III’s Instagram live. He later had to take to twitter to reassure Hog fans that he would be around for another year. To his credit, he did just that… until Friday morning when a report on College Transfer Portal had him heading into the transfer portal soon.
Some, like Dozier, seem to admire the recent success of Mizzou and Eli Drinkwitz. That respect is part of the reason some Hog fans are starting to put the Battle Line Rivalry up there with other classic Arkansas rivalries which have produced undoubtedly more memorable results.
I remember vividly the Henry Heave in 2015 and rolling Texas in the 2014 Texas Bowl and again in 2021. I think of rivalries and I also think of the Golden Boot and the great battles between the Aggies and the Razorbacks down in Dallas. These series have all developed under emotional circumstances, I remember the gut-wrenching angst and football fueled anger, sometimes accompanied by happiness, watching games like these.
Sam Pittman, for his part, thinks Missouri ranks up with LSU and Texas in terms of Arkansas’ top rivals.
Building the case for Hog ‘Rivals’
Many of my friends and people I know would agree with the head Hog. I asked 31 people that I know – all ages 18-23 – which Arkansas rival they hated the most, here are the results.
- LSU (18)
- Texas (8)
- Texas A&M (3)
- Missouri (2)
Obviously, this is drawing from a small sample size, but it does indicate that Missouri comes in much farther down the totem pole in terms of generating fan passion than LSU or Texas.
Let’s get into the dynamic with each of the schools, and then just throw Lane Kiffin’s outfit in there for fun:
Texas – The rivalry between Arkansas and Texas isn’t quite what it once was, but when these teams do get together, it definitely garners plenty of hype, especially from the 9,000+ current Arkansas students who hail from the Lone Star State. Given the generations’ worth of distaste going both ways and Texas’ recent move to the SEC, expect this rivalry to gain serious traction in the coming years.
LSU – The Golden Boot is iconic, the Hogs and the Tigers used to face off every Thanksgiving week on CBS, and moments like the Miracle on Markham created lifelong memories for fans. Unfortunately though, this rivalry seems to be losing momentum by the year. Even when Cam Little walked it off in Baton Rouge in 2021, it felt more like celebrating a win over a good program rather than a sweet victory over a bitter rival. While Arkansas was winning its fair share of games for decades, the Razorbacks haven’t held up their part of the bargain lately. The 2021 game winner was only their only win in their last nine meetings. So, yes, still a rivalry, but not what it could be or what it was in the 2000’s and early 2010’s.
Texas A&M – Although the annual meeting between the Aggies and the Hogs in Arlington won’t continue, the animosity between the two certainly will. Even though Texas A&M has won 12 of the last 13, the games are always exciting because for whatever reason, regardless of who is doing well or who is doing poorly, the games almost always come down to one possession. So, as an Arkansas student myself, I can confirm that we the people are not fans of the Aggies, and I believe most would tell you that they’re very excited for this rivalry to come on campus.
Ole Miss – Despite some all-time moments, this rivalry probably has the weakest case, as a fan it’s always a matchup to look forward to, but I get the feeling that most of the younger Razorback generation doesn’t particularly dislike Ole Miss. Part of the reason may be because the NIL arms race between the two is currently non-competitive, with Lane Kiffin killing the transfer portal game.
Is the Battle Line Rivalry truly a rivalry?
Arkansas and the Battle Line Rivalry didn’t get off to a good start a decade ago. Its arrival meant the annual matchup between LSU and Arkansas on the last weekend of the year would be replaced by a forced rivalry with a school that most fans saw as insignificant.
Few folks cared for the forced rivalry or the trophy or playing LSU in the middle of the season. After all, Missouri had only joined the SEC two years prior, and before then, the Hogs and the Tigers had only faced off five times since 1906, despite Columbia being only a five-hour drive north.
While Arkansas vs Missouri rivalry didn’t develop organically over decades of regular matchups like older rivalries, it does make geographical sense considering Mizzou is the closest SEC campus to Fayetteville. As time has passed, it feels like both fanbases have built up plenty of distaste for one another.
It’s almost like Arkansas and Mizzou are siblings, and our parents encourage us to fight one another because they think it’ll build character. Since the hiring of Eli Drinkwitz though, Missouri has hit a growth spurt, and now fighting them feels unfair.
It’s an instinct to dislike what is forced upon us, and over the years that is exactly what has happened. I, and many others, think this whole arrangement is so dumb that we’ve actually grown to genuinely hate it.
There is also the fact that Eli Drnkwitz is a native Arkansas from Alma, located about an hour southeast of Fayetteville, and coached just up the road in Springdale under Gus Malzahn. Now, in an act of tyranny against his home state has put six Arkansan natives on his roster in addition to a few staff members. That aspect of Missouri, along with Drinkwitz’s intolerable sideline antics and general annoyance has helped fuel the fire, as has Dozier defecting from the Hogs a year after he so openly admired Mizzou from abroad.
These kinds of things cause some genuine hate to emerge.
It’s not yet anywhere near the level of what’s saved for Texas and LSU, but at least some real flames have been kindled.
Last November, I seethed while watching Drinkwitz’s Tigers run all over my Razorbacks a year ago in Fayetteville. If I didn’t hate them before then, I certainly do now. Slowly but surely, I think a lot of my peers are starting to feel the same way. I know I speak for many when I say that I hope Drinkwitz walks away from Faurot Field this weekend having the correct pronunciation of “Taylen Green” seared in his brain forever.
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