Arkansas Considered Missouri’s Biggest Rival?

With the Missouri Tigers in the SEC since Nov. 6, 2011, it’s been somewhat hard to pinpoint a natural rival within the SEC East where the Tigers are slotted.

There’s no proximity to any other SEC East team, and that’s often a big part of a traditional rival. That does not mean that Mizzou does not have another SEC squad that it plays and quite frankly does not like very much. That’s also a big part of a rivalry.

Teams not liking one another, yeah, that’s part of the formula more often than not.

Missouri Athletic Director Desiree Reed-Francois chimed in about the Subject with the online publication PowerMizzou about the subject of which team was Missouri’s natural rival.

“Arkansas because of the geographical fit, makes a lot of sense. There’s also some others that we genuinely just don’t like.”

Well, Reed-Francois answered at least one question about the situation. Arkansas, being a program that’s roughly 300 miles from Missouri, is the natural rival, or at least in her opinion that’s the answer. The “others” could be one of several different teams, but that’s a discussion for another day. This discussion revolves around the Tigers and Hogs.

Missouri and Arkansas have squared off every season since 2014. Here are the game-by-game scores since the series went to a yearly format:

H = home, A = away

2014 – (H) Mizzou 21 Arkansas 14

2015 – (A) Mizzou 3 Arkansas 28

2016 – (H) Mizzou 28 Arkansas 24

2017 – (A) Mizzou 48 Arkansas 45

2018 – (H) Mizzou 38 Arkansas 0

2019 – (A) Mizzou 24 Arkansas 14

2020 – (H) Mizzou 50 Arkansas 48

2021 – (A) Mizzou 17 Arkansas 34

The all-time series between the two football programs stands at Mizzou with nine victories, while the Razorbacks have four.

Is there truly another team that’s close to Arkansas in terms of a rival for Missouri? One could make a case for other schools, but it’s hard to argue with Reed-Francois that Arkansas is Missouri’s biggest rival.

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