Today at 2:43 a.m.

by Rex Nelson

State troopers will halt traffic Saturday on U.S. 67 at Arkadelphia, and Ouachita Baptist University football players will walk across the road to play the Reddies of Henderson State University. The Tigers will have prepared for the game in their own dressing room.

Late Saturday afternoon, the Tigers will walk back home. It makes the Battle of the Ravine unique. It's the only college football game in the country in which the visiting team doesn't fly or bus to a road game. The visitors walk. That's how close Henderson's Carpenter-Haygood Stadium and Ouachita's Cliff Harris Stadium are to each other.

Having grown up walking distance from both stadiums, the November Saturday when Ouachita plays Henderson remains my favorite day of the year. It's the small-college version of the Iron Bowl between Alabama and Auburn--a rivalry that divides families, a game that's talked about 365 days a year by graduates of the schools. Attending a Battle of the Ravine should be on every Arkansan's bucket list.

In my family (my father was Ouachita's starting quarterback in the 1947 Battle of the Ravine), it was Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day rolled into one. After all these decades, the series is almost even. Ouachita leads 46-44-6. The game has been decided by a touchdown or less in 46 of the 96 contests, including last year when Henderson won 31-27. It hasn't hurt that both........

© El Dorado News Times