A century old rivalry, a 200 pound trophy invented from scratch, and the reason players still need two sets of hands to carry it off the field.
LSU and Arkansas had been playing football against each other for 95 years before anyone thought to hand the winner anything.
David Bazzel, a former Arkansas linebacker who played in Fayetteville in the early 1980s, decided that was a problem worth solving. His reasoning, given years later, was refreshingly blunt: a lot of trophy games have a trophy worth something, and this one had nothing, so he made something valuable.
The result first changed hands in 1996 and has been the point of the whole exercise ever since.
What he actually built
The Boot is a combined outline of Arkansas and Louisiana. Put the two state borders together and the shape that comes out looks like a boot, which is the kind of geographic accident you cannot design and can only notice.
It is molded in 24 karat gold, stands a little over four feet tall, weighs roughly 200 pounds, and was commissioned for 10,000 dollars. It is generally considered the heaviest genuine trophy in college football. Bazzel has said the size and the gaudiness were the entire point, because value had to be created where none existed.
The practical consequence is that winning it requires a group effort. Photographs of the celebration always show several players sharing the load, which was deliberate. Bazzel wanted something that took more than one person to carry.
Before there was anything to carry
The series started on December 6, 1901, in Baton Rouge, where LSU won 15 to 0. The two played nearly every year from 1906 through 1936, missing only 1918, when LSU did not field a team during the First World War.
For much of that early stretch the game lived in Shreveport as part of the State Fair Classic, and it produced two footnotes worth keeping. In 1924 the schools played for a trophy marking the dedication of the new State Fair Stadium, which made them the first future SEC rivals to play for one at all. And in 1936, LSU formally introduced its first live tiger mascot at the Arkansas game. The animal had been purchased from the Little Rock Zoo, which means the most famous mascot in Louisiana sport came from Arkansas.
The series eventually went quiet. Arkansas stopped scheduling the State Fair game after losing seven straight. The teams met again in the Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Day in 1947 and again in 1966, played a short run in the mid 1950s, and then largely disappeared from each other’s calendars until Arkansas joined the Southeastern Conference in 1992.
Two of their meetings have ended level. The 1906 game finished 6 to 6. The 1947 Cotton Bowl, played in ice, sleet and snow and remembered as the Ice Bowl, ended without a point being scored by either side, and the last play of the game was a botched snap on a potential winning field goal.
The 1966 Cotton Bowl
Arkansas arrived in Dallas on New Year’s Day 1966 unbeaten at 10 and 0, carrying a 22 game winning streak and the highest scoring offense in the country, with a second national championship in two years within reach.
LSU won 14 to 7. Joe LaBruzzo scored both touchdowns. Arkansas ended the game inside the LSU 24 yard line and never got in.
The Boot era, and how loud it got
LSU leads the trophy series 19 wins to 9, but the individual games have been anything but one sided.
In 2002 at Little Rock, Arkansas trailed by six with 34 seconds left and the ball on its own 19. Matt Jones threw a 50 yard completion, then a 31 yard touchdown to DeCori Birmingham with nine seconds on the clock. Arkansas won 21 to 20 and went to the SEC title game. The finish became known as the Miracle on Markham, named for the street outside the stadium.
In 2007 in Baton Rouge, unranked Arkansas beat the top ranked team in the country 50 to 48 in triple overtime, in front of an official crowd of 92,606. Darren McFadden ran for 206 yards and three touchdowns and threw for another.
In 2008, back at Little Rock, Arkansas came from 16 points down in the third quarter and won 31 to 30 on a fourth down touchdown pass from Casey Dick to London Crawford with 22 seconds to go. The catch happened in the same corner of the same end zone as the 2002 winner, six years apart, which is why some people call it the Miracle on Markham II.
Where it stands now
Through the meeting on November 15, 2025, the teams have played 71 times and LSU leads the all time series 44 wins, 23 losses and 2 ties.
That most recent one went to LSU 23 to 22 in Baton Rouge, a single point, which is about right for this series. It was the Tigers’ fourth consecutive win in the rivalry.
The next meeting is set for November 28, 2026. It marks the game’s return to Thanksgiving rivalry week for the first time since 2014, though on the Saturday rather than the Friday it traditionally owned.
By the numbers
| First meeting | Dec. 6, 1901. LSU 15, Arkansas 0 |
| Total meetings | 71 |
| All time series | LSU leads 44 wins, 23 losses, 2 ties |
| Trophy series since 1996 | LSU leads 19 to 9 |
| The Boot | 24 karat gold, roughly 200 pounds, just over four feet tall |
| Commissioned for | 10,000 dollars |
| Largest wins | Arkansas 51 to 0 in 1910. LSU 56 to 20 in 2019 |
| Most recent meeting | Nov. 15, 2025. LSU 23, Arkansas 22 |
| Next meeting | Nov. 28, 2026 |
Common questions
What is the Golden Boot trophy? A 24 karat gold trophy formed from the combined outlines of Arkansas and Louisiana, awarded to the winner of the annual LSU and Arkansas football game since 1996. It stands just over four feet tall and weighs roughly 200 pounds, making it the heaviest genuine trophy in college football.
Who created the Boot? David Bazzel, a former Arkansas linebacker, who wanted the rivalry to have something of real value at stake and had the trophy commissioned for 10,000 dollars.
Who leads the LSU and Arkansas series? LSU, with 44 wins, 23 losses and 2 ties across 71 meetings through November 2025. LSU also leads the trophy era 19 to 9.
When did LSU and Arkansas first play? December 6, 1901, in Baton Rouge. LSU won 15 to 0. The series became an annual fixture when Arkansas joined the SEC in 1992.
The next one
November 28, 2026, and the game goes back where it belongs, in the last week of the season with everything else in college football happening around it.
Ninety five years without a trophy, thirty with one. It turns out the thing you carry off the field matters more than anyone expected, mostly because somebody decided to make one heavy enough to be worth the trouble.
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