Arkansas Has The College Football Title Belt
Arkansas football finally has something to celebrate: an SEC win and holding the CFB Title Belt.
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Arkansas won a SEC Game and that’s a massive deal
With 4 minutes left in the 4th quarter, the Arkansas Razorbacks could have let the game against #16 Mississippi State slip away. With Arkansas up by a touchdown, the Bulldogs faced a 4th and 1 on the Arkansas 7-yard line. Frankly, most Arkansas fans probably felt a disaster coming. Arkansas had lost 20-straight SEC games over the last three years and some in heartbreaking fashion (many in blowout fashion). But these Razorbacks came through under first-year Head Coach Sam Pittman.
3 or 4 Razorbacks ganged up for that massive tackle for a loss to get Arkansas the ball back. But it felt like 30 to 50 feral hogs nailed Mississippi State’s Jo'quavious Marks in the backfield. Or even millions of Arkansas fans starving for a reason to feel good about their football team. After a muffed punt by the Bulldogs and another stop, the Razorbacks had a 21-14 win over a ranked SEC opponent.
I have never been to an Arkansas game. Or to the University of Arkansas. Or even the State of Arkansas. But I was so fucking happy for that team. One of my best friends is a Razorback and I’ve never talked to a person happier about a win in late September because they had been so bad for so long. Here’s an incomplete list of facts about the Razorbacks since their last SEC win on October 28th, 2017:
Three head coaches have helmed the program: Bert Bielema, Chad Morris, and Sam Pittman
Bielema was fired ON THE FIELD right after a loss to rival Missouri
They needed a furious 13-point comeback to beat Coastal Carolina on homecoming
Colorado State, North Texas, and San Jose State beat Arkansas at home
Former Coach Chad Morris’s staff created “Club Dub” which tried to replicate a South Beach club in the locker room after wins. Club Dub was only opened twice in the 2019 season as the Hogs lost 10 games.
LSU left the Golden Boot trophy on the field after beating the Hogs 56-20 last season. LSU Coach Ed Oregeron’s explanation was one of the most savage things I’ve ever seen in college football:
So the Razorbacks had lost 20-straight SEC games, but it felt like they could lose 30 to 50 SEC games in a row (I’m sorry but that joke is too funny to use only once). In the time between Arkansas’s SEC wins, my Miami Hurricanes rose to #2 in the AP poll in 2017 under Mark Richt, lost by 35 against Clemson in the ACC title game, collapsed in 2018, fired Richt, hired Manny Diaz, collapsed by losing to FIU and Louisiana Tech in 2019, and got back into the AP Top 10 in 2020. Miami is a very volatile program, but we’ve lived lifetimes during that streak. Arkansas’s last win against a ranked opponent was three days before Donald Trump won the 2016 Presidential Election when Arkansas beat #10 Florida in Fayetteville.
But these Razorbacks seem different. They hung tough with Georgia before beating Mississippi State and look much stronger in the trenches than at any point in the past three seasons. Plus, they have my favorite linebacker in the country: Bumper Pool! Arkansas may end up winning less than 3 games because they only play SEC teams due to the COVID schedule. Still, the Hogs are showing progress and this may just be the beginning of something special (or at least better) in Fayetteville.
Furthermore, Arkansas has the College Football Title Belt
The concept of a title belt comes from combat sports. More specifically for our purposes, professional wrestling. If your first reaction to that is “but it’s fake,” then you are the wettest of blankets. Regardless, a pro wrestling champion in any promotion (WWE being the most famous) gets a championship belt. If someone beats the champ, they get the belt until they get beat. The concept is simple.
By virtue of beating defending champion LSU, Mississippi State came into the Arkansas game with the title belt. With their win, the Razorbacks now own the belt despite the last three years of misery. Yes, Arkansas is now on top of the college football world via the transitive property.
The 2020 Arkansas Razorbacks are one of the most unlikely belt-holders in modern history. I want to talk a few other surprising belt-holders, but I have to explain how I track the belt because it differs from the standard way.
This reddit post tracks who has held the belt by the traditional view of the belt. In the traditional view, the belt travels continuously from its starting point and teams can hang on to it through an offseason even if they don’t win the title. My approach resets the belt at the start of each season so the reigning champion has it because the title belt must always be defended at Wrestlemania (the BCS or CFB title games here) and a team who doesn’t make it there gets stripped of the belt. By either definition, Arkansas currently holds the championship belt but it matters for the rest of this list.
Unlikely CFB Title Belt Holders
We’re starting with the 1999 season because it follows the first BCS Championship. The BCS is actually perfect for title belt talk because it led to “one champion,” everyone moaned about it, and it often felt arbitrary. Just like professional wrestling!
1999 LSU got the belt through a long string of upsets in the SEC as the conference started to become College Football’s premier conference. The Tennessee Volunteers won the first BCS title in 1998 on the back of Peyton Manning and promptly lost the belt to #2 Florida in the 3rd game of the following season without Peyton. Two weeks later, Florida then lost to #21 Alabama at home. Bama lost two weeks after that to … Tennessee, who dropped the belt to Arkansas! We’re full circle.
LSU snagged the belt from Arkansas in the Battle for the Golden Boot and actually took the trophy home this time. The win was the Tigers’ 3rd of the season as they wrapped up the disappointing Garry DiNardo era (who was fired before this game). After LSU hired Nick Saban from Michigan State, they would go on to win more national championships over the next 8 years (2) than they did in the preceding 60 (1). Did the belt change their fortunes and give them the momentum to become the elite program they now are??? No, probably not. But it’s pretty neat that they got it.
In 2003, the belt bounced around the Big Ten. Defending champions Ohio State lost the belt to Wisconsin (who would finish 7-6) on October 11th. Then, the Badgers would lose to Kyle Orton’s Purdue the following week, who lost to Michigan in the week after that. That’s four stops in a month for the belt before Michigan held on to it until a Rose Bowl loss to USC. Since winning the belt, Wisconsin has won 8 or more games in every season but one (2008 under Bret Bielema).
2010 saw 6 belt transfers including South Carolina winning it twice. Joker Phillips’s Kentucky squad got the belt after beating #10 South Carolina, who was fresh off beating defending champion Alabama. Now, Kentucky was no where near as bad as Arkansas has been recently. But this was the program’s first win against a ranked SEC opponent since 2007 when they beat #1 LSU in triple OT. Unlike LSU or Wisconsin, Kentucky’s program slid after winning the belt and the Wildcats wouldn’t beat another ranked SEC team until 2015 against #25 Missouri (Mizzou in the SEC is wrong!).
In 2011, Clemson beat defending champion Auburn in a game that some claim sparked their dynasty under Dabo Swinney. Yet, the Tigers got romped by Georgia Tech in Bobby Dodd Stadium two weeks later. Nothing ever changed in Paul Johnson’s decade (2008-2018) at GT. Either you prepared enough for the flexbone triple option or you didn’t. However, the win gave us one of the best highlight videos from an official team youtube page ever.
The 2017 title belt journey also brought us to the ACC. Defending champion Clemson was in the midst of, well, the run they are currently on. Yet, the Tigers lost to Syracuse at home right in the middle of the season. The loss was inexplicable outside of Clemson just having a stinker, but they would end up right back in the CFP playoff.
The funnier part came after Syracuse (who would finish 5-7 with QB Eric Dungey at the helm) lost to my Miami Hurricanes the week after. Miami was flying high in 2017 and would reach #2 in the polls. But, the Canes lost to Pittsburgh on Black Friday. Yes, Pitt ended the 2017 season with the title belt. No, it made no difference in their program. Pitt was, is, and always will be the team that ruins stuff.
So does this mean anything for Arkansas? Perhaps. Obviously, all of these teams got a boost from winning the belt because you typically need to win a big game to get it. But, it’s more important that the Razorbacks and any of us who care about them celebrate. The belt is something you love but can’t hang on to. So let out a loud WOO PIG SOOIE and hope that the program can sneak up on more teams in 2020.
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