Battle line rivalry trophy.

[wupigsuey]

Open wide. They are cramming this conjured up rivalry down our throats. Pitiful quickly comes to mind.

[Westcoasthog]

   Atlhogfan1  why are you popping your mouth of it is great that Arkansas has the Golden Boot Trophy with LSU, now Arkansas has the Battle Line
Trophy with Missouri.

[pigbacon]

What's next? Team rings that say "Played in the SEC WEST"?

[3kgthog]

I think a trophy of two mascots gazing up at the peak of a mountain crowned by the Alabama logo would be perfect. It's where we wish to go but will never reach.

[Hog in MO]

Can we trust U of Missouri to find a Safe Space for it ....... if they ever have possession of it?

I have a safe place for it. At the bottom of Bull Shoals.

[Hog in MO]

Ive only slept a handfull of hours since the game eneded Saturday night. My disgust was almost immediately wiped away just a few seconds after the game was over....intense heartbreak....then..."Hey! Battleline Rivalry! "....then "man I could use a ham and cheese with miracle whip." 

Id like to take this thread and invite everyone to think back as far as they can and share their favorite Battleline Rivalry story or ending.  What do you tailgate with each year?  Favorite traditions or rituals before this storied game. 

Anyone remember "the pass?"  "The extra point (my favorite) Heard Round the World?" (Might have been a field goal...definitely a kick of some sort)

Anyhow. Fired up here. GO HOGS!  Bring home the trophy atached to this game!

J Holly Blasingame, II

I remember when Reggie Herring and an uninterested staff of lame duck coaches led an uninspired Hog team to the greatest Border Line victory in the history of Missouri tackle football.

[HogMantheIntruder]

I heard he contracted the whole thing out to her...

Way too political and agenda driven, IMHO.

[HognitiveDissonance]

Not necessarily against having another trophy or memento for the season-ending Ark-Mizz game, but it's too much like the 'Boot'. Same concept. Nothing original about it. And it also weighs a ton.

Just come up with something different if you're going to do it.

[Buff]

Crystal meth pipe.  Golden moonshine jug.  Anything mountain-related. 

Just drawing an outline of 2 states and saying "hey we have a new rivalry" does NOT create a rivalry.  Baz is just starved for a spotlight.

The name is stupid.  The trophy is downright idiotic.  The guy who created it all just needs to stick to occasional tv appearances and his mediocre radio show.

[BPsTheMan]

As a U.S. American Arkansan, I believe that the travesty because South Africa and like Iraq are not in the education of...America..that that map of Arkansas and the Missouri from South Africa or David Bazzel should be something that our leaders uh make better for all of us including Iraq.


Or Syria

[razorsharptusk]

Got a boot, should of called it the hat.

[1highhog]

What's that's awful looking outlined shape above Arkansas?  Take that off and I'd like it.

[Razorfox]

If it were the first one, I guess I wouldn't have an issue with it.  But being that it's the exact same concept as the Boot, I guess I'm not nuts about it.  That being said, I really don't care.  I almost didn't even post this because I just don't care that much. 

[Großer Kriegschwein]

I heard he contracted the whole thing out to her...

Way too political and agenda driven, IMHO.

WTH did I just watch?

[Ex-Trumpet]

WTH did I just watch?

Wonder if she's interning at ESPN yet.

[Inhogswetrust]

If it were the first one, I guess I wouldn't have an issue with it.  But being that it's the exact same concept as the Boot, I guess I'm not nuts about it.  That being said, I really don't care.  I almost didn't even post this because I just don't care that much. 

This^^^^The trophy isn't very creative at all. Most people in Arkansas don't care about a trophy for beating Mizzou. I'd bet that's true in Missouri as well.

[HogimusMaximus]

This is actually our 3rd trophy game. There's a Southwest Classic Trophy too. Might as well come up with one for every other SEC game. Trophies all around.

Participation trophy is next.

[Tusks]

Bazzelhoff suffers from little man syndrome.

[Blue35]

Wonder what the Missouri and Arkansas boys buried at Pea Ridge think about the battle line. We were allies then.

[dsgreen]

So we have the boot and now we get to play for the crotch.  We'll build a whole man once the BIG 10/SEC challenge gets underway.

[Boardon Hamsay]

Well, I suppose we should all look at the bright side. With the proper scheduling and Bazzel's geographically themed trophy building prowess, the trophy case in the FOC could very well start resembling the game board from "Risk." Once we add Iowa and Minnesota, I say we continue north and dust up a rivalry with the University of Manitoba Bison or the University of Winnipeg Wesley Coyotes. From there, I think we'll have a nice choice between heading west or east with the end goal of encircling southern Canada and the entire lower 48.

Gold and silver are already off the table for trophy elements/materials. So, we should probably align each state or territory trophy to the material/item most fitting of that state and go ahead and buy futures on low priced metal commodities.

[HogMantheIntruder]

On a positive note...  Even if Mizzou finds a way to beat us, they'll probably let us keep the trophy here.  Just sayin'.

[Smokehouse]

Well, I suppose we should all look at the bright side. With the proper scheduling and Bazzel's geographically themed trophy building prowess, the trophy case in the FOC could very well start resembling the game board from "Risk." Once we add Iowa and Minnesota, I say we continue north and dust up a rivalry with the University of Manitoba Bison or the University of Winnipeg Wesley Coyotes. From there, I think we'll have a nice choice between heading west or east with the end goal of encircling southern Canada and the entire lower 48.

Gold and silver are already off the table for trophy elements/materials. So, we should probably align each state or territory trophy to the material/item most fitting of that state and go ahead and buy futures on low priced metal commodities.

The question is, does Bazzel's prowess extend beyond states that actually border Arkansas? Or is he limited to starting with Arkansas as a base?

[SamBuckhart]

They say that if you put your ear up to the trophy you can hear Slim Whitman yodeling. I still want to win this magical trophy. WOOO PIG!

[KennyForAD]

Hell let's just keep going. Will have a map of the damn United States in our trophy case before it's all said and done. Better yet, we can get OTR and Odel to come up with a design for us on his etch-a-sketch.

[artyhog]

I think it looks great.  Very unique!

[spiritof92]

[lasthog]

Well, we have the boot. Should this ugly monstrosity be called "the sock"?

The Colon.

[lasthog]

Baz's original proposal for the CFP's National Championship Trophy

Uhh...how much do it weigh?

[lasthog]

The trophy manufacturer was growing impatient. It wasn't the first time he'd been wooed to an over-priced "brunch". Glenn hated the word brunch. "Who decided it was clever to combine the words breakfast and lunch?" he thought to himself, "It's just stupid." Glenn was never a fan of portmanteaus. In his college years he petitioned the school board to adopt an entirely new name for the in-between meal: Upper. It never did take hold. An argument that the moniker created confusion amongst the drug community on campus was Glenn's downfall. It was the 1970's, after all. They did have a point. Even so, Glenn remained bitter to this day and it showed on his insolent face — even if the university was picking up the tab today.

Glenn stole furtive glances around the quiet table. The President of the University and the Athletic Director looked as if they were feeling the same awkward impatience he was. They all sat in silence watching David, a former football player at the university, well into middle age, doodling on his napkin like an innocent child. The tip of David's tongue broke for daylight near the crease of his lips and held everything in the balance: David's rudimentary drawing, his labored creative thought, the fate of a football rivalry.

Minutes that felt as long as hours inched along before David finally slapped the table with a sudden outburst of uncontainable excitement. "Finished," he thumped, with a smile spread across his jubilant face.

"Well, David, let's see it!" President Gearhart said.
"Yes! Let's have a look, rumbled Athletic Director Long.

Glenn slid the napkin across the table. He pushed his teal reading glasses up the sunburnt bridge of his nose and began inspecting it. President Gearhart and Athletic Director Long slid over Glenn's shoulders like a watchful pair of drapes, ones with pastel floral patterns and the unremovable scent of cigarette smoke that wore out their welcome in your grandmother's house.

The drawing was... simple. Not in the way one might look upon a Rothko or Lichtenstein's more sparse work, no, not hardly. More like the way a frustrated bodega owner might grumble as he opened his shop for the morning, only to find some vagrant had strolled by during the evening and urinated in a semi-coordinated pattern, one that loosely resembled a name. Ranjo. No. Ran... ho? Is Ranho a Portuguese name?, the bodega owner would wonder. In the end he'd resign himself to feeling the same exact way Glenn felt at this very moment.

"What is it?" Glenn deigned.

David's eyes lit up. This was the moment he'd been waiting for. He pointed his excited fingers at the seismograph pen strokes. With pride he explained it was the the outline of both bordering states — Missouri and Arkansas. David was confident that a trophy with this design would easily explain to fans that both the University of Arkansas and the University of Missouri were involved in the rivalry.

"That's what these rivalry trophies are all about, Glenn. Rivalry. Missouri. Arkansas. Rivals. Right there", David pointed at the drawing emphatically.

David's drawl was as swift as a one legged mule in a Mexican standoff. But not in the charming way. His accent grated on Glenn. His shoulders were broad and shoved forward — along with his posture which, like the tower of Pisa, permanently tipped into one's personal space. He was a big man, a former athlete. Most of all, he was a damn good salesman.

"I like it," bustled Long, "It's got panache."

Long looked at Gearhart with the type of gaze a hopeful politician might fire at a staffer who stumbled in on him being fellated by an overly eager intern. The gaze was communicative and stern: "Nod and say yes or I will end you."

"Yep", Gearhart chocked out with confusion.

Glenn didn't share the same sort of symbiotic relationship with Athletic Director Long that President Gearhart did. This unencumbered position was exactly why Glenn had been hired in the first place. Objectivity was a buzzword thrown around in his business all the time and it was time for him to be objective.

"That's the same trophy as the one you already have," Glenn claimed.
"How do you mean?" David retorted.
"The trophy for the LSU-Arkansas rivalry is just an outline of both states stacked on top of each other," Glenn quipped. "This is the same thing, you just changed Louisiana with Missouri. You're stealing someone else's design."

David started to simmer. He didn't like being disputed in the presence of President Gearhart and Athletic Director Long. Least of all, Glenn's challenging tone felt like a usurper striding arrogantly toward David's imaginary throne.

"I designed that trophy, Glenn," David scoffed.
"You designed the Battle of the Boot trophy?"
David chuckled arrogantly, "Yes — I did, Glenn."

Glenn desperately looked at President Gearhart and Athletic Director Long for some sort of support. Surely they saw what he saw. They wouldn't have to leap too far to find themselves at the simple conclusion that David was a one trick pony when it came to ideas for trophies, even more embarrassingly, that he had likely spent weeks devising this new design — a concept that he, more than likely, stole from himself. Gearhart and Long took synchronized bites of their Denver omelets. It was clear that Glenn was all alone — there would be no rescue convoy today.

"But, you're not even a designer. You're a broadcaster," Glenn pleaded.

Glenn was being nice. What he really wanted to tell David was that he wasn't even the real kind of broadcaster — the kind who waded through his miserable twenties as a lowly gopher, having scalding hot coffee thrown at him by old-timers who made enough money to bury hookers and often argued the term "darkies" was a misunderstood colloquialism. Still, if the miserable twenty-something was durable enough to trudge through the dung-covered muck of his post-collegiate years, he'd get bumped up to his own desk. Once there, he'd spend sleepless nights researching the meaning of bygone sports catchphrases like, "hurler on the ditch", learning how to properly mix a perfect 20:1 self-tanner/lotion mix, and put his nasal cavities through enough cocaine abuse to hobble half the Kentucky Derby field. After all that, if the poor fool was fortunate enough to catch a "break" — he might get the opportunity to speak on air before he slid face first into his fifties. Again, if he was lucky. David, on the other hand, was privileged. Privileged with the gargantuan build of an orangoutang and the foot speed of a Doberman Pinscher. This advantage allowed David to fall gently, after his playing days, into a broadcasting position that some network suit cleverly coined "Color Commentary." To most,the term was one of endearment for the lucky chap who'd inject a bit of pizzaz into the broadcast. To Glenn the term meant the guy who shouldn't be designing football trophies.

David growled , "Did you notice the line, Glenn?" David testily circled the demarcation between the two states in his rudimentary drawing. "It changes color every time a new team wins the trophy. How 'bout that?" David snickered, as if this were the thing, the thing of all things, the trump card David had been holding onto like a mother to her newborn child.

"Let me guess," Glenn winced, "it changes to the color of the school that wins the trophy?"

David cocked a proud grin. His eyebrows danced in rhythm like a bullfighter waving his muleta. This was David gloating. It was enough to make Glenn wheezy.

"Hot damn," Gearhart chortled, "How 'bout that?"
"Remarkable," Long grinned through his tastefully porcelained veneers.

"So, Glenn?" David was drawing a line in the proverbial sand.

Glenn knew how embarrassingly cliche it all was. He knew it was something a twelve year old might dream up. It was eerily similar to the time he wondered if his bicycle might be able to change colors at different temperatures. He remembered his exact train of thought — that the multi-color bicycle might be just the thing he needed to set himself apart from the tightly knit circle of local 6th graders in his new school. They'd see. Glenn thought back on his younger self, how he saved up his allowance money for an entire year, how he took the money to his dad's buddy, Merle, and had him manufacture the color-changing frame. Even more clearly, Glenn recalled how, years later, he was cleaning out his parent's garage when he stumbled across the rusted thing. The over-whelming sense of embarrassment still stung him today, even at this upper.  "God what was I thinking," Glenn thought. His lip curled as he felt the adolescent pang of that moment recalled from his late teens — the sharpest bite being the overwhelming embarrassment of those purple handlebars and how that initial embarrassment transformed to shame when he carried the bike outside to the dumpster and it turned pink.

"Fine, I'll do it." Glenn feigned. "I'll make your silly trophy."

We are not worthy. 

[1highhog]

Dumb.  Bazzel needs to stop.  The boot is dumb enough. 

"...we are quickly turning the Battle Line Rivalry into a budding college football tradition.”

"...the annual Missouri-Arkansas game has the opportunity to grow into one of college football’s great Thanksgiving weekend traditions.”

 

Whatever you're smoking pass that stuff around Atlhog.

[lasthog]

Dumb.  Bazzel needs to stop.  The boot is dumb enough. 

"...we are quickly turning the Battle Line Rivalry into a budding college football tradition."

"...the annual Missouri-Arkansas game has the opportunity to grow into one of college football's great Thanksgiving weekend traditions."

Sign on Three Stooges' shop, "Antiques Made While You Wait."

[LZH]

I have an idea. Why don't all the fans get together in the parking lot before the game and slug it out with each other, and then pick up all the teeth that are laying around and put them in a jar. That would be a lot better trophy than some of this crap that we've seen lately. At least it would mean something.

One might even find a bit of gold or silver in that jar.

[Medic821]

😐😐

[Albert Einswine]

The trophy should have been hunks of lead and zinc on a limestone pedestal. Call it the Base Metal Bowl.

[Augustus]

Apparently, during the SEC Coach's teleconference today... Coach Pinkel didn't even know about the trophy yet.

This is "Borderline embarrassing"...

https://twitter.com/BarrettSallee/status/669565692220436480

[HillBillyHogfan]

Im late to this party, but we should play for Branson... Winner gets Branson for that year.

All tourism tax dollars goes to winning institution

The Baldknobber cup!

[Swine-as-wine]

Should have had something representing a meth lab or an Ozark hillbilly.  Little brown jug is already taken though.  Or maybe something representing mediocrity.  Trade pictures of Broyles and Faurot or Pinkle.

[Dumb ole famrboy]

We just need to accept this rivalry for what it is.

[SpanHog]

(NO!)⁵⁰⁰

[SpanHog]

loser gets stuck with Yakov til next year.

[SpanHog]

What's that's awful looking outlined shape above Arkansas?  Take that off and I'd like it.

Meth-zoory

[bxw21]

Well, we have the boot. Should this ugly monstrosity be called "the sock"?

I [heart] this

[RazorChuck]

I [heart] this

No, how about this:

The Condom.

[psooie]

AWFUL. The worst thing is it almost ruins the boot trophy. CBS had it right with its lead in of todays game with a train shot of the arkansas-missouri line. Melt this trophy into some train tracks or get a replica of a train. Hoepfully somebody destroys the current trophy and creates another

[Wayne Watson]

The Battle Line Trophy is the Golden Boot.  I heard Jeff Long's explanation today.  Spewed beer all over the steering wheel.

[98hogs]

Bazzel and his wanna be impotent Trophy. 

[goneal]

This is getting pretty tired. They're trying their best to "manufacture" a rivalry, with no basis to back it up. There's nothing left in our history to constitute a rivalry. We refuse to take advantage of the obvious one, unlike most other states. We left the SWC and the closest thing (to us, anyway) we had to a natural rival in Texas. We have not been competitive consistantly enough in the SEC. Besides there is no impetus for a natural rivalry. The silly trophys are just a joke.

[Hawgphish]

why would they make it so similar to the boot.  And why do we insist on having it so big you cannot carry it.  Did you see how ridiculous the players looked wheeling it around the field on a dolly!

[Ragnar Hogbrok]

I understand we won the game and all...but do we have to take the trophy?