Add The New York Post on Google Eli Drinkwitz enjoys “The Border War” between Kansas and his Missouri football program.
He doesn’t like when “The Border War” invokes the Civil War to play up the heated rivalry game.
The Tigers coach said he “tried to embarrass” the Jayhawks in the 38-21 win Friday after the Big 12 school released a pregame hype video for the teams’ first clash in Lawrence, Kansas, in 21 years that referenced the bloody history between the two states during the Civil War era.
“I was disappointed in the rivalry, the turn that it took today. I thought that was uncalled for. This is about two teams playing football, and especially on 9/11 when we need more unity now than ever before. To be putting some things on your screen celebrating — everybody has complicated pasts, ya know? And to make that an icon was bizarre to me,” Drinkwitz said after his team improved to 2-0.
“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. It’s not even deeper than that. I get there’s a past to it, but why are we stirring that bullcrap up? It’s 9/11. This country needs unity now more than ever. I was embarrassed for them, to be honest, and that’s why I tried to embarrass them at the end.”
The Kansas-Missouri game is one of college’s best rivalries, but it took a 14-year break before returning last year in Columbia, Mo. and this year marked the return game in Kansas.
Kansas released a 90-second video Friday night narrated by former star Gilbert Brown with the title, “Heroes and Villains,” and it’s clear which moniker applied to each team.
“Love doesn’t exist here. Neither does mercy. This rivalry is different cause it’s built on something much deeper than just school pride,” Brown said.
“It’s fueled by hatred, passed down through generations. Our roots reach back to the Civil War, when blood was spilled over what you believed in, and which side you stood on.”
The video showed newspaper headlines from the time when people were killed over whether Kansas, which became a state in 1861, would allow slavery or not in what is known as “Bleeding Kansas.”
“There are heroes and villains,” Brown later said, “Only allegiance decides their legacy. There’s right and wrong. There’s Kansas and Missouri.”
The second half of the video focused on the first 121 meetings between the two teams, but no one is going to remember that part of the video.
The video left a bad taste in Drinkwitz’s mouth and he decided to bypass sports norms late in the game to send a message.
Missouri led by 17 and had the ball at the Kansas 13-yard line with 34 seconds remaining and ran two plays instead of kneeling, including a first-down pass to the end zone that did not get caught.
“I didn’t want to score too bad or I would have called timeouts and tried, but I just wanted — we didn’t think we were gonna throw that in the end zone but I just wanted to let them know like, ‘Dude, what are ya’ll doing?” he said. “This is a football game. It shouldn’t be bigger than that.'”
The seventh-year Missouri coach later opened the door for the SEC school to pass on playing in this game in the future after this four-game contract ends following games in 2031 and 2032.
“I don’t care if it continues or not. If they’re going to be weird about it, then what’s the point?” he said. “If they want to have a football game and play a football game and have a great rivalry on the border then awesome, let’s do it. If they want to make it deeper than that, we left Kansas bleeding again, call it good.”
