Hey, why not? Not many people can say they played in one of the worst college football games of all time.

“It meant so little,” said Budde, a former Kansas University center, “that it turned into meaning a whole lot.”

It was 20 years ago – Nov. 7, 1987 – when the 1-7 Jayhawks boarded a bus and headed to Manhattan for a game with 0-8 Kansas State.

By all accounts, it was an awful matchup. The game was insulted, ignored, and even given a new name by snickering media members.

The Toilet Bowl.

Such futility is remarkable to think about now, as the two programs go into Saturday’s rivalry game in Manhattan with a combined 7-1 record in 2007.

But football in the state of Kansas was in shambles a generation ago. The 1987 Toilet Bowl represented the lowest low – a perfect storm of ineptitude, with a fitting finish.

Kansas 17, Kansas State 17.

A tie. Grab your sister and give her a big kiss.

“It was almost a sense of, ‘Wow, we BOTH really are the worst,'” former Jayhawk Mark Koncz said. “I just remember a very empty feeling.”

The setup

Don’t let KU’s one victory that season fool you. It was a 16-15 triumph over Division I-AA Southern Illinois, a win clinched when the Salukis’ last-second field goal attempt sailed wide left.

Southern Illinois, for the record, finished 3-8 that year.

No, Kansas and Kansas State definitely were on equal footing – quicksand, really. The Wildcats were listed as three-point favorites for the 1:30 p.m. Saturday game, mainly because they were the home team.

The Jayhawks were coming off a 71-10 loss to Oklahoma in front of 23,500 fans at Memorial Stadium the week before. Kansas State, meanwhile, was on a 13-game losing streak, having been outscored 172-20 in its last three.

To make matters worse, both programs were surrounded by greatness. The KU men’s basketball team was months away from winning the national championship. K-State’s hoops squad was about to start a 25-9, Elite Eight campaign.

“Everybody,” Budde said, “was thinking about basketball.”

But football? Please. The national media took the Sunflower Showdown as an opportunity to toss jokes like grenades toward the state of Kansas. Earlier in the week, Associated Press writer Herschel Nissenson wrote, “It’s an upset when either of these teams win” before predicting a 0-0 tie.

Players from both sides heard the insults. Some were angered by it.

“But there was clearly no defense,” Budde said. “What are we going to say? ‘Nuh uh. We’re both awesome football teams.’

“Truth is a good defense against libel, right?”

The motivation

Koncz, a former KU defensive tackle, remembers the humbling motivation tactics used by assistant coach Vic Eumont in the week leading up to the game.

“He kept preaching over and over about, ‘You don’t want to be an embarrassment! You don’t want to be the worst program in the country!'” Koncz recalled. “Not that we needed any more motivation because it was Kansas State. Back then, we had a pretty good rivalry.

“But we both weren’t the best of teams. It was more of a, ‘Wow, if we lose to you guys, we really ARE the worst.'”

Clearly, there was the desire to bag a Big Eight Conference victory. Most of the players on both teams realized that the Toilet Bowl probably was the only opportunity for that.

But the Kansas-Kansas State rivalry, like it is today, was noticeably heated 20 years ago.

Kansas coach Bob Valesente and K-State coach Stan Parrish often argued back and forth through the newspapers. The two programs had alternated wins and losses over the previous six seasons. In fact, the Wildcats’ 29-12 victory in the 1986 game was the last before their dismal 13-game funk began.

Up in the radio booth, Stan Weber was a young 20-something in his first season as Kansas State’s color analyst in 1987. Weber, a KSU quarterback in the early ’80s, remembers all the insults the showdown received. But he also recalls the positive aspect of the game that surfaced if the optimist dug deep.

After all, someone probably was going to get a win.

“From a perspective of the state,” Weber said, “you almost hoped one team could take a little bit of pride and get a victory.”

It was interesting: For all the justifiable negativity surrounding the Toilet Bowl, the meeting of two hopeless football teams created some sort of hope.

That is, until the game started.

The game

The ’87 KU-KSU game got going the only sensible way it could have.

The Wildcats rocketed down the field to the delight of 37,000 fans in attendance during the opening drive. They were goal-to-go, six yards from the end zone, ready to take a 6-0 lead over the Jayhawks.

And then, KSU running back Tony Jordan fumbled the ball out of the end zone. Touchback.

It was the first of eight turnovers in the game.

“Both teams made stupid mistakes,” K-State’s Tim MacDonald said at the time, “at vital times.”

Kansas State eventually jumped to a 7-0 lead in the first quarter when Erick Harper intercepted a pass from KU quarterback Kevin Verdugo and streaked down the left sideline untouched for 64 yards.

From there, it started to go back and forth. Kansas took a 10-7 lead before halftime. K-State took it back on the first play of the fourth quarter. A KSU field goal made it 17-10 Wildcats, and a Kansas touchdown with 5:32 left tied the game at 17.

And then it got interesting.

K-State was 23 yards from the end zone with 1:16 to play, when KU strong safety Clint Normore – who ended up playing basketball for KU as well -intercepted a K-State pass. But three plays later, the Jayhawks fumbled it away. A subsequent personal-foul penalty on the Jayhawks put Kansas State at the KU 16-yard line with 36 seconds left.

With the clock running out, K-State’s Mark Porter attempted a 37-yard field goal, only to have it blocked by KU’s Marvin Mattox – another basketball player – when he stormed the long snapper and made an athletic leap.

Budde recalls KU freshman Kyle Schenker pouncing on the loose football, when he probably should’ve tried to make an effort – doomed as it may have been – to pick it up and run toward the end zone.

But he didn’t. And the 17-17 tie was forever in the books.

“I remember there was a huge elation after we blocked it,” Budde said. “And then kind of a, ‘Oh. We tied.'”

The legacy

Weber was a part of a few ties when he was a player. But sitting alongside Mitch Holthus in K-State’s broadcast booth, Weber remembers almost being speechless at the end of the Toilet Bowl.

“We just look at each other and go, ‘What?'” Weber said with a laugh. “It couldn’t have been written better. An ugly day, an ugly game and a tie. This is more like fiction.”

Both locker rooms were devastated after the game. Every player felt their big chance at victory got away, and they were right – Kansas finished 1-9-1, K-State 0-10-1.

“At that point, after the tie, there wasn’t an overwhelming sense that it could get better,” Budde said. “It was kind of a ‘Criminy, let’s get through this season.'”

The 1987 Toilet Bowl eventually evolved into a beloved chapter of both program’s histories, though, thanks in part to the quick ascension by each school toward more respectable heights.

By 1993, both programs had gone to bowl games. The 1995 rivalry game featured No. 6 Kansas (7-0) against No. 14 Kansas State (6-1).

The tide has gone up and down since then. But many feel this year’s game is perhaps just a notch below the ’95 contest as one of the most anticipated in the series’ history.

Considering where it was 20 years ago, that’s quite a feat.

“It’s off-the-charts incredible,” Weber said. “To think that these programs are the factors that they are in college football is almost unprecedented.”

That, of course, makes it easier to remember the bad times with a sense of fondness. Even some of those who played in the Toilet Bowl have a twisted sense of pride about their involvement.

It is, after all, now a unique part of college football lore.

“The game means more now than it did back then,” Budde said. “It was a throw-away punch line back then. Now it’s the starting point to the development of the programs.”