As If Arkansas Fans Needed More Reason To Hate Texas in Playoffs

Razorbacks' disdain of Longhorns will not give way to usual support of SEC peers

Arkansas Razorbacks wide receiver CJ Brown has the ball stripped from him by Texas Longhorns defensive lineman Alfred Collins. / Ted McClenning-Hogs on SI Images

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Traditionally Arkansas fans are as pro-SEC as it gets when it comes to the college football national championship. However, it looks like that's going to change this year.

Sure, if Georgia or Tennessee make a run, Hogs fans will break out their conference pom-poms, but when it comes to the Texas Longhorns, the national championship is just going to have to find a home in another conference. Part of that is because it's hard for the Razorback faithful to imagine anything more insufferable than the whiny orange taking home the trophy in their first season in the SEC, or ever.

When asked whether they're willing to support Texas in a fashion similar to other SEC teams in the playoffs, an overwhelming 80% said no, they absolutely would not back the Longhorns. One-in-five claimed this was because Texas simply isn't SEC enough after a few weeks to warrant conference loyalty.

However, 80% of those who refused to show the Longhorns the same courtesy and support as the rest of the league said it was because they just hate them too much to ever wish that kind of success. This is because Arkansas spent decades dealing firsthand with the favoritism shown Texas by whichever league it happened to believe it controlled.

Once the Razorbacks left for the SEC in 1992, they watched with relief to no longer have to deal with the Longhorns plotting the demise of the Southwest Conference, demanding special financial considerations to stick around in the Big 12, and shoving a failed, yet lucrative team network down the throats of the rest of their conference peers rather than opting for a network that would benefit all.

Those things were supposed to go away when Texas came to the SEC, but as Arkansas, Texas A&M and Missouri already knew ahead of time, that didn't happen. Greg Sankey bent the knee and for the first time kowtowed to the Western portion of the conference, specifically Austin.

He went out of his way to grant every wish of Longhorns athletics director Chris Del Conte. He handed Texas one of the weakest schedules in the history of the conference.

On top of that, Sankey ensured the Longhorns' greatest challenge to being freely given an SEC championship, Georgia, had as tough of a schedule as possible just in case Steve Sarkisian couldn't manage to win a regular season championship on his own. He even sent the Bulldogs to Austin to weaken the odds of Texas' lone big game.

Then, as a cherry on top, he loaded Oklahoma with a brutal schedule just to make sure both programs understood where the Sooners stand in regard to Texas in their new conference.

It was all more than enough to drive Arkansas fans nuts. They saw firsthand that the Longhorns weren't nearly good enough to be considered a legitimate SEC championship game qualifier, much less the nation's top seed around that time.

While it's gone unnoticed by many, the obsession with trying to manufacture Texas into appearing to be a better team than it is has continued in the national playoffs. The Longhorns are 0-2 against teams currently ranked in the Top 25 which typically warrants exclusion or a low seed at best.

Instead, Texas has gotten special treatment. The Longhorns got the No. 5 seed, which means had the committee not been forced to give Arizona State a bye, Texas would have been deemed the fourth best team in the playoffs.

As a result, Texas gets to play in Austin against a Clemson team that got beat by SEC peers Georgia and South Carolina, the lowest seed in the entire field, rather than the road trip the Longhorns should have earned. Should Sarikian's team avoid becoming the first SEC team to lose to the Tigers all season, Texas gets the fortune of facing an Arizona State team that only has a bye because of a technicality.

Not only are the Sun Devils by far the weakest of the top seeds, but they are being asked to fly across the country to Atlanta where the Longhorns just spent significant time learning to navigate during SEC championship week. But the convenient good fortunte doesn't stop there.

Should Texas beat the worst team in the playoffs at home and the worst top seed at the SEC's home, the No. 1 Oregon Ducks gets the pleasure of traveling to Dallas to face the Longhorns in the Cotton Bowl. If Sarkisian can coach his team to a win in a de facto home game at AT&T Stadium, then Texas returns to Atlanta for the third time in roughly a month to play for the national championship.

From the second Sankey signed off on the Longhorns' schedule, few doubted there was a plan to clear as much of the path to the playoffs as possible. It's that kind of treatment that makes Arkansas fans hate Texas and will come to cause the rest of the SEC to loathe the Longhorns as well.

The rest of the national effort yearly to find a way to make Texas a thing is just another reason the Razorbacks faithful will cheer for the bumbling Tigers of Clemson late Saturday afternoon. Whether the Longhorns and all of their money and handouts given by the SEC and the national selection committee is enough to overcome what has proven to be a lesser team in legit national games will have nearly a full month to unfold.

However, Arkansas fans have made their voices clear. They want that story to end Saturday at roughly 7 p.m. central standard time.

HOGS FEED:

• Pittman snags defensive lineman from transfer portal

• Offensive tackle spurns Ole Miss; Hogs now in final two

• Persistence, Lineup Changes Lead to Better Shooting for Hogs

• 'Whack-a-Mole' strategy for Razorbacks may be only option

• Can Calipari's short roster replicate what Richardson's Hogs did years ago?

• Subscribe and follow us on YouTube
• Follow HogsSI on X and Facebook