When two teams come into a league at the same time, it’s interesting to track their success or lack thereof through the years. Since Arkansas and South Carolina, who both entered the SEC in 1992, I’d be interested to read a discussion on which school has experienced more success–if either–in ALL sports in that time. South Carolina has won a baseball championship; Arkansas has won it all in basketball and track/field. But as objectively as possible, which school has enjoyed more success. Just a fun look at both schools.
I think overall Arkansas has been a little more successful, especially in the two major sports. Arkansas has been to two more SEC Championship games than South Carolina in football. Arkansas has a better head-to-head record than South Carolina in both sports.
South Carolina has more baseball championships, but it’s funny that Arkansas has really owned them in baseball most years. I remember Chuck Barrett’s call after Arkansas hit a walk-off grand slam to beat South Carolina several years ago; he said, “The mastery of Carolina continues.” The only time South Carolina has had an extended upper hand was during that three-year run from 2010-12. Arkansas beat some really good South Carolina teams, including some national seeds, consistently.
South Carolina has become a dominant team in women’s basketball. You didn’t note that it won the national championship in that sport last year.
Had forgotten that, Matt. As of this moment, they are light years ahead of Arkansas, but I figure Coach Neighbors is narrowing that gap. Thanks for the other insight. The question is should Arkansas, which often is said to be at a disadvantage because of size, etc., be better than South Carolina or should it be the other way around and why?
[quote=“SoArkHog”]
Had forgotten that, Matt. As of this moment, they are light years ahead of Arkansas, but I figure Coach Neighbors is narrowing that gap. Thanks for the other insight. The question is should Arkansas, which often is said to be at a disadvantage because of size, etc., be better than South Carolina or should it be the other way around and why?
[/quote]
Population of South Carolina is 5 million plus, which is more than Alabama’s; Arkansas is right around 3 million. The population density of SC (population per square mile) is three times that of Arkansas. Metro Atlanta, with almost 6 million inhabitants, is a touch over 200 miles from Columbia, closer than Dallas is to NWA. The Columbia metro area, at 800,000 population, is larger than either the LR or NWA metro clusters. And it doesn’t hurt that of those 5 million in SC, about 1.4 million of those are African-American – three times the black population of Arkansas. Yes, they share the state with Clemson, but Clemson is even closer to Atlanta and is actually located in the state’s largest metropolitan area, Greenville. And the Charlotte metro area (2.4 million) overlaps part of SC, less than 100 miles from the Poultry campus.
Or to look at it another way, there are 13.6 million people within a 250-mile radius of Fayetteville, and even that is exaggerated because it includes both Oklahoma City and Kansas City, neither one of which we recruit very successfully (Isaiah Campbell being an exception). There are 28 million people within a 250-mile radius of Columbia.
As an aside, my ex lives along the South Carolina coast now and my son spent a few months with her while recovering from foot surgery in 2012 or 2013. I asked him if he’d encountered more Clemson fans or Gamecock fans. Being not very sociable, he hadn’t talked to many of either persuasion, but he said the bumper stickers, etc., he saw were mainly Clemson.