Wanted: an adult in the room at Kansas.
That seemed to be the first order of business after a hype video tied college football trash talk to the painful history of slavery and the Civil War. It should have disappeared before anyone outside the program ever saw it, but it went up, caught fire, and became part of the conversation after Missouri beat Kansas 38-21 on Friday.
Nobody needs a lecture on the history of the Jayhawkers and Tigers. Using that history as rivalry bait was disrespectful and embarrassing.
Kansas fans noticed, too. Message Board Monday turned up plenty of anonymous criticism from Jayhawks who were willing to say their school crossed a line.
Ridjosh called Eli Drinkwitz “such a tool,” accusing him of trying to act tough and play the victim card while the hype video supposedly only helped Missouri. WestSideJayhawk went the other way, saying the clip didn’t get under anyone’s skin so much as make Kansas look amateurish and hand Missouri’s coach another chance to pile on.
GRockChalk pushed back, arguing that the video brought national attention back to a rivalry that had faded from view and that if the issue was the team losing worse, that was a separate problem. WardHawk sided with Missouri’s complaint, saying it was “pretty stupid” to villainize them over Civil War references and that it was only a sports rivalry.
Hawkinmichigan then made the whole thing a little lighter with, “Except for people from Missouri. They suck.”
Drinkwitz, for his part, had plenty to say after the game, and some of it landed squarely on target. “I was disappointed in the rivalry, the turn that it took today.
I thought that was uncalled for, and this is about two teams playing football. … Everybody’s got complicated pasts, and to make that an icon was bizarre to me.”
He kept going: “It’s a football game. It’s an American football game.
People love to come watch and cheer for their teams. It’s not even deeper than that.
And I get there’s a past for it, but why are we stirring that bull crap up? It’s 9/11.
This country needs unity now more than ever. And I was embarrassed for them, to be honest.”
That would have been enough. Instead, he added, “That’s why I tried to embarrass them at the end.”
And then: “If they want to have a football game and play the football game, a great rivalry on the border, then awesome, let’s do it. But if they want to make it deeper than that, we left Kansas bleeding again and call it good.”
So close. Then he wandered right back out of bounds. More adults, please.
Elsewhere, Oregon fans are spiraling after the Ducks’ 39-31 loss at Oklahoma State, the most stunning result of Week 2 and maybe the most stunning two-week snapshot of a team that was supposed to be great. Stewart Mandel pointed out that losing both coordinators looks like a real problem for Dan Lanning, and the message boards are already turning sharp.
BrentLakeO drew a line to Mark Helfrich’s 2016 collapse at Nebraska, saying he knew Helfrich was done when the coach doubled down on bad 2-point decisions and suggesting Lanning sounds the same way when defending his fourth-down calls. BlackandYellow pushed back on the strategy talk, arguing that going for it on fourth down can work, but only if the play-calling and execution are there to support it.
BrentLakeO wasn’t buying it, asking whether going for it on fourth-and-7 from his own 30 while down five on the road in the middle of the fourth quarter was really the right call. Craig S flatly declared, “This game informed me that Dan Lanning is done.
Clear as day.”
The one bit of comfort? Stormin put it bluntly: “We won’t be losing our coordinators after this year.”
At Texas, the day started ugly for Steve Sarkisian and Arch Manning and ended with a result that changes the whole mood. The Longhorns beat No.
1 Ohio State, and that’s the kind of win fans can tuck away and build around. It gives Manning a comeback moment and gives Sarkisian something far more useful than noise: a huge win that cuts into the storylines around his program.
Still, Sarkisian managed to create a different kind of attention afterward with a halftime non-interview and a strange exchange with Holly Rowe. It wasn’t the first time he’s been caught on camera acting petulantly, and plenty was made of his refusal to answer a couple of questions that coaches know come with the job.
Texas fans, though, mostly care about one thing: the win. That result leaves little room for anything else. Even so, the message-board crowd isn’t exactly ready to let go of the side-eye when it comes to Sark.
In Other News...
Dan Lanning Pushes Back On Oregon's Simplest Loss Narrative
The final offensive series will get replayed plenty after Oregons 39-31 loss to Oklahoma State, especially the fumble by Dierre Hill Jr. that stalled the Ducks at the worst possible time. But Dan Lanning was quick to push back on the idea that the game can be reduced to one play, pointing instead to a broader offensive effort that never found enough consistency to pull the Ducks through.
Hill still gave Oregon useful production with 74 rushing yards on 15 carries and two catches for 8 yards, but the bigger picture was harder to ignore. Lanning pointed to problems up front and an uneven passing day from Dante Moore as part of a larger offensive struggle, which is why the postgame conversation in Eugene is less about a single turnover and more about how many things needed to go right for the Ducks that simply did not. [Read more 🡒]
Oregon Film Raised Two Lineup Questions Fans Should Watch Closely
The latest game film offered a useful window into how Oregon managed a roster that was not entirely settled before kickoff. Several players carried questionable or probable tags, and that uncertainty showed up in the way the Ducks handled snap counts, especially along the offensive line and in the defensive backfield. There was a substitution at left guard after the first quarter, while the secondary continued to cycle through different looks as the staff worked through matchups and performance-driven changes.
The bigger takeaway for Oregon fans is that the Ducks were not just filling in gaps, they were also sorting out how best to deploy players in real time. Defensive backs stayed in strict positional assignments, even as rotations stayed active and some players shifted to different spots. The heat added another layer to those decisions, making personnel management part of the game plan as much as scheme, and leaving a couple of lineup questions worth watching closely going forward. [Read more 🡒]
Arkansas Is About To See How Big This Week 3 Test Really Is
Week 2 gave college football plenty of movement at the top, and Oregon was part of the churn even without a statement win of its own. Texas rallied past Ohio State, Michigan took down Oklahoma and the Ducks came out of their loss to Oklahoma State with plenty of questions still attached, especially as the early AP Top 25 picture starts to settle around what teams have actually done on the field.
That makes the next test even more meaningful for Arkansas, which is about to learn just how much this Week 3 matchup can reshape the conversation around both programs. With the projected poll already sorting contenders from pretenders based on recent results, Oregons standing and the stakes around its next opponent are all tied together now, and the coming week should show whether last Saturday was a bump in the road or something more concerning. [Read more 🡒]