BATON ROUGE, La. — During the week leading up to his team’s trip to LSU, Sam Pittman had to show the players pictures of the Golden Boot trophy because none of them had ever won it.
After a 16-13 overtime win the second-year Arkansas coach described as “ugly and beautiful and all in between,” the trophy is coming back to Fayetteville for the first time since 2015.
It’s the second lengthy drought in a rivalry game the Razorbacks have snapped this year and the trophy will get the same treatment as the one for the Southwest Classic against Texas A&M. It’ll sit in the floor of the football facility’s lobby so everyone has to walk by it.
“It’s going to sit there for a day and then we’ll find a place to put it,” Pittman said. “But for a day I told the kids we’re going to put it right in the middle of the floor and that’s where we’re going to put it.”
That may seem like an odd way to treat the trophies, but Pittman knows that none of the players on the current roster have ever won them.
The win over Texas A&M back in September snapped a 9-game losing streak in the series, while Saturday stopped a 5-game skid against LSU.
“This is my first time to ever see the Boot up close and personally,” quarterback KJ Jefferson said. “To know it's going back home to Fayetteville means a lot.”
“It means the world,” linebacker Bumper Pool said. “I grew up a Hog fan, so I've watched this LSU-Arkansas rivalry my entire life. To be able to go out here and do it in Baton Rouge at night might (be) a storybook.”
Here are a few other tidbits and stats from the Razorbacks’ win over the Tigers…
Stout Defense
Arkansas held LSU to a season-low 13 points, which - despite playing an overtime period - was actually one point fewer than it scored a week earlier against Alabama.
It was the result of a fantastic game by the Razorbacks’ defense, which gave up just 308 yards and kept the team in the game while the offense struggled to move the ball.
“They saved us,” Pittman said. “They saved the team.”
The Tigers tried to establish the run against Arkansas, but had about as much success as the Razorbacks did on the ground. They finished with just 108 yards on 42 carries - a minuscule 2.6 yards per attempt.
