Rivalry Between Texas, Arkansas Highly Questionable

Razorbacks fans might be fully into it, but rest of world, including players, coaches, Longhorns barely know

Arkansas running back AJ Green runs for a touchdown in a blowout of Texas at Razorbacks Stadium in 2021. / Nelson Chenault – USA Today Sports

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — If a rivalry only happens in the minds of one team, is it really a rivalry?

This weekend is supposed to be the official renewal of what is in the minds of Razorbacks fans one of the big rivalries in college football. However, Arkansas coach Sam Pittman has had to waste precious preparation time this week educating his players on the rivalry and convincing them they should care more than any other random game against a highly ranked SEC team.

He even admitted that upon arriving at Arkansas he had to be informed Texas was a big rival and then needed to teach himself about it even though he grew up relatively close to Fayetteville not too far across the Oklahoma border.

Those two sentences alone are enough to argue that this isn't really a rivalry. Coaches and players don't arrive at Auburn not knowing the Alabama game is a big deal, nor Michigan wondering what all the fuss is about over this Ohio State game.

"I think you have to educate the kids on how big the game is to the fans [and] to the university," Pittman said. "I think rivalry games matter. I think this is one that certainly we haven’t played them in a long time."

Not only that, but half the games he showed the team were from 1964 and 1969. Modern day players can't relate to that and he had a hard time getting them past it looking like the news reels that supposedly used to run before movies back in ancient times.

"We showed them tape on the ’64 game," Pittman said. "They chuckled a little bit. It wasn’t quite as clear as nowadays tape. But Coach Hatfield running the punt back. Then the ’69 game when I believe it was president Nixon was at the game. We lost that one. The ’91 game over in Little Rock that we won."

They can't relate to something that took place a full decade past a half century ago. It's the same as if someone in their early to mid-40s had to be convinced a game should matter by showing footage of one of those leather helmet games of the 1930s.

That's not a time they can picture as real. It happened before World War II, which may as well have taken place during the Greek and Roman empires.

Showing the equivalent with those 60s games to today's players must be mind bending. It being before the Internet and smartphones is perplexing enough to them, but video coming from a time when players of color weren't allowed on the field for either school is from a world that is only comprehensible in movies that paint how shameful it is such a divide on the athletic fields ever existed.

Let's put this in perspective for Arkansas fans. For 25 years, I have bounced back and forth between Texas and Arkansas, sometimes on a weekly basis.

When the Longhorns come up, even though this will be the first time the two have been in the same conference for over 30 years, Hog fans start frothing at the mouth. When Arkansas is mentioned to Texas fans, to a man it has always been either blank recognition because, once again, it's been 30 years, or the most scathing statement is "Oh yeah, they did used to play the Longhorns didn't they?"

It's almost as if it would be shocking for students at UT-Austin to hear that Arkansas has feelings either way about Texas. It brings back a memory of the first summer back in the old home town from college.

A classmate went to Mississippi State, and we were stunned to hear him report back that the Bulldogs considered Arkansas their biggest rivalry outside of Ole Miss at the time. That was the late 90s, so Hog fans were just starting to get their bearings as to who was even in the SEC.

The one team they were most likely to forget was Mississippi State because they moved no emotional needle at all, so it was surprising to know they even realized Arkansas was on the schedule yet. It has to be a similar experience for Texas fans under 45 and their players to hear the Razorbacks have such animosity toward them.

It must be completely dumbfounding, especially considering the real rivalries they have with Oklahoma and Texas A&M. It appears on the surface Arkansas is clearly suffering from a clear case of Mizzou-itis.

Like Missouri, there are pundits out there touting the game with Arkansas as a rivalry. Whomever comes in after Eli Drinkwitz will have to be educated on it because he won't know and the same will go for the players.

The Hogs will take on the role of Texas in this case, continuing to wonder by the Tigers keep getting all worked up and going psycho on message boards as if the people of Arkansas care. Yet, that doesn't keep Missouri from acting like it's the Super Bowl any time the two teams meet up in football or basketball, and it provides an emotional edge that allows the Tigers to win even in years when the Hogs are more talented and shouldn't lose.

Apathy is a great equalizer, and if the game weren't being played at 11 a.m., a time slot that has meant getting up for the biggest game in the Big 12 for a long time for Texas football, the Longhorns caring so little while Razorbacks fans care so much would make for a questionable outcome. However, in a rivalry game Texas doesn't realize it's in, even more than a half century of brainwashed hate pumped into the minds of the Arkansas youth won't be enough to once again stun a Steve Sarkisian led Longhorns team.

It also will never be enough to make it a true rivalry. It takes two sides for that, and there's just not enough people in Texas who care enough to spend precious preparation time trying to convince players and coaches of something that really isn't there on their end.

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