College Football: El Dorado Will Be Site of Southern Arkansas-UAM Matchup Saturday

EL DORADO -- The first Boomtown Classic, featuring the Southern Arkansas University Muleriders and the University of Arkansas at Monticello Boll Weevils, will be held Saturday at Memorial Stadium.

The two schools agreed earlier this year to move their annual regular-season finale to El Dorado, which sits between the towns of Magnolia and Monticello.

Kickoff for the Gulf South Conference match-up will be at 2 p.m. at El Dorado's Memorial Stadium. The first annual Boomtown Classic will be part of an entire weekend of events for students, alumni and local residents.

Tailgating for Boll Weevil fans will be held in the South Arkansas Arts Center parking lot, while mulegating for Muleriders fans is scheduled for the area southeast of the TAC House. At halftime, the El Dorado Jaycees will sponsor a field goal contest in which two participants will have the opportunity to win $1,000. Alumni events are scheduled by both schools, and a concert at the El Dorado Municipal Auditorium following the game will be free to students of both schools and open for general admission.

The Classic, which celebrates both schools' centennials, will reignite their decades-old rivalry in a rematch of a historic game played on Thanksgiving Day, 1933 in El Dorado. Dubbed "The Battle of the Goat" the game pitted the natural rivals against each other with an aggie goat named Nanny to be awarded to the winner, but it ended in a 0-0 tie. The winner of the 2009 Boomtown Classic football game will receive a trophy newly designed by the Classic committee, which will again be up for grabs at the 2010 Boomtown Classic on November 6, 2010.

Tickets are available for $5 in advance at Simmons First Bank and BancorpSouth locations in El Dorado, Simmons First Bank and Union Bank locations in Monticello, and BancorpSouth and Farmers Bank locations in Magnolia, as well as at the campus bookstores at SAU and UAM. Tickets can also be purchased for $7 at the gate.