19 hours Ago By By Amelia Hurley
College football’s beloved Rivalry Week returns this week, pitting No. 21 Missouri and Arkansas against one another for the 16th time in the programs’ history. The Tigers’ SEC rivalry with the Razorbacks is only a decade long, with the first annual matchup played in 2014 and the first trophy presented in 2015.
But the border foes’ history extends well beyond that. Their inaugural showdown came in 1906, when Missouri prevailed 11-0 in Columbia. That victory foreshadowed the success the Tigers would have in the series, as they currently own an 11-4 all-time advantage over Arkansas.
Since the annual league rivalry began in 2014, MU holds an 8-2 record against the Razorbacks, including a win in seven of the past eight matchups. Arkansas most recently defeated the Tigers 34-17 on Nov. 26, 2021, putting the finishing touches on an eight-win regular season that still stands among its best regular-season finishes in the past decade.
Since that win, though, the Razorbacks have not looked the same, with a 4-12 conference record that includes a pair of losses to Missouri — a 29-27 defeat in 2022 followed by last season’s 48-14 drubbing. To make matters worse for Arkansas, this season’s edition returns to Memorial Stadium, a location where the Razorbacks have never won. The Tigers have won all six of their home contests against Arkansas, outscoring the Razorbacks 177-113 in those home tilts.
If there is any consolation for Arkansas, though, it is that three of the past four matchups in Columbia have come down to fewer than five points. This season’s edition of the Battle Line Rivalry features a ranked Missouri team against an improved Arkansas program that finds itself one win away from a .500 record in conference play.
The Razorbacks also boast the more impressive win between the two programs — a 19-14 victory over then-No. 4 Tennessee earlier this season in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Beyond just the teams, though, this rivalry matchup offers a different feel.
Excluding the 2020 season because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the generally one-sided rivalry game had been played exclusively on Black Friday each season since 2014. This season, however, it will be played Saturday, with the Egg Bowl between Ole Miss and Mississippi State (usually played on Thanksgiving) and an in-state contest between Georgia and Georgia Tech filling Friday’s SEC game slots. The showdown also represents the third rivalry game of sorts this season for the Tigers, who suffered a last-minute 34-30 defeat to South Carolina in the Mayor’s Cup on Nov.
16 and rekindled an age-old conference rivalry with Oklahoma in a back-and-forth 30-23 win Nov. 9. To some Missouri fans, that rematch against the Sooners leads to the question of whether Arkansas remains the Tigers’ biggest rival in light of a former Big Eight and Big 12 foe joining the SEC.
So, what’s the argument behind a potential switch that would feature Missouri changing up its an annual Rivalry Week opponent to Oklahoma? Well, the Tigers and Sooners first faced off in 1902 before meeting annually from 1910-95, taking only one year off the rivalry (1918) because of World War I. After the formation of the Big 12 Conference in 1995, the two teams were placed in separate divisions, disrupting the annual matchup. From that point on, the two teams played a pair of home-and-home series every three years until Missouri departed the Big 12 for the SEC in 2012.
Oklahoma leads the series all-time with a 67-25-5 recond against Missouri, which earned its first win against the Sooners since 2011 earlier this season. The teams have met 97 total times in a wide array of matchups, ranging from Homecoming games to conference championships and regular-season showdowns. With each contest, there seems to be an extra spice added to the mix between the two longtime rivals.
That was a theme this year, when the fanbases of both programs took to social media to express their displeasure with one another. Those conversations particularly centered around former Sooners players Theo Wease Jr. and Cayden Green, who are both now starters with the Tigers.
But regardless of the fuel, it is clear that there is a fire that exists between Missouri and Oklahoma, something that the Tigers and Razorbacks seem to lack in their rivalry. Similarly, when the Sooners take the field against LSU in Rivalry Week, they will face the purple-and-gold Tigers for only the third time in team history — the fewest meetings between two SEC schools matching up in Rivalry Week. So, a solution seems clear: Change one pairing to Missouri and Oklahoma — whose biggest rival is fellow SEC newcomer Texas, which they face on the second Saturday in October — and switch the other to Arkansas-LSU, contuining their annual battle in a week that features rivalries across college football.
During their time in the Big Eight and Big 12, the Tigers and Sooners rarely faced off in what has become known as Rivalry Week. Instead, MU usually played Kansas while Oklahoma took the field against in-state foe Oklahoma State. With conference realignment, though, there’s an opportunity to reinvent the Tigers-Sooners rivalry in a more permanent fashion.
On the other side of this switch are Arkansas and LSU — a pair of teams that met each other in Rivalry Week nearly every season before Missouri entered the SEC. The pair have a longstanding rivalry, coined the “Battle for the Boot,” that dates back to 1901, with LSU holding a 45-23-2 edge over the Razorbacks. The teams have met each season since 1992, even finding ways to match up against one another outside of Rivalry Week throughout the past decade.
Regardless of the future of Missouri’s rivalry matchups, the Tigers will divert their focus to Arkansas as they prepare to defend their hold on the Battle Line trophy as the two-time reigning champions of the rivalry match. Missouri hosts the Razorbacks at 2:30 p.m.
Saturday at Memorial Stadium, and the game will broadcast on the SEC Network..
