Razorback Fans Divided by Generations on Preference of Playing Texas, Ole Miss Football

Pod poll experiment shows clear split, discussion provides enlightenment

Author:
Kent Smith
Publish date:
May 6, 2023 2:34 PM EDT

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The other day, allHogs.com ran a bit of a social experiment with a poll on our Twitter feed that featured four possible choices for pods that will be created with Texas and Oklahoma join the league.

The first day it was available only on Twitter where our readership leans heavily 45 years and below. During this time, the pod with Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Missouri built a big 43% to 23% lead over the next highest vote getter of Texas, Oklahoma, and Texas A&M.

An old timer asked about it, thoroughly perplexed at the results. It took a while, but the gentleman was taken through the perspective of those 45 and younger. The big memories from that time are:

• 4th & 25 against Ole Miss to keep the Rebels out of the SEC Championship game
• Seven overtimes against Ole Miss
• The Hudson Clark three interception game against Ole Miss to end the 20-game losing streak
• The Stoerner fumble at Tennessee
• The onside kick and field goal that let a 1-4 Arkansas team with an interim coach beat No. 4 Tennessee in Neyland Stadium
• The Miracle on Markham against LSU in 2002
• The 50-48 overtime win over No. 1 LSU in Baton Rouge
• The second Miracle on Markham against LSU in 2008

Notice what's missing? Texas and Oklahoma. At first, the gentleman scoffed, saying those fans just want easier wins, which generated quite the laugh. He still sees Texas as this juggernaut that dominated college football back when only white players were allowed on the field. That's not the memory of our 45 and younger crowd. Taking the easy way out for them would be anything with Texas in it.

Remember, in their lifetime, Texas is who Arkansas plays to get an easy win. Other than a flash in the pan back in the mid to late 2000s under Mack Brown, the Longhorns have been the pushover that television executives hype for an early high ranking to promote games against the likes of Arkansas, Alabama and LSU, before Texas falls flat on its face, struggling to produce a winning record against a weak schedule. With the Top 12 playoff system coming up, SEC teams are going to fall over themselves trying to get Texas on the schedule early to get the AP Poll boost before the Longhorns fall apart and hurt the chances of teams on their schedule later in the year.

As for Oklahoma, the two teams have only met on the field once during the football consciousness window of our Twitter generations, and you have to be on the far upper end of the scale to even remember that. The Sooners don't move the needle. Fans don't have a holiday honoring games against either of those teams. But they do celebrate 4/25 every April in honor of the win over Ole Miss.

Now, as expected, once we made the poll available to the Facebook crowd the next day, our 50+ readers went crazy over the Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma pod. At last check, it now has 50% of the vote, with the M-schools pod falling to second at 29%.

This process provided the gentleman what teachers refer to as an "Aha!" moment. He was able to piece together that the younger generations only get pumped up about Texas coming to town because the 50+ crowd makes such a big deal about it and pounds it into everyone's heads so much that the younger generations give in and go with because it's often hard to get that group to stand up and be animated at games.

The atmosphere ends up being pretty cool with the older generation involved and the next thing you know, the current generation embarrasses itself by storming the field over a 19-point beatdown of a 5-7 Big 12 school that wasn't even that close. But, it gave the 50+ crowd one more magical memory, so despite how dangerous those stormings can be to the people who are supposed to be on the field, it was worth it to pretend the "Texas is Back!" claims year after year aren't ironic for one night.

It will be sad to see Ole Miss and Mississippi State fall off the yearly schedule to get stuck with a couple of teams that don't have that much meaning to a large chunk of the fan base. However, it's the 50+ crowd that has most of the money and money matters. If they want Texas and Oklahoma, they will get Texas and Oklahoma and go about their merry way of pretending it's the days of the Southwest Conference and the Big 8, two conferences much of the fan base either never saw or don't remember.

He who pays the bills gets to make the decisions and that's that. So, instead of fretting over losing teams with memorable history against Arkansas, get excited about having an easier path to the 12-team playoff. Here's to September wins over Top 10 Texas teams before they fall into fighting to stay in Las Vegas or Gasparilla Bowl contention.