By Hunt Palmer
Rivalries can’t be forced. They just happen.
No one told the Yankees and Red Sox to start hating one another. Auburn and Alabama fans didn’t exchange a memo over Thanksgiving dinner.
Competition and history organically produce intensity. And it’s one of sport’s most beautiful creations.
LSU and Arkansas were forced on one another.
The Tigers enjoyed a rich history of disdain for Tulane, Ole Miss and Alabama. Then came Auburn and Florida. Arkansas fans detest Texas and the old Southwest conference foes they bashed heads with for decades.
When Arkansas joined the Southeastern Conference in 1992, it needed new sparring partners. Nolan Richardson’s 40 Minutes of Hell found it in Kentucky. On the football field, the SEC pointed the Hogs south toward Louisiana.
In 1996, The Boot was created, and 1:30 Friday afternoon was manufactured as a timeslot. It produced classic moments like The Miracle on Markham, Darren McFadden’s “we got dat wood” interview and Jennings to Dural. But it never really took hold.
That’s why the conference had no issue ditching the game and pairing LSU with Texas A&M and Arkansas with Missouri annually.
Still, the lingering dislike harbored by Arkansas fans has never gone away. Hog fans hate LSU, and LSU fans love to portray the “rivalry” as beneath them. The Tigers prefer the company of Alabama and Florida.
Quite honestly, the outcomes of the games relative to the talent levels on the rosters would side with the Razorbacks feelings.
Over the last six recruiting cycles, Arkansas has an average class ranking of 26th in the country. LSU average? Sixth.
Over that time LSU has landed 11 five-star players. Arkansas hasn’t inked a single one.
The Tigers have nearly triple the four-star signatures—85 to 32.
Each of the last four games between Arkansas has been decided by exactly three points, LSU winning three of the four.
The Hogs drastically outperform their talent level year after year against LSU. Last season a dreadful Arkansas team that won four games came into Tiger Stadium and took the Heisman winner to the wire.
From 2007 to 2015 LSU won a national title and played for another. Arkansas won five of nine contents. Over that time LSU had 52 players drafted to Arkansas’s 29.
This isn’t a one-coach situation. Houston Nutt, Bobby Petrino, Bret Bielema and Sam Pittman have all played the Tigers tough whether Les Miles, Ed Orgeron or Brian Kelly roamed the Tiger sideline.
That hasn’t been the case with the other SEC schools that recruit at a higher level traditional than Arkansas.
The Hogs have lost 17 straight to Alabama. A&M has owned Arkansas since joining the league, a 12-1 mark. Even Auburn, as schizophrenic as that program is year to year, has won nine of 12.
It’s evident that one side of this “rivalry” takes it more seriously than the other.
LSU enters Fayetteville ranked No. 8 in the country after one of the biggest wins of the Kelly era. The Tigers are unblemished in conference play with the College Football Playoff aspirations. Arkansas won’t be playing in SEC Championship or the CFP. But they’d like to ruin a season and build on the momentum they created with the win over Tennessee.
The Boot will get on the plane up to northwest Arkansas. Most LSU fans wouldn’t mind if the Tigers left it on the field after the game.
They just better have the option.
