Arkansas and Oklahoma announced a basketball series scheduled to begin in December at BOK Center in Tulsa. It makes perfect sense.
So does the baseball series the schools recently resumed. The Sooners will come to Baum-Walker Stadium in 2021.
It begs the question: Why don’t the two schools play each other in football?
But if you ask some of the old-timers from both schools, it never even came up with football.
“No, it didn’t,” said Barry Switzer, the perfect historian for the question.
Arkansas and Oklahoma once played together in the Southwest Conference, before the Sooners escaped to what would later become the Big 8.
The Sooners lead the football series 9-4-1, but they have played the Razorbacks only three times since Oklahoma left the SWC in 1926, all in bowl games.
In one of the most celebrated victories in Arkansas history, the Razorbacks beat the highly-favored No. 2 Sooners 31-6 in the Orange Bowl to conclude the 1977 season.
It was a defeat that Switzer, a Crossett native and former Arkansas player and assistant coach, had to take much grief over from his Little Rock friends.
Switzer avenged that defeat in the Jan. 1, 1987, Orange Bowl when the Sooners whipped a Ken Hatfield-coached Arkansas team 42-8.
There was another Oklahoma victory after the 2001 season when Houston Nutt’s Hogs lost 10-3 in a frigid Cotton Bowl.
The campuses are separated by only around 230 miles, and Arkansas and Oklahoma fans interact daily in the many towns along their long shared border. So why haven’t they played more frequently?
Switzer, 82, welcomed the question. He was a UA captain when he finished his Razorback career in 1959. Then, after a brief military commitment, he coached at Arkansas from 1961-65 for his college head coach, Frank Broyles.
Jim Mackenzie, the defensive coordinator under Broyles, became head coach at Oklahoma in 1966 and took Switzer with him to coach the offense. Mackenzie died of a heart attack after his first season in Norman, and Switzer was named head coach when Mackenzie’s replacement, Chuck Fairbanks, went to the NFL in 1972.
The Sooners won national titles in 1974, 1975 and 1985 under Switzer.
“The only time Frank ever called me was in 1976 when he retired,” Switzer said. “He offered me the (Arkansas) job. He said he’d leave it open for three days to give a chance to think about it.
“I told him I couldn’t leave the players we had recruited. We’d just won the titles in 1974 and ’75 and we had assembled so many great players in several classes.
“We’d brought in Kenny King, Billy Sims and so many other great ones. I told him we just had it going too good for me to leave and he understood.”
As far as playing the Razorbacks, Switzer said the Sooners had no room on the schedule.
“Of course, we had the nonconference game with Texas,” Switzer said of the Red River game played each year in Dallas. “And, the policy of our athletic department was that we’d also have one nonconference home-and-away series with a team on one of the coasts.
“We played Southern Cal, UCLA out west, then we’d play Penn State or someone east. We did that for national exposure.
“You play one easy game to start the season and it really didn’t allow for a spot to play Arkansas.
“It would have been pretty stupid to play both Texas and Arkansas nonconference. Like I said, it never came up.”
The Sooners had tough games against Nebraska, Oklahoma State and Missouri in their league.
Ken Hatfield, the Arkansas coach from 1984-89, doesn't remember any thoughts of starting a series with the Sooners.
"It was just the way the Arkansas schedule worked that kept it from even thinking about it," Hatfield said. "We had OSU or Tulsa during many years and you were not going to add another really good team at the start — especially when you were playing only 10.
"We had Oklahoma teams on the schedule to help with recruiting. Plus, the Tulsa news outlets were covering the Razorbacks. Playing that Tulsa game gave us exposure there.
"I don't think the Sooner fans needed another nonconference game from the region. They were real excited over the Texas game. Playing Arkansas wasn't something they needed for their program. They were recruiting Texas more anyway. That was their nonconference game.
"That Oklahoma-Texas game worked to help us because it was before our game with Texas a lot of the time. It was great the way the Texas game fell on our schedule for many years."
Harold Horton, a long-time Broyles assistant, said the same thing. With a tip of the cap to Switzer, who installed the Wishbone offense for the Sooners, Horton said the Texas Wishbone was all the Hogs wanted to see of that system.
“We had plenty of trouble stopping that Texas Wishbone,” he said. “Why would you want to play Oklahoma’s Wishbone, too? You just wouldn’t. No one I coached with at Arkansas talked about wanting any of that.
“I can’t ever remember Coach Broyles – or Lou Holtz, Danny Ford, or anyone else – talk about setting up a series with Oklahoma in football."
Horton would have been against it, especially after running into Oklahoma assistant coaches like Bill Shimek on the recruiting trails.
“Shimek was an OU coach who really liked to come to Arkansas,” Horton said. “He got some good ones out of our state. And, if you were playing Oklahoma, maybe that would have allowed them to get some more.
“We didn’t want Shimek here or Switzer here and playing them probably would have helped them. Really, the staff that’s at Oklahoma now isn’t a factor too much in Arkansas now. So playing them isn’t a great idea for that reason alone. Why help them?"
The Hogs did schedule plenty of Oklahoma teams, just not the Sooners. Arkansas has played Tulsa more times (73) than any other opponent, and played Oklahoma State 26 times - often as a season opener in Little Rock - between 1950-80.
Arkansas leads the OSU series 30-15-1, and leads the Tulsa series 56-14-3.
The Razorbacks have future games on the schedule against those teams, too. Arkansas is scheduled to play Oklahoma State twice in Fayetteville and twice in Stillwater between 2024-33, and is scheduled to play two home games and one road game against Tulsa between 2026-29.
Switzer does question the reasoning behind the Arkansas move to the SEC in 1992. Like many, he feels the Razorbacks would be a better fit in the Big 12, which could create a frequent matchup with the Sooners.
Broyles said he knew the breakup of the SWC was coming and feared the Hogs would be left on the outside if a new league was formed.
Broyles probably didn’t see that the Big 8 and the SWC would eventually merge in time for the 1996 season.
“That’s where Arkansas would have fit,” Switzer said. “I’ve always said that.
“Arkansas doesn’t have enough talent at home to play in the SEC and they needed more than just Texas players. I think it would have been a great fit as far as recruiting. They could find players in Oklahoma and Missouri."
Of course, that’s what it looks like new Arkansas coach Sam Pittman is doing. He’s hitting those two states hard. Pittman is a Grove, Okla., native. Barry Odom, his defensive coordinator, is from Ada, Okla., and has extensive ties to Missouri.
“I’ve always advocated that the Big 12 would work better than the SEC for Arkansas,” Switzer said. “I think they’d win more in the Big 12."
Oh, that would probably mean playing Texas and Oklahoma on the same schedule, but as league games. And, for Oklahoma, it would mean playing lots of potential rivalry games in OSU, Texas and Arkansas.
Coaches and athletic administrators just never saw a way to make that happen, even if it makes perfect sense to Switzer.
That doesn’t mean it’s a forgotten idea. It’s going to keep coming up, especially when the basketball teams meet in Tulsa.