Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Traditionally Weird, a weekly series on the oddities and eccentricities of college football, from mascots to rivalries to student-section rituals and (way) beyond.



On Saturday, the Henderson State football team will gather, dress and wait until 11:30 a.m. local time. That’s when police will block off the two-lane highway that separates that campus from the campus of Ouachita Baptist in Arkadelphia, Ark. And that’s when the team will walk across the street to play its archrival.



It is the shortest road trip in college football.



“There are a lot of great rivalries out there,” Ouachita Baptist athletic director David Sharp says. “But I don’t think there’s anything quite like this.”



It’s called the Battle of the Ravine, pitting the Henderson State Reddies against the Ouachita Baptist Tigers in the regular-season finale for...