The Border Showdown didn’t end when Missouri walked off the field with the win. It kept simmering afterward, with Tigers head coach Eli Drinkwitz taking direct aim at Kansas over the Jayhawks’ pregame hype video and making it clear he thought the whole thing crossed a line.
Kansas’ two-minute clip, released the day before the game, leaned into the history of the Border War and framed the rivalry in stark terms, describing what it called the right and wrong side of that deep-rooted matchup. Drinkwitz said the message stuck with Missouri and helped fuel the Tigers’ late push to pile on once the game was already out of reach.
"I was disappointed in the rivalry, the turn that it took today," Drinkwitz said. "I thought that [video] was uncalled for, and you know, this is about two teams playing football.
Especially on 9/11 when we need more unity now than ever before, to be putting some stuff on your screen, celebrating. I mean, everybody's got complicated pasts, and to make that an icon was bizarre to me.
So, I'm just glad that this whole right vs. wrong bullcrap that was started just got settled on football field, because it's a football game."
Drinkwitz went even further in comments tied to the postgame fallout, saying Missouri tried to “embarrass them” after feeling slighted by the buildup.
Missouri’s frustration only added more fuel to a video that had already blown up online. Kansas posted it on X and Facebook, and it pulled in more than 30 million impressions in 48 hours. It also picked up attention from Dave Portnoy and other prominent media personalities, turning a rivalry video into a national talking point.
This wasn’t the first time Kansas had used a big-name narrator for the matchup, either. Aqib Talib voiced a similar video when the schools renewed the rivalry a year ago. But this one clearly landed differently with Missouri, largely because of the attention it generated.
Kansas coach Lance Leipold, for his part, handled the whole thing with a much calmer tone after the game. He said Missouri was free to keep scoring if that’s how it wanted to coach, and he put the responsibility back on his own team to stop it.
"That's his prerogative to coach his team the way he wants to coach it," Leipold responded to Drinkwitz's comments. "He wants to keep trying to score, that's his prerogative. It's our job to try to stop it."
The two programs won’t see each other again until 2031, and it’s still unclear whether the rivalry will continue beyond the 2031-32 home-and-home series. Drinkwitz, though, didn’t exactly sound eager to keep it going.
"I don't really care if [the rivalry] continues or not," Drinkwitz proclaimed. I mean, if they're going to be weird about it, then what's the point?
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.
But if we want to make it deeper than that, man. Like we left Kansas bleeding again, so call it good."
For a matchup built on bad blood, this one found plenty of it both before and after kickoff.
In Other News...
Kansas Let This Rivalry Game Slip Away For One Frustrating Reason
Kansas had the kind of first half that suggested the Border War might come down to a few key swings, with the teams tied 14-14 at the break before Missouri pulled away in the second half. The Jayhawks kept themselves in range early, but the game started tilting once Missouri began piling up yardage and Kansas could not match it for long stretches.
The bigger issue was the turnover battle, where Kansas gave it away three times and could not recover from the extra empty possessions. Isaiah Marshall had a rough afternoon as the offense stalled around him, and Kansas was outgained 469 yards to 255 in a loss that felt like it got away from them after halftime. [Read more 🡒]
Kansas Suddenly Has A Quarterback Problem It Cant Ignore
Isaiah Marshall got his first start against an FBS opponent and the spotlight came with plenty of growing pains. With Cole Ballard forced out early after what looked like a shoulder injury, Marshall had to carry the offense the rest of the way, and the numbers told the story of a quarterback still trying to find his footing. He completed passes for 168 yards and found the end zone twice, but the overall performance was uneven enough to leave the sense that Kansas is still searching for stability behind center.
The bigger concern is less about arm talent than about the parts of the position that tend to decide close games. Marshall showed some mobility and a knack for improvising when plays broke down, but his decision-making and poise drew real questions from both the coaching staff and fans. Kansas can live with mistakes from a young quarterback while he develops, but it is getting harder to ignore the uncertainty that has crept into the room. [Read more 🡒]
Kansas Fans Are Running Out Of Patience With Lance Leipold
Lance Leipold changed the standard in Lawrence fast enough that its easy to forget where Kansas football started under him. The program went from a winless 2020 to a 9-4 breakthrough in 2022, a leap that bought him plenty of goodwill and a contract extension in 2024 worth more than $7 million per year. But the shine has faded over the last two seasons, with back-to-back 5-7 finishes making the momentum feel more fragile than it once did.
The frustration is sharpened by the rivalry games, where progress has not shown up at all. Leipold is now 0-7 against Kansas biggest rivals, including five losses to Kansas State and two to Missouri, and that kind of skid is hard for fans to overlook no matter how much the rebuild improved the overall record. Still, any conversation about his future has to account for the financial reality, since firing him without cause would trigger a buyout of nearly $23 million. [Read more 🡒]