The Battle Line Rivalry was really doomed from the beginning.
Starting with the name of the annual football meeting between Arkansas and Missouri. Let’s go to the press release issued just before the first game of the series in 2014.
The rivalry clashes against both geographic and historical boundaries - from disputed demarcations of the border separating the two states to notable alumni and former personnel with ties to both storied athletic programs. The historic rivalry between the two states will take on even more meaning now, as every Thanksgiving weekend the Battle Line will be drawn on the gridiron. The Razorbacks or Tigers will ultimately stake claim to the "Line" - until the next meeting.
Um, OK.
I think I speak for fans in both states that had no idea of the "historic rivalry” existed between the two states neither from an athletic or historical perspective. Sure, there may have been hard feelings from the Civil War, which Missouri supplied troops for both sides, but that hasn’t kept Northwest Arkansas residents from making beer runs to McDonald County on Sunday.
Arkansas and Missouri is hardly the Hatfields and McCoys.
But in the name of the almighty dollar and TV ratings — Shelter Insurance, the event sponsor, the two member institution athletic departments and even the SEC, want Hogs and Tigers fans to believe a border feud has existed for years.
The name is weird and maybe even a little politically incorrect since we stopped using war terms (even if it is referring to the Civil War) when then-University of Miami tight end Kellen Winslow Jr. went on is rant about being a soldier while U.S. troops invaded the Middle East.
Either way, the name could have been much improved and compared to other rivalry series played last weekend such as The Iron Bowl, The Civil War and The Apple Cup doesn’t make much impact.
I saw on social media where some had coined the game unofficially “The Battle of the Ozarks” and even included a logo. That has potential and could include a cool trophy (we will get to that in a minute) such as a large mountain peak or something.
Even with a cool name, there is no bad blood and no history between the two teams. They have played football seven times and only five before the series began. There was also a 40-year gap between when the teams played a nonconference game and the 2003 Independence Bowl.
Four of those games have now been played in the past 12 years. Rivalries boil over time, not heated in the microwave.
While Arkansas and Missouri are close in proximity, they might as well be millions of miles away on the gridiron. The Tigers, who came to the SEC in 2012, were for many years a bottom feeder of the Big 8 and Big 12. That changed when coach Gary Pinkel, who recently resigned due to an ongoing cancer battle, became the coach in 2001.
The Tigers didn’t receive a bowl bid from 1983-96 but have been to 10 under Pinkel and won six.
Mizzou won a Big 8 title in 1969 and hasn’t won a conference title since, but Pinkel did lead the Tigers to three Big 12 divisional titles and two SEC Divisional titles including back-to-back in 2013 and 2014.
Missouri’s football success can be broken into some standout years in the '60s under Dan Devine, including an 11-0 campaign in 1960, and the Pinkel era, which is the winningest tenure in Mizzou history.
Missouri is not a football power, and while Pinkel made the football program relevant over the past 14 years, the fans have been most passionate about the school’s basketball team, which has made 10 NCAA appearances since 2000.
At Mizzou they aren’t flying banners behind planes trying to get coaches fired or calling into radio shows in July trying to determine who the No. 3 quarterback may be in the fall. While Arkansas isn’t a traditional power like Alabama, Ohio State or Oklahoma, its fans desperately want to be.
Mizzou football fans haven’t really cared about football status until recently. In fact, there were probably more than a few that forgot the school had a football team in parts of the '80s and '90s.
It’s that lack of passion, even in the face of Pinkel’s success, that will take some kindling to spark a fire under the football rivalry while the basketball series already has some juice with current UA coach Mike Anderson leaving Columbia to head to Fayetteville.
Leave it to an Arkansan, former Razorback linebacker and football ambassador David Bazzel, to try to raise the stakes by designing a trophy for the series. If he hadn’t stepped forward who knows when, if ever, it would have happened. Most likely never from the Mizzou side. The trophy may be a start.
The two teams played the second game of the Battle Line Rivalry series last week in a driving rain and Arkansas ran away with a 28-3 win. An announced crowd of 72,000 was on-hand, but those who were there know it was probably about 20,000 less than that.
Other than it being Pinkel’s final game at Mizzou, it made a very small splash on the day after Thanksgiving.
On the Arkansas end, the win and empty seats, obviously caused from the rain and cold, drew the ire of central Arkansas diehards who long for the days when LSU played at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.
This series becoming a heated rivalry is a long shot even with a corporate sponsor and shiny hardware. The geography is there, but the heat isn’t.
Could that change over time? Yes, but it will take more than creative marketing.
Nate Olson is a contributor to WholeHogSports