Reasons to Hate: Missouri* *Sponsored By Random Corporate Overlords

What was once a basketball rivalry is now a football rivalry, and the Battle Line Rivalry is born.  We've got your reasons to start hating Mizzou this season, and with a few years of exciting football games, we might have a full blown rivalry.  For now, it's Reasons to Hate.

1) That video up there: You mean to tell me you can watch that and not hate those people?

2) The Battle Line Rivalry: It's such a terrible name, surely someone on the Missouri side came up with it or actually paid someone at an agency to come up with it. And now we're stuck with it. #Ozarkalypse4Lyfe

3) 2008 Cotton Bowl. Do you still care about that bowl that was something like 3 coaches ago? Surely not, right? It was good for just three meaningful things:

1. Darren McFadden claiming the 2nd place spot on the SEC's all-time rushing yardage list
2. Reggie Herring calling for a fake punt and making it but having it called back for a penalty - only to follow that by calling for the exact same fake punt on the next play when, of course, Missouri was ready for it and stopped it.
3. The hilarious image of Bobby Petrino looking down at the field in complete disdain.

I mean, Arkansas' coaching staff spent bowl prep recruiting for Ole Miss for Christ's sake. Who cares?

Missouri fans, that's who. It's dang near impossible for us to talk to Tigers fans without them bringing up that game from nearly 7 years ago. It's crazy. Like that's the only game that ever happened and Arkansas went into it with full effort. Please.

Regardless, if you want to talk old bowl games, they always seem to forget the 2003 Independence Bowl when the Hogs and Missouri were both at full strength and the Hogs won. That never gets brought up.

4) Hey Baby: I (Robert) went to Columbia once. I was playing in the band for the women's volleyball team as they played in the NCAA tournament. We drove 5 hours to get there and beat an undermatched Saint Mary's team before being bludgeoned in 3 games by a stout Tiger team. The band director for Arkansas saw the end coming and let us have a little fun. He called up Hey Baby, a usual crowd-pleaser, and you would've thought that someone had burnt a Mizzou Tiger in effigy. The response was tremendous as boos rained down upon our band. The Mizzou fans (HATERZ), apparently being unaware of the song's 53 year legacy, couldn't imagine another fanbase or band swaying and enjoying the beautiful song that simply asks that age old question "I wanna know if you'll be my girl"

5) Dorial Green-Beckham: Arkansas has taken our share of talent out of Missouri: Mike Anderson, Jimmy Whitt, Ronnie Wingo, Kody Walker, and more dating back to Frank Broyles himself - not to mention flipping Jonathan Williams to Arkansas from his commitment to the Tigers - and Anton Beard as well. But no recruiting battle was as high profile as the one for DGB. Long thought to be leaning toward signing with the Hogs, the nation's number one overall recruit took an official visit to Missouri the weekend before Signing Day and inked with the Tigers that Wednesday morning. What an awful few days. It turned out to be irrelevant because DGB screwed up enough off the field to get himself kicked out of Missouri, but there's no doubt Arkansas probably wins a few more games over the last three years with him on the team (assuming he could have stayed on the team, which is certainly questionable). But Signing Day 2012 will always be remembered for that gut punch.

6) Plaque: A lot of Missouri fans came to Fayetteville in 2013 for the first basketball game between Mike Anderson's Razorbacks and FRANK HAITH's (lol) Missouri Tigers. I (Doc) wrote about the budding rivalry after the game and included this line: "the infiltration of Missouri fans...stood out in their gold and black amidst the red and white like plaque on teeth". I was pretty proud of that simile. However, Missouri fans didn't care as much for it and let me know. They just don't appreciate quality writing. That's probably why Mark Twain moved away.

7) Division Title at Stake. Missouri had a losing season in 2012 (their first season in the SEC), but bounced back from that with an SEC East Championship last season. In 2014, they only need to beat Arkansas to have a second consecutive division title. They don't know the struggle. They don't know what it's like to play top 10 teams each week. They barely broke 100 total yards against Florida but still scored 40+ because the Gators were so incompetent. And Missouri isn't even an Eastern team. Columbia is barely farther east than Fayetteville. They should have let us play in the East this year. Then we could know the good life.

Anyway, Arkansas does have bowl quality to play for. The Hogs could get a higher-quality bowl if they win this game, but that's not as much fun as playing for a berth in the SEC Championship. We just can't let this program come into the SEC and go to Atlanta twice in the first three years. It's not supposed to be that easy. They probably don't even feel like the SEC is tough. Their whole SEC existence so far has just been wrong.