Missouri Enthusiasm Surrounding Hogs Has Reached Unprecedented Level of Desperation
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Missouri fans, it's time to talk. When it comes to Arkansas you have a problem and it's going to require some form of rehab.
The other day when defensive coordinator Travis Williams posted a video of him justifiably celebrating the surprise landing of the nation's No. 37 player over linebacker commit Tavion Wallace's home state Georgia Bulldogs, Florida and Florida State, it got a mix of celebratory Razorbacks fans and "Woe is me, he'll never make it to campus" Hog fans. However, a large chunk of reactions seemed to come from Missouri fans making Eli Drinkwitz comments.
LET’S GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HUGE!!!!!!!!! 🐗🐗🐗 pic.twitter.com/VbOhhLquiX
— Coach T-Will (@T_WILL4REAL) July 2, 2024
These people should be at Silver Dollar City cooling off at Fire in the Hole, not crouching forward on their toilets to fire off what they believe to be incendiary tweets directed at Arkansas. It's early July Mizzou. What are you doing? Why do you even know Arkansas exists right now?
Sure, it makes sense to fire up the Twitter insults in the days leading up to a basketball game between the two schools, but at no point does it ever matter in football, much less July. Yet, here you are posting comments like "Eli Drinkwitz wannabe" and "Bro wants Drinkwitz to hire him" and "Where's the rest of the staff? LOL."
You have a serious problem Mizzou. Like creepy stalker level problem.
That video didn't go out on the main Arkansas football account. It was on an assistant football coach's account. What is going on with your algorithm that you had a Razorbacks assistant celebrating a player Missouri wasn't in on pop up in your feed?
That takes an obsessive amount of hunting down material on the Hogs. That's waiting all day at the Wal-Mart self-checkout for three weeks to get in line behind a specific person level stalking and it's disturbing.
Everyone in the SEC gets it. Missouri is desperate for someone to care the Tigers exist.
Drinkwitz especially goes overboard with his antics trying to make Arkansas care about the faux Battle Line Rivalry. Even Oklahoma has noticed and they've only been in the league a couple of days.
Consider the following conversation between "Locked on Sooners" hosts John Williams and Jay Smith.
Williams:
"Nobody is talking about Mizzou because Mid-zou."
Smith:
"Everybody's trying to create a rivalry out of that. We talked about that a little bit in the green room. It cracks me up because we're 12-2 against Missouri since like the '90s or what-not. We own a record like 60-something wins to barely 20 wins or something like that. Why do we talk about Missouri, right? I know Missouri wants to pick a fight with somebody because they just desperately want to have themselves a rival, but it seems like Arkansas is like 'Enh, we don't even want to try to beat you,' because Arkansas has been up and down so bad. I mean, they kinda had the border war with Kansas ... we're not concerned about that game [against Missouri]."
No one in the SEC can name a single assistant coach there, yet Missouri is so desperate to have someone care that they are cyber-stalking Arkansas assistants. Yet, the Tigers are so far off the map here that Mizzou has snuck in and slipped an in-state recruit across the border regularly over the past several years and no one noticed until Courtney Crutchfield and Drinkwitz's obnoxious billboards stirred things up for a brief moment.
There's nothing Missouri can do to make Razorbacks fans truly care about them outside of basketball season. For the first time possibly ever, the Hogs' faithful will remember the Tigers are on the football schedule at the end of the year despite that game typically being overshadowed by whatever Thanksgiving week tournament the basketball team is in.
However, it's not because of hatred. It's because Drinkwitz has become so obnoxious with his mosquito in your ear tactics trying to get Arkansas' attention along with the sheer embarrassment of losing to a program like Missouri that it's built up to the point that Pittman will need to find a way to make his players care so he can keep his job.
After that is eventually dealt with, the Tigers go back to being the nondescript athletics program it has been since it arrived in the SEC. Mizzou has won as many SEC championships in key men's and women's sports as Oklahoma and Texas in the past dozen years. No one is going to get worked up over the worst athletics program in the conference when it's always the team they forget to list when trying to name all 16 members.
So, please Mizzou fans, go cool off with a long relaxing walk through Marvel Cave and get your adrenaline fix on Time Traveler or Wildfire because desperately trying to find enjoyment flooding the social media of an Arkansas assistant coach is embarrassing and the ultimate sign of desperation in July. According to Oklahoma, Kansas might care a little bit.
Maybe try stalking them and see if they'll want to get worked up about your Tigers. Until then, seek a little therapy and maybe grab a giant SDC turkey leg.
Any effort at dealing with this problem is good effort, so don't give up.
KENT SMITH
Kent Smith has been in the world of media and film for nearly 30 years. From Nolan Richardson's final seasons, former Razorback quarterback Clint Stoerner trying to throw to anyone and anything in the blazing heat of Cowboys training camp in Wichita Falls, the first high school and college games after 9/11, to Troy Aikman's retirement and Alex Rodriguez's signing of his quarter billion dollar contract, Smith has been there to report on some of the region's biggest moments.