2024’s disappointing defeats don’t come close to making this list of horrible memories for Razorback fans.
To all the Razorback fans still lamenting Arkansas’ agonizing losses to Oklahoma State and Texas A&M, yes, the Hogs are so close — oh my gosh, so close — to being … well, all of this:
Undefeated.
Nationally ranked.
One of the best surprises in college football.
But they aren’t. Arkansas is awfully good at times and the victim of their own bonehead plays at other times.
It has always been thus, friends. The toughest losses in the history of the Arkansas program are a combination of playing another great team and the Hogs being their own worst enemy.
It’s not unlike when they gift wrapped an early Christmas present for Okie-State and coughed up the football three times while resembling A&M’s scout team.
Those setbacks will be forgotten by most in a couple years. For some, it will be by the time the 2024 season is over.
By then everyone will know whether the Hogs rebounded — perhaps the flash point will be a major upset of No. 4 Tennessee Saturday at Razorback Stadium — and earned a bowl bid or if the tough schedule got the best of the boys.
Some games are never forgotten, though. They live forever in hearts and minds. The stories are passed down through generations.
They’re the legends of the lost, the memories of what might’ve been. Here are the five worst in Hogs history based on nothing more than one man’s opinion:
NO. 1: THE BIG SHOOTOUT
No game played between today and the end of time will knock the 1969 game with Texas out of the top slot. It likely cost the Hogs a national championship — but there’s absolutely no way they should’ve lost this one.
They gave it away and that’s gotta be the biggest reason Arkansas’ legendary coach Frank Broyles famously never watched the film. It was the big one that got away, the Moby Dick on this list.
In a nutshell, No. 2 Arkansas hosted No. 1 Texas in a game moved to the end of the season by national TV. Yet-to-be disgraced President Richard Nixon flew in, as did future President George H.W. Bush.
Billy Graham gave the invocation to the 10 million Hog fans who swear they were at the game.
Now, the bad stuff. The Razorbacks led 14-8 in the fourth quarter, had the ball at the Texas 7, with All-American kicker Bill McClard waiting to clinch the win.
Instead, on third down, Bill Montgomery passed, was intercepted, and Texas broke every heart in Arkansas by scoring, making the two-pointer, and later magically converting 4th & 3 with — everyone shake your head in disgust now — a 43-yard pass to the tight end that led to the game-winning TD.
If anyone’s mom, grandma or great grandma ever cussed, she did that day.
NO. 2: DYNASTY DENIED
The unbeaten Hogs won their version of the national championship in 1964. But Alabama was declared national champ in the AP poll, which awarded the title — amazingly, stupidly — before bowl games were played.
So, what happened? ’Bama lost its bowl game (21-17 to Texas in the Orange Bowl) and Arkansas didn’t (beating Nebraska 10-7 in the Cotton Bowl), making the Hogs the country’s lone unbeaten.
The Razorbacks were awarded the title by the Football Writers Association of America and the Helms Athletic Foundation.
So ’Bama and Arkansas both still lay claim to the title. What happened the next year in 1965?
Arkansas was undefeated again but the folks who control the polls came to their senses and said the poll following the bowls determined the national champ.
The Hogs lost their bowl game, 14-7 to LSU, and finished third in the poll (Alabama was first again). The Hogs had a chance at back-to-back national titles and lots of folks outside Arkansas don’t think the Hogs even won one.
NO. 3: HOOKED BY THE ’HORNS
Broyles retired as coach, concentrating on becoming a visionary athletics director and TV commentator alongside Keith Jackson.
His hand-picked successor got lots of laughs while sitting next to Johnny Carson on the old Tonight Show. And when the regular season ended in 1977, Arkansas coach Lou Holtz amused everyone after fans threw oranges onto the field, signifying the Hogs clinching a spot in the Orange Bowl.
“I’m just glad we aren’t going to the Gator Bowl,” quipped Holtz.
He suspended Arkansas’ starting tailback, fullback and receiver following a dorm incident with a woman and All-American guard Leotis Harris also missed the Orange Bowl with an injury.