Missouri Leaves Kansas Bleeding After a 38-21 Border War

No. 23 Missouri beat Kansas 38-21 on Friday night in Lawrence, the Tigers’ first win there since 2001, then Eli Drinkwitz said he had tried to embarrass the Jayhawks over a Civil War hype video.

The 122nd Border War, played on the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11, ended with Missouri at 2-0, Kansas at 1-1, and the next meeting not due until 2031.

Kansas Called It Heroes and Villains

On Thursday, Kansas Football posted a 1-minute, 29-second video with a four-word caption: “It is that deep.” The clip, narrated by former Jayhawks lineman Gilbert Brown, set the series in the language of the 1850s border fighting, with talk of heroes and villains, right and wrong, and hatred passed down through generations.

It is that deep. pic.twitter.com/4BEcdbLv7S

— Kansas Football (@KU_Football) September 10, 2026

Brown’s script did not blink. “Love doesn’t exist here. Neither does mercy,” the narration said. “Our roots reach back to the Civil War, when blood was spilled over what you believed in, and which side you stood on.”

Drinkwitz watched that tape land on a night that also held a moment of silence and a military flyover. After the win he did not treat it as clever marketing.

I’m just glad that this whole right-versus-wrong bull crap that was started just got settled. 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’s why I tried to embarrass them at the end.

Eli Drinkwitz, Missouri head coach, postgame news conference

He went further on whether the series should even continue. “I don’t really care if it continues or not,” Drinkwitz said. “If they’re going to be weird about it, then what’s the point? 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.”

That last clause used the same blood vocabulary he had just rejected. Kansas spent Thursday insisting the game was a morality play. Missouri spent Friday night turning it back into missed tackles, a transfer linebacker, and a coach who wanted the last snap to sting.

Woodyard Took the Ball Twice in a Row

The game was tied 14-14 when Robert Woodyard Jr. met Isaiah Marshall. On Kansas’s first possession of the second half, Woodyard forced a Marshall fumble and recovered it at the Kansas 35. Five plays later Austin Simmons threw an 8-yard touchdown pass to Donovan Olugbode at 11:40 of the third quarter for a 21-14 lead.

Kansas’s next snap went the same way. Woodyard dropped into coverage, intercepted Marshall over the middle, and returned it 28 yards to the 12. Xai’Shaun Edwards scored from 10 yards at 10:52, his first Missouri touchdown, and the Tigers led 28-14.

Woodyard, who started 11 games at Auburn last season, finished with six tackles, a forced fumble, a recovery, and the pick. Linebacker Nicholas Rodriguez and safety Santana Banner also had six tackles each. Jahlil Florence had already ripped an interception away from Keaton Kubecka in a scoreless first quarter.

HOW THE POINTS LANDED

1. 7:16, 2nd: Austin Alexander 88-yard return of a blocked field goal (Martin Connington kick), Kansas 7-0.
2. 5:22, 2nd: Jamal Roberts 64-yard run (Blake Craig kick), 7-7.
3. 1:48, 2nd: Nik McMillan 20-yard pass from Marshall (Connington kick), Kansas 14-7.
4. 0:30, 2nd: Cayden Lee 27-yard pass from Simmons (Craig kick), 14-14.
5. 11:40, 3rd: Olugbode 8-yard pass from Simmons (Craig kick), Missouri 21-14.
6. 10:52, 3rd: Edwards 10-yard run (Craig kick), Missouri 28-14.
7. 2:07, 3rd: Nahzae Cox 10-yard pass from Marshall (Connington kick), Missouri 28-21.
8. 11:46, 4th: Craig 32-yard field goal, Missouri 31-21.
9. 2:02, 4th: Brett Norfleet 13-yard pass from Simmons, Missouri 38-21.

Kansas got back within a score on Cox’s catch at the end of an 11-play, 83-yard drive. Missouri answered with a 61-yard march that stalled at the 12 and Craig’s kick, then took over on downs at the 14 and threw the Norfleet ball on fourth down.

YARDS AND MISTAKES

Marshall finished with 168 passing yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions. The Jayhawks ran 36 times for 81 yards. Missouri ran 41 times for 177 and never punted the game back to even after Woodyard’s first takeaway.

A Scoreless Quarter and Two Blocked Kicks

For a half, Kansas’s special teams did more than its offense. The Jayhawks had 87 yards in almost 23 minutes before Alexander scored, and they still led 14-7 late in the second quarter because Missouri could not kick.

WHAT STALLED MISSOURI EARLY

• First block: Corey Gordon stuffed Blake Craig’s 44-yard try in the first quarter.
• Second block: Leroy Harris III got home on a 27-yard try, and Alexander ran 88 yards the other way at 7:16 of the second.
• Roberts’s fumble: The back put the ball on the ground early, then ripped a 64-yard touchdown untouched around the right side, the longest run of his college career.
• False starts: Missouri was flagged for four of them before halftime, part of 10 penalties for 76 yards.
• Drops: Simmons still found Lee for the 27-yard tying score with 30 seconds left in the half after a 7-play, 75-yard two-minute drill.

Head referee Jason Autrey was carted off after the blocked-kick return, stretching on the sideline and then leaving the field. Missouri still went into the locker room even, then outscored Kansas 14-0 in the third quarter and 10-0 in the fourth.

Simmons completed 19 of 29 passes for 292 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions. His long was a 65-yard strike to Olugbode in the first quarter that died in the red zone. Olugbode caught six balls for 121 yards. Lee caught six for 120. Roberts carried 28 times for 125 yards.

The Booth Sold Out Unfinished

Kansas got the house it asked for. A sold-out crowd of 32,000 filled David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium, the first time Missouri had played a true road Border War here since Oct. 29, 2005, when Kansas won 13-3. Lance Leipold had said before the week that the Booth would be rocking on a FOX Friday at 7 p.m.

The building is not finished. Athletic director Travis Goff has said 2026 capacity sits in the low 30,000s while the east grandstand still in phase two of the Gateway District rebuild, with restrooms and concessions on temporary lines. Full capacity is slated near 43,000 for 2027. Six-game season tickets this year start at $350.

Kansas used that half-built bowl as a stage for the video, then watched Missouri run the ball on 15 consecutive snaps in the fourth quarter before the Norfleet throw. With 34 seconds left, Missouri got the ball again at the Kansas 13. Drinkwitz did not kneel. The first play was a pass into the end zone that fell incomplete. The second was a 6-yard run that ended the night.

“I didn’t want to score too bad or I’d have called timeouts and tried,” Drinkwitz said. “We didn’t think we were going to throw that in the end zone, but I just wanted to let them know.”

Five Straight Matches a Streak From 1942

Missouri now has won five Border Wars in a row, matching the longest run in the series, last done by the Tigers from 1938 to 1942. The current chain is 41-39 in 2009, 35-7 in 2010, 24-10 in 2011, 42-31 in Columbia last September, and Friday’s 38-21. Kansas has not beaten Missouri since Nov. 29, 2008. Missouri has taken six of the last seven.

The Tigers list the all-time series now 59-54-9. They also have 15 straight regular-season wins against nonconference teams. Friday was their first Lawrence victory since a 38-34 finish on Oct. 20, 2001, in Gary Pinkel’s first season as head coach.

The football series ran every year from 1919 through 2011, then stopped when Missouri left the Big 12 for the SEC in 2012. Kansas would not schedule the Tigers again until a four-game set covering 2025, 2026, 2031, and 2032. This was the second game of that deal, and the last one until 2031.

The 1960 meeting still splits the bookkeepers. Kansas won on the field against an unbeaten, No. 1 Missouri team, then forfeited because of an ineligible player. Missouri counts the forfeit. Kansas does not. Last month the Tigers also claimed that 1960 national title, which is why the 1960 team will be introduced next Saturday in Columbia.

Kansas leaned on that older history in the video, including the Free State fight and Quantrill’s 1863 raid on Lawrence, when Confederate guerrillas from Missouri killed about 150 men. Drinkwitz’s view was that a football Friday on Sept. 11 was the wrong place to restage it.

Simmons and Lee Already Knew Each Other

Simmons is a senior from Miami in his first season as Missouri’s starter after three years at Ole Miss. He opened 2025 as the Rebels’ quarterback, hurt an ankle against Kentucky, and lost the job to Trinidad Chambliss, who kept it through a College Football Playoff run. Simmons stayed through that run, then followed the portal to Columbia after Beau Pribula left.

Cayden Lee came with him. The first time Simmons played as Jaxson Dart’s backup at Ole Miss, he hit Lee for a touchdown. When Lane Kiffin left for LSU, Lee transferred to Missouri too. On Friday he caught the tying score. In the season opener Simmons went 17 of 19 for 252 yards and four touchdowns in a 54-14 win over Arkansas-Pine Bluff. He is 36 of 48 for 544 yards and seven touchdowns, with no interceptions, through two games.

Woodyard’s path ran the other way across the same conference. He had 67 tackles, 7.0 for loss, and two sacks in 2025 at Auburn, including 11 tackles and 4.0 for loss in a 23-17 double-overtime loss to Missouri on Oct. 18. He entered the portal in December, visited Kentucky and Missouri, and signed with the Tigers on Jan. 6 to help replace a linebacker room that sent Josiah Trotter to Tampa Bay in the draft.

Left tackle Cayden Green, a Lee’s Summit product, played the whole game after a meniscus trim just before the season. “As a Missouri kid, it’s a hard game to miss,” Green said.

A Flag at Midfield, Then Five Quiet Years

When the clock hit zero, Green carried a Missouri state flag toward midfield. Kansas tackle Calvin Clements and other Jayhawks closed in. Drinkwitz cut off a FOX interview with Josh Sims as the scrum started and told the crew, “I got to go make sure we don’t have anything stupid happen here.” He was also heard telling his own players to get the flag out of there.

Kansas linebacker Trey Lathan said the Jayhawks thought Missouri was trying to plant the flag. “It’s just something that when you are at another school you really don’t do,” Lathan said. Kansas’s Leroy Harris III offered the cleaner summary: they won, so they get the bragging rights until next time.

Next time is the problem. After Friday the schools are not booked again until 2031, then 2032. Drinkwitz spent part of the night saying he did not care if the series continued, then posted on X at a clip of Kansas players punching a Missouri dummy (“How’d that work out when we punched back”) and at the hype video itself (“How’d that hype video end!?”). Kansas had spent the week telling the country it was that deep. Missouri left town with the fifth straight win, a flag, and a five-year gap in which nobody has to answer him.

Missouri hosts Troy on Saturday, Sept. 19, at 6 p.m. in Columbia. Memorial Stadium’s 100th anniversary will be marked that night, and the 1960 championship team will be introduced, a reminder that this rivalry’s bitterest old game is still being relitigated on the Tigers’ own calendar.

Frequently Asked Questions

When Do Missouri and Kansas Play Football Again?

They are scheduled to meet in 2031 and again in 2032, the back half of a four-game football package the schools set for 2025, 2026, 2031, and 2032 after the 14-year freeze that followed Missouri’s SEC move. No games are listed between 2027 and 2030, and Eli Drinkwitz said Friday he does not care if the series continues if Kansas keeps “being weird about it.”

Why Do the Schools List Different All-Time Series Records?

The split is the 1960 game. Kansas beat unbeaten, No. 1 Missouri on the field that year, a result that likely cost the Tigers a national title at the time, then had to forfeit because of an ineligible player. Missouri counts the forfeit as a win and last month also claimed the 1960 national championship; Kansas still counts the original result, which is why pregame listings had Missouri at 58-54-9 and Kansas at 57-55-9.

When Did Missouri and Kansas First Play Football?

The first meeting was Oct. 31, 1891, and the series was later described as the oldest Division I rivalry west of the Mississippi River. For the first two decades many of the games were played in Kansas City or St. Joseph rather than on campus, and the only full-season break before 2012 was 1918, during World War I.

What Is Missouri’s Record in Lawrence After Friday?

Missouri went into Friday trailing 19-26-3 in Lawrence and left 20-26-3. The Tigers had not won there since Oct. 20, 2001, and had not even visited since a 13-3 loss on Oct. 29, 2005. Several of the modern meetings before the 2012 break were moved to Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, including Kansas’s last win in the series in 2008.

Drinkwitz walked back toward that midfield flag instead of finishing his television hit, and the next Border War sits on a calendar five years away. Troy comes first, in a stadium that will spend the night celebrating 1960, while Kansas waits on a finished east sideline and a rivalry tape it may not get to shoot again until 2031.