Arkansas versus LSU; it means more than Arkansas versus Texas. That’s right, I said it.
Why do I care if we beat a team outside of our conference? Who cares if we were one of the great rivalries of the past, in a conference that doesn’t exist anymore. The times have changed. The sport has changed. Traditions are all good and fun, but we have a tradition in progress.
I used to have this t-shirt (I still do, I found it in one of my drawers during my last trip home for Thanksgiving) that said, “Undefeated in the Rock.” For 15-straight games, Houston Nutt had never lost at War Memorial Stadium. At two games in the Rock per season, a 7 year streak that guaranteed at least 2 wins per season means something in itself. And you believe in it. We believed in it. We asked the boys in crimson red that played in Northwest Arkansas to play more games in Little Rock. And why not? Three words: Miracle on Markham. It was like religion. We had faith that we would win no matter the score. Could be down by 50 points with 2:00 minutes left and we’d still believe we could win because Matt Jones could throw for a TD at least once in a game played in Little Rock.
Every sports fan has at least one I-Will-Always-Remember-Where-I-Was-When-I-Saw-That-Game Story (wait, I need to bask in the celebrations of breaking the record for the most hyphen uses in one sentence) and that’s mine. That is until we got BLeauxWN OUT (by 29 points) in 2004 by the boys that wore purple from the bayous. Still wore the t-shirt theaux (just for the rest of the day, then I put it deep in my drawer where it stayed). To make it worse, my then-girlfriend tried to console me by saying, “it’s just a game” – which by the way – I know it’s a game, okay? But obviously it’s not JUST a game. This was a tradition. And more importantly, it was a tradition of winning. Well, more importantly than that, it was a foreshadowing. We were entering a time of losing. That game would be our last of the season and 2005 would be the same, our last game a loss to LSU. It was a time of despair. Embarassement (2006: we lost to LSU, again).
But 2007 and 2008 have renewed my faith: that the rivalry means something to others, too. Winning in a third overtime (to a #1 ranked team) and then again with 2:00 minutes left proves that it means something: that no matter what the records are at the end of the year, the boys in red aren’t going to lose to the boys in purple.
