Easily the college football game of the week – if not the year – occurs Saturday when #4 Missouri takes on #2 Kansas for the chance to possibly play for a national title. With what’s at stake in this year’s “Border War”, many members of the media (including Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star) have taken the opportunity to proclaim that the game is much more than your standard college football rivarly.
However, the guys at SPORTSbyBROOKS.com say that the media has gone crazy in overstating the hatred between the two schools (and states for that matter.).
The rivalry, despite two perennially horrible teams, is remarkably intense and compares favorably with others that we’ve experienced personally (OSU-UM, UF-UGA, USC-UCLA, Clemson-USC). But some of the things we’ve been reading this week about the contemporary conflict between the schools (and states) is downright ridiculous and completely untrue.
We grew up and lived in KC, smack between the two schools. We never, EVER heard someone mention anything about slave state-this or Jayhawk-rape-that. We’re sure the folks in KSMO would like to think that this is the most important sporting event the Western Hemisphere has witnessed since the Royals absolutely trounced the Redbirds in the ’85 World Series (thank you Jack Clark!), but it isn’t. But you wouldn’t know that by following media accounts this week authored by Missouri and Kansas carpetbaggers.
The media over-hyping the magnitude of a game? Never!
