Well, this is a little anticlimactic, isn’t it?

Here we are, on the eve of what is annually the biggest game of the season for the Kansas University football team — a matchup with heated rival Missouri that will represent the 117th meeting of the two teams — and it all feels a bit, well, underwhelming.

This is what happens in the aftermath of the biggest Border War matchup in the history of the rivalry, a 2007 game unparalleled in its prominence: The game will never quite feel the same as it did a season ago.

“(Last year) was kind of like the perfect storm,” Tigers coach Gary Pinkel said this week. “It won’t ever happen again.”

Entering the ’07 season, it was hard — or, more accurately, impossible — to imagine that Kansas and Missouri would emerge as the nation’s No. 2 and No. 3 teams, respectively. Or that, in consecutive weeks, each school would find itself represented on the cover of “Sports Illustrated.” Or that, for maybe the first weekend ever, all eyes were turned toward a matchup between historically mediocre teams.

But there were the two teams, lined up across from each other on Nov. 24 at Arrowhead Stadium, with nothing less than national title implications at stake. Fans packed the stadium. ESPN’s GameDay set up shop in the parking lot. And the eyes of the nation turned to Kansas City, Mo., for what was, up to that point, the biggest game of the college football season.

“The atmosphere was unbelievable last year,” Kansas quarterback Todd Reesing said. “There were 80,000 people, and having the split stadium was pretty cool. It’s a great environment; it’s a big game, and that’s the type of game you want to play in college.”

And somehow, the game managed to live up to its hype. Not until Reesing was sacked in the end zone for a safety with 12 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter was the game officially in the books, a 36-28 Tigers’ victory that would prove to be the Jayhawks’ only loss of the season.

Now, a year later, it’s not quite the same. Missouri, at No. 12 in the Associated Press poll, endured consecutive losses early on that derailed their hopes of a national title. Kansas, faced with one of the nation’s tougher schedules, has lost four of its last five en route to a 6-5 season record. The GameDay crew, understandably, will be stationed elsewhere this weekend.

The game is still big, of course. Anytime these two teams take the field opposite each other and anytime bowl implications are in the balance and anytime the name Don Fambrough starts popping up in conversation, you know the ante has been significantly upped.

“It’s developing into even a stronger rivalry because both teams are good football teams,” Pinkel said. “(It’s split) about down the middle for wins and losses for a very long time, and that says a lot. Some remarkable plays come out of these games because there is so much meaning, and it’s so important to each team.”

At the same time, there are no illusions that it will ever reach the magnitude it did a season ago. Those involved understand they were part of something special last season. Something magical. Something that, barring developments of miraculous proportions, almost certainly never will be duplicated in their lifetimes.

“All the implications … were on the line,” Missouri quarterback Chase Daniel said of the ’07 game. “The rankings, a Big 12 championship appearance, a national championship shot, Heisman Trophy stuff.

“I don’t think there’s ever going to be a game like that again.”