If you search “Arkansas football roster” on Google, you might be surprised by which pictures show up for a pair of current Razorbacks:
That’s right. Quarterback KJ Jackson is now an NFL player (who happens to be from Little Rock) and defensive end Landon Jackson looks like a member of the Partridge family, the fictional family band that was the subject of groovy sitcom in the 70’s. The burn is severe enough to warrant a spot among the league’s most infamous pranks.
Below are the other, decidedly less digital all-timers. (Note: Not all of these are not from specific SEC league games, but all include at least one current SEC team.)
10. Alabama’s Leaked Room List
In 2009, Alabama visited Auburn for the annual Iron Bowl. The Crimson Tide were undefeated at the time and looking to get back to the national championship game. Auburn, on the other hand, was 7-4 and had lost four of its last six. The night before the game, Alabama players had quite the night.
Apparently, the room list for the Alabama football team was leaked. Players reported receiving all types of calls throughout the entire night on their hotel phones. There was also a fire alarm pulled. Needless to say, it was a restless night for Alabama that almost cost them a win. The game ended up 26-21 with the Crimson Tide winning on a last-minute drive.
9. Starbucks “Mug”-stakes Mississippi State for Ole Miss
Many in the SEC think the Egg Bowl is the league’s greatest rivalry game. For sure, there was no love lost when Starbucks made this colossal mistake.
That’s right. Starbucks made a customized mug for Ole Miss in 2023, but mistakenly put Mississippi State’s stadium on it. That’s a gut punch.
8. Georgia Pranks Itself
In 1974, the Georgia Bulldogs left on a plane to fly to Lexington to play the Kentucky Wildcats. During the flight, it was discovered that someone left a bomb threat message on the plane’s bathroom mirror.
The team was met and interrogated by 25 FBI agents when they landed in Lexington, but no one confessed to the crime so after three hours they were released to their hotel to get whatever rest they could before an eventual 24-20 win.
Years later, wide receiver Shag Davis confessed to the prank. It turns out he might have been a bit inebriated and had written the threat as a prank for his teammate who he thought would be next in the bathroom. However, his teammate used a different bathroom and the coach that followed Davis was not bemused, reporting it immediately to the pilot. Although Davis did not confess and did get to play in the game, in a turn of Jen Bielemaic karma, he was injured early on and missed the next month.
The chances that this kind of prank would ever happen again in the modern era of TSA security are less than the odds of Arkansas State winning the national championship, according to bookmakers that accept credit cards at Non-GamStop-Betting.com and frankly whoever else is out there.
7. & 6. South Carolina and Florida Fake Their Opponents
In 1961, a South Carolina fraternity had a special surprise for the Clemson band and fans before their annual non-conference matchup. The Sigma Nu fraternity decided it would be a kick to dress up as their rival team. The fraternity got jerseys from a nearby local high school with similar colors and even dressed one of their members up to look like the Clemson coach. Early during pre-game, before the actual Clemson Tigers had taken the field, the fake Clemson team came onto the field. The band played and Clemson fans cheered. However, fairly quickly they realized it was a mistake as the players’ warmups looked more like a three stooges routine than something akin to football. Some fans got so upset that they stormed the field.
Although there is no confirmation, it seems that fraternities on Florida’s campus heard about the South Carolina prank and decided to get some justice. Just three years later, the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity at Florida pulled the exact same prank on South Carolina when they came to town.
5. Auburn’s Greasy Tracks
This one goes all the way back to 1896 a full 36 years before the SEC actually formed. The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, who eventually became an SEC member, traveled to play Auburn. During that time, teams got around by train. Auburn students decided to grease the tracks to prevent players from disembarking. Not only was the train unable to stop at the station, but it was five miles past before they could get it to halt. No wonder Tech lost 45-0.
4. Tulane Steals the LSU Tiger
Mascot stealing was a much more common thing in the early years of college football, but some are easier to steal than others. Tulane, an original SEC member, stole maybe the hardest mascot of all time before their game with LSU in 1950.
The night before the game, four Tulane students who had been hunting stopped at a local dive and noticed a vehicle with an odd looking trailer hooked to it. The trailer housed Mike, LSU’s live Tiger mascot. The Tulane students saw their chance and hooked Mike’s trailer to their 1942 Plymouth car with a chain. The getaway was clean, but they still dealt with the trailer coming unhooked and a traffic stop on their way back to campus. Despite all the obstacles, the students eventually made it back to campus with Mike in tow.
Eventually the tiger was returned to LSU and no harm was done to him, but that didn’t stop LSU from issuing a campus ban on the four Tulane students. That ban held for 57 years until, in 2007, they issued a pardon letter to the “tigernapers,” who were then in their 70s. “We assume by now that you have realized the seriousness of your heinous crime,” the pardon read. The game that the controversy centered around ended in a 14-14 tie.
3. Landon Jackson Becomes A Kid Singer in a ’70s Family Band
The Partridge family was a sitcom about a singing and performing band that was made up of just family members. For our younger readers see their work here. The sitcom was based on a real family of performers, but our sources report Landon Jackson was not a member of either. However, if you look up the Razorbacks’ roster on Google, it certainly seems like he could have been.
The crazy thing about this prank is that to this point it has not been claimed. Whoever set this photo up for Jackson on Google did a great job of not allowing access to the picture. If you click on it, it goes straight to another Google page that shows actual photos of Jackson. A reverse image search with this photo also gets no results. Could it just be a glitch in the Google matrix? Maybe. Could it be one of the sneakiest hoaxes in Razorback history? If it’s intentional, then it should be up there.
2. “Screw Mizzou”
Missouri got a special halftime welcome from students at Nebraska when visiting the Cornhuskers for a Big 8 rivalry game in 1972. Nebraska had decided on a special memorial at halftime to salute the troops, but some members of the “Corn Cobs,” a nickname for the campus’ spirit fraternity, had a different memorial in mind.
Fans sitting in certain sections in the stadium were supposed to hold up large placards that together formed a message. The plan that day was to celebrate the Navy’s 197th anniversary with messages like GO NAVY and VOTE instead they got JOHNNY R IS SHIFTY (Nebraska’s QB at the time), DEVANY FOR PRES (Nebraska’s head coach at the time) and SCREW MIZZOU (shown below).
The Missouri seven, as they wanted to be known, who were actually just six people to help obfuscate their traceability, had figured out how to replace and rewrite 1160 instruction cards so that instead of messages about the Navy celebration it became one of the best pranks in history.
1. The Branding of Bevo
In today’s world of college athletics, “branding” seems to be at the top of mind for programs and athletes alike. It turns out it was also important 108 years ago – at least in College Station.
There was a time when most Arkansas football fans knew the name of their most hated rival’s mascot, but there has been such a lull in the Arkansas-Texas rivalry that some may need to be reintroduced. Bevo is the name of Texas’ live longhorn mascot and, more than 100 years ago, Texas A&M pulled off an indelible prank involving him.
In 1916, the University of Texas decided it needed a live mascot, so it bought an orange and white colored wild longhorn steer. He was to make his first appearance at the Texas-Texas A&M game that season. However, before the game, four A&M students found Bevo at a local stockyard and branded him, 13-0, the outcome of the Aggies’ win previous year. When Texas pulled the steer onto the field for the game that day, he had a large 13-0 on his flank. A&M won the prank, but lost the game 21-7.
There is an old wives tale that the Longhorn was rebranded by Texas students and the 13-0 was made into Bevo and that’s where his name came from, but the truth is funnier than that. The Longhorn was not rebranded. Because of cost issues with World War I going on, Texas just kept Bevo the way he was until 1920, when they finally butchered him and shared him with Texas A&M at a banquet. They presented A&M with Bevo’s hide, which still bore the 13-0 brand.
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