This Saturday’s football game will likely become the swan song of the oldest college rivalry west of the Mississippi. The Missouri Tigers and the Kansas Jayhawks have mutual animosity rooted back to the Civil War, but with Missouri’s departure to the SEC, the athletic rivalry may be over.
As a Mizzou collegiette™ that went to high school 30 minutes from Lawrence, the MU-KU rivalry is all too familiar. I was one of very few to choose Mizzou as my college home, while a substantial percentage of my peers now attend KU. Of course, had they visited Mizzou, they would’ve realized how superior it is like I did!
Before I went to Mizzou, I hated the rivalry. I didn’t like wearing Mizzou stuff in my hometown because of the trash talk. I didn’t consider Mizzou my home yet; I didn’t have the passion to back up the trash talk with any retorts. But now that I have experienced MU-KU games firsthand I realize that losing the spirit generated from a rivalry like ours would be a shame.
I won’t lie, I’m extremely excited for football games in the SEC. The culture and caliber of teams in the SEC take Mizzou to the next level. My friends and I have already discussed how legit it would be to road trip to away games in states like Louisiana and Florida. Still, call me selfish, but I’m hoping we can have the best of both worlds. Why wouldn’t we keep the rivalry going, no matter what?
As of now, whether MU and KU will play each other regularly in the future is uncertain. KU basketball coach Bill Self has said, “KU fans don’t give a flip about playing Missouri.” I don’t buy it. The MU-KU game is one of the most anticipated match-ups of the year in Columbia, and even Jayhawk students agree.
“No matter how highly ranked either team is, football or basketball, it always makes for a good game,” says Ryan, a KU student, “There’s too much tradition in the rivalry to just throw it out the window like they’re planning on doing.”
I agree wholeheartedly and I’m not the only Tiger who does: “The rivalry should keep going because it has such an intense history and the games are always really fun,” says Claire, an MU student.
Mizzou also doesn’t want to lose the border rivalry because KU has a very special place in our greatest tradition – Homecoming. You don’t bleed black and gold if you don’t know the story of how we created Homecoming. Like it or not, we couldn’t have done it without the help of the mythical bird supporters in Lawrence.
Game day for the MU-KU rivalry has a completely different energy. We play in Arrowhead Stadium, families are gathered from the holidays, and tailgating stretches as far as they eye can see. It makes games against Miami or Ohio look like our campus while everyone is studying for finals. The hype and emphasis put on the match-up make the relationship between MU and KU one of both hatred and appreciation. There is no other game, besides sometimes Homecoming, that I look forward to as much. And it’s easy to see by looking around at the rabid, face-paint adorned fans, that I’m not alone.
Time will tell whether I can smack talk with KU fans in my hometown down the road or not. Which is a bummer, because nobody loves talking about the amazingness of Mizzou and the weakness of KU like I do. If I heard tomorrow that the KU Athletics Director decided to take Mizzou up on our offer to schedule more games, I would send him some Shakespeare’s pizza in a heartbeat.