Single keystroke led 'SEC Roll Call' star on most difficult journey — finding iconic Hog hat

Mitchell talks whether Arkansas character will revamp after Pittman-Petrino era ends, sifting through flea markets for props

Matt Mitchell with SEC Roll Call has perfect description of Arkansas Razorbacks after another loss. | Matt Mitchell-YouTube Video

(The following is Part 1 of two stories that will be written from a gracious one-hour interview with "SEC Roll Call" creator and star Matt Mitchell about portraying the Arkansas Razorbacks character and his interaction with Hogs fans.)

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A young Matt Mitchell sat in one of the unlikeliest of places about to form the initial thoughts that would birth an SEC institution.

At a tiny Christian college in Mobile, Ala., where the night classes came complete with middle-aged ladies who essentially brought potluck to the lessons for everyone to enjoy, perhaps the origin of another Southern YouTube staple of Mitchell's, the future SEC icon stared at the screen.

Every part of his brain told him to take a chance and write a sports blog, but there was a mild doubt as to how serious people would take someone writing about football from a college with zero football team, unless one counts blasphemously calling soccer football, a major crime in the South.

Still, though it would barely be read, Mitchell began clicking away at the keys for what would become the first steps down a long road that would eventually lead to him, two decades later, dressed in a Darth Vader mask hoping to Force choke a dastardly ship captain from Vanderbilt for the audacity of getting in the way of his College Football Playoff destiny on "SEC Roll Call."

"College football was really the my first little, I don't know, putting content out there on the internet," Mitchell said. "[It] was a sports blog that I was writing in college that I don't think anybody read except maybe my roommates. And I don't know if they read it, but that's kind of where I started. So it's, it's always kind of been kind of like a reset, return to home, kind of when I get to work on content that's sports related, especially college football."

Raiders of the Lost Hat

Another thing he couldn't have foreseen is that first blog would eventually send him on one of the hardest quests he's ever encountered — hunting down the famed plastic Hog hat. They seem like they're everywhere, but, as Arkansas fans became among the first to get on board with his little office space themed weekly show shortly after local Alabama and Auburn fans, Mitchell found the iconic head gear nearly impossible to find.

"It took me forever to to find one," Mitchell said. "I still didn't even find one on my own. This was a guy that came up to me in a town north of me here called Coleman, and I was doing an event at like a brewery, and he came up to me and he said he's from Arkansas, and how much he enjoys the videos and and appreciates me not going too hard on on his Hogs."

Mitchell, not one to miss a business opportunity, asked the man, who turned out to have the memorable name of Mike Vick, whether he had any clue how to run down one of these Hog hats.

"I can't find it online," Mitchell told him. "It's sold out, or it's just straight up not for sale anymore."

Vick assured Mitchell the plastic Hog hats were still everywhere even though the YouTube host was certain they had to have stopped making them 10-15 years prior. The man promised Mitchell he would contact his daughter who was attending Arkansas to help procure a hat and it would be on the doorstep as soon as possible.

"I'm like, okay, and I didn't think he'd follow up, because I was like, 'Man, I can't find them. Ain't no way .... I don't know if he's gonna find one now,'" Mitchell said. "Sure enough, two weeks later, showed up at the house. The Hog is my favorite."

SEC Roll Call's Matt Michell as Arkansas asks Vanderbilt to send Texas to "Hawg City" in the Week 1 episode. | Matt Mitchell / SEC Roll Call

Dressing the set

While the Hog hat is the most visible piece of Arkansas memorabilia when the Razorbacks character is on screen, fans have also become accustomed to the big rig truck he keeps on the desk as well. Mitchell said he added it because he's pretty certain there's a trucking company that's pretty big in Northwest Arkansas (JB Hunt), and he was glad to see fans gravitate toward it once added.

"The little 18 wheeler truck is fun too," Mitchell said. "I like that one ... I see a lot of comments about people loving the 18 wheeler on the desk too."

Items such as the truck for Arkansas and various items like old lunch boxes and trays for other teams are part of the fun of the show. Checking the background for Easter eggs or to simply see if the Dolly Parton cutout has glowing eyes this week has become part of the experience.

However, a random guy in Alabama doesn't just have items from every school in the SEC, especially with the late addition of Texas and Oklahoma, sitting around in the spare bedroom. It takes effort.

Years of sifting through thrift shops, flea markets and scouring the internet. The newer stuff arrives in a signature Amazon box on the porch while the older items from online arrive on a wing and lots of prayers from eBay and various fans of the show like Vick.

"If you're an Alabama or Auburn fan, either one, you just get handed down this stuff from your grandparents, and you're like, 'I don't want to throw away this Bear Bryant collectible Coke bottle," Mitchell said. "'It might be worth something.' It's not and it never will be, but you hold on to it anyway. And so I just kept, like, trying to hunt down those items and other fan bases' stuff. And some of it some fans had, and some I'm still searching for, but, but, yeah, just kind of searching through eBay and doing research and finding that stuff."

One thing Mitchell will soon have is an Arkansas baseball beer hat courtesy of Razorbacks on SI after the interview yielded an education on one of the league's unique traditions. Nothing is more Arkansas than a reminder of football and baseball hiding in the background during football season as a beacon of sanity.

Iconic Arkansas baseball bases loaded beer hats on sale at The Stadium Shoppe on Razorback. | shoponrazorback.com

"It's great that we're so deep into the Bible Belt, but at the same time, it's like, we forgive almost all of that on Saturday," Mitchell said of kids donning the beer hats as well when the Hogs have the bases loaded. "So the beer hat lines up with, you know, letting your kids say, 'Go to hell Alabama' and all the other cheers and stuff that are not safe for other days the week in the South, but totally fine if your kid yells it at the stadium on Saturday."

Dressing himself

One thing that might have to change is the look of the Arkansas character on "SEC Roll Call." The current character, draped in his classic motorcycle gang leather jacket, is one part Sam Pittman and four parts Bobby Petrino.

"It was too good to be true," Mitchell said. "It was like, you hear the rumors. You're like this, 'We're gonna get this kind of break comedy-wise.' And sure enough, they did. They brought him in."

He was instantly a muse of low hanging fruit for all of the SEC comedy teams. Motorcycle sound effects companies have never had it so good as each YouTube show carved out its own way of honoring the legend of Bobby P.

"And as far as like, coaching scandals go, you can, you can have a lot of fun with that one," Mitchell said. "... But, yeah, it was just comedy-wise, there's a lot of fun, but you can lean back into the motorcycle stuff, which is, I think part of Arkansas's persona is just kind of this blue collar."

With it looking like the interim head Hog isn't going to land the full-time job after losses to Auburn and Mississippi State, the gift of comedy that keeps on giving might be about to head off in the distance on a Harley one last time.

"I really thought when they brought Bobby Petrino, and I thought that was just a wild storyline, but in general, I thought that was a really smart move, and I thought they're going to be dangerous.," Mitchell said. "And so the beginning of last season, they played the first game and put like 70 on them, and the scoring drives were, like, two plays, 70 yards or something. It was ridiculous. And I was like, 'All right, now, now they're cooking,' and it just the wheels kind of fell off."

Still, Mitchell has a way of thinking about it in the end that will perhaps allow the character to exist in its current form with or without Petrino. After all, so long as he keeps one particular trait, Hogs fans seem pretty sold on the portrayal.

"Just kind of Hogs and Harleys, and it just all fits too well and, and I haven't had anybody, you know, there's always some fans like, 'Why is Missouri wearing a mask? Why is he Darth Vader?' Mitchell said. "It's a long story, but I've never heard anybody Arkansas fans complain about the way their character's portrayed. It's always 'At least the heartache part is spot on.'"