The 2025 matchup between Kansas and Missouri has been on the books since 2020, which means it’s been on the horizon for the entire duration of Lance Leipold’s tenure as KU’s head coach.
He’s just started to hear about it a little more often recently.
“You know, you try to push it off until it’s the game week,” Leipold said on Monday. “I guess now, we got to address it, right?
Last Friday, walking off the field after KU beat Wagner 46-7, former Jayhawk and Lawrence native Devin Neal — whom quarterback Jalon Daniels has also credited for educating him about the Border War rivalry — asked Leipold if he could come back and play in Saturday’s game: “He goes, ‘I’ll even come back as a walk-on,'” Leipold said.
And the KU coach gets asked about it in public, too. On Sunday, Leipold was with his wife Kelly at church and a fan told him, “Kick their butt” — but, as Leipold put it, “they didn’t say ‘butt.'”
“In church, I didn’t really think it was appropriate,” Leipold joked.
It’s all reflective of the growing anticipation surrounding the renewal of a historic rivalry that dates back to mid-19th-century cross-border violence. As Leipold says, though, his team still has to play an actual football game on Saturday, and “we always want to be an enthusiastic team and not an emotional team.”
“It’s important to understand some of those things and to have some of those feelings and understanding, but … you hope it just intensifies one’s preparation and the things they have to go through,” Leipold said. “Because once the ball is kicked off, you have to go out and play. There’s things that have to be done and executed with precision and effort and strain and physicality, just like it does each and every other week. But I’m sure that any of those extra boosts along the way, our guys will take, and take seriously.”
The KU roster contains 23 Kansans — mostly local walk-ons with some key contributors like left tackle Calvin Clements, safety Mason Ellis and tight ends DeShawn Hanika and Leyton Cure. But it’s also a roster with a host of transfers, and whose very oldest players were in middle school when the rivalry stopped being played after Missouri left the Big 12 for the SEC.
Leipold said that on Monday, the KU staff gave its players some historical background on the matchup, “all the way back to the border and what the border stood for and past history, and free states and slave states, and kind of went through the whole history of where these two states have been competitive, and not always agreed” — and then continued into the discussing the past football games between KU and MU. He said some former players could potentially speak to the Jayhawks later in the week.
“To me it’s what makes college football special,” he said. “But at the same time it’s still a matter about how you prepare, your focus, and everything you put into it and then going out and executing on game day … Your emotions sometimes can take you directions that can be counterproductive, sometimes. So I want to make sure that this team is well prepared and focused on playing their best football to date.”
The Jayhawks will need it as they face a dramatic step up in competition from their first two games of the season against Fresno State and Wagner to take on an SEC team that won 21 times in its past two years and features “all the things that you want a balanced football team to be,” as Leipold said.
The Tigers beat Central Arkansas 61-6 on Thursday; they totaled 560 offensive yards without a turnover, with quarterback Beau Pribula going 23-for-28 for 283 yards and two touchdowns and running back Ahmad Hardy carrying the ball 10 times for 100 yards and a touchdown, and Missouri also limited the Bears to 227 yards.
KU will also have to go on the road to face its rival at Faurot Field after playing its first two games in the friendly confines of David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium.
“We believe in doing things the right way and competing hard on the field and (having) it settled there, not in a parking lot or in the stands or all those different things that may happen at times,” Leipold said. “We want to make sure that we’re at our best when our best is needed.”
