Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz accused Kansas of an "embarrassing" pregame stunt after the Tigers beat the Jayhawks 38-21 in a Week 2 college football matchup, adding a personal edge to one of the sport's oldest rivalries.
Kansas released a hype video before kickoff that pointed to the violent history between the two states during the American Civil War, then played it again inside the stadium. The team captioned the post "It is that deep," with the video referencing Civil War-era incidents and narrating: "There's right and wrong. Kansas and Missouri."
Drinkwitz said the stunt only motivated him further, and he later declared that his Missouri team "left Kansas bleeding" by the final whistle.
"I was disappointed in the rivalry, the turn that it took today. I thought that was uncalled for," Drinkwitz said in his postgame news conference. "I'm just glad that this whole right versus wrong bullcrap that was started just got settled on a football field, because it's a football game."
"It's an American football game that people love to come watch and cheer for their teams," he continued. "It's not even deeper than that. I get there's a past to it, but why are we stirring that bullcrap up?"
The game fell on September 11, and Drinkwitz drew a direct line to the anniversary. "It's 9/11. This country needs unity now more than ever," he said. "I was embarrassed for them, to be honest, and that's why I tried to embarrass them at the end." He later added: "We left Kansas bleeding again."
Roots of the Border War
The rivalry, known as the Border War, is one of college football's most historic and fiercely contested matchups, with political roots dating back to the American Civil War fighting between Missouri and Kansas.
Drinkwitz was also keen to stop his own players from getting caught up in any ugly incidents once the final whistle blew. He abruptly cut short his television interview on Fox when a brief scuffle broke out, and was heard shouting off-camera at someone to stop planting a Missouri flag on the field. Other Missouri players were pictured celebrating with Jayhawks drums.
"I got to go make sure we don't have anything stupid happen here," Drinkwitz said on Fox.
His comments about wanting to run up the score were put to Kansas head coach Lance Leipold after the game.
Leipold's response
"I didn't know that he had said that," Leipold replied. "And if he did, that's his prerogative to coach his team the way he wants to coach it. He wants to keep trying to score. That's his prerogative. It's our job to try to stop it."
Leipold was also asked to compare his team's direction with last year, when Kansas also lost to Missouri. "This one, it's different. I felt really good going into halftime. We were in a really good spot, and then of course we're in those situations. You're down a couple scores, and you got 4th and 33, and it's going to snowball on you," he said.
"Here we are with the ball, and we're down 10 or whatever, and we're trying to make something happen," he continued. "Are we going to kick a field goal? Are we going to whatever? Still got to understand it's a possession game. So it's becoming more times you're going to touch the ball, and what you're going to try to do."
"I really have probably yet to sit there and give it a great comparison to last year. They won both games. That's fact," Leipold said. "But at the same time, I don't think we walked off the field in the game thinking that they're the one opportunity that things could have gone our way. Now we have to make them go our way. And they're not going to be handed to you. We have to execute and coach better and do those things, find ways of what we're going to do."
"A week ago, do you get much evaluation of where you're totally at sometimes as a team? Well, tonight you kind of do," he added. "We had planned against the speed and stuff off the edge and stuff that Missouri has."
What's next
Missouri improved to 2-0 and will host Troy next Saturday before opening its Southeastern Conference schedule. Kansas is traveling to London to face Arizona State in a Big 12 matchup in Week 3.
