Kansas and Missouri players are separated after a skirmish following the Tigers’ 38-21 win over the Jayhawks on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026 at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium.

Fourteen years removed from Missouri’s departure from the SEC, maybe the Border War still has some juice after all?

After a Civil War-themed hype video released by Kansas on social media, entitled “Heroes and Villains,” sparked national interest in Friday night’s rivalry clash by depicting the rivalry as a battle of good and evil, Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz appeared to generally rebuke it in his postgame press conference after beating the Jayhawks, stating, “I’m just glad this whole right-versus-wrong bull crap that got started just got settled on a football field, because it’s a football game … It’s not any deeper than that.”

Drinkwitz, though, also said his team “left Kansas bleeding again.”

“I was embarrassed for them, to be honest, and that’s why I tried to embarrass them at the end,” he added.

The Tigers’ backup quarterback Matt Zollers targeted Caleb Goodie Sr. with a play-action pass in the end zone after Missouri got the ball back up 38-21 with 34 seconds left.

KU coach Lance Leipold was asked about Drinkwitz’s comments on embarrassing KU.

“I didn’t know that he said that, and if he did, that’s his prerogative to coach his team the way he wants to coach it,” Leipold said. “If he wants to keep trying to score, that’s his prerogative. It’s our job to try to stop him.”

All those quotes unfolded, by the way, after Missouri tackle Cayden Green waved the Missouri state flag at midfield and his teammates beat a drum with the KU logo, sparking some tension postgame, as depicted in a video captured by Fox 4 and posted on X.

“It’s a good rivalry, OK, obviously we didn’t win either of these two,” Leipold said. “Disappointing, but I think this is one of the things that help make college football what it is, and it’s a special game.”

It is also, as Leipold acknowledged, not scheduled until 2031. That means five more years of bragging rights for the Tigers.

A quick postscript: Isn’t it strange that this random — well made, but random — social media video became such a flashpoint? Even though they haven’t played the Border War as much recently, KU has been using Bleeding Kansas imagery and invoking John Brown and “Tragic Prelude” ahead of games against Missouri for years, even just in the few seasons since I started covering the team. But for whatever reason, this particular video just happened to garner 33 million views, delight some fans and scandalize others.

In any event, here’s more of what stood out from a bitter loss for the Jayhawks.

• KU quarterback Isaiah Marshall is just not making the easy things look easy at this early stage of his career. To say nothing of some of his mishandled snaps and handoffs, what stood out even more than his turnovers on Friday night were the sorts of confidence-building short- to medium-range throws on which he just couldn’t connect. A couple of times in the first half he missed running back Dylan Edwards out of the backfield, each on the first play of a given drive, and set a poor tone for what lay ahead.

It was also striking to see that, for such an athletic quarterback, he didn’t look particularly comfortable throwing on the run in the early stages of the game — though he did do well to fire a laser across his body to Nik McMillan for a touchdown late in the second quarter.

He still has a ways to go, clearly, before he’s making that sort of play with any level of consistency.

• KU’s offense sputtered a few times in the first half when it crossed into Missouri territory, which was one big reason why the Jayhawks entered the break tied rather than with a lead. Andy Kotelnicki was not to blame for what took place. The Jayhawks’ newly returned offensive play caller was operating at full force against the Tigers, especially early on.

It wasn’t just that he threw out creative looks with backup quarterback Cole Ballard in the slot, Dylan Edwards and Yasin Willis in the wildcat formation and guard Connor Stroh coming in motion, it was that these all caught Missouri off guard and resulted in productive plays. In short, they went beyond gimmickry. The Stroh motion was particularly inspired and helped yield a fourth-down conversion.

Not quite as successful was one of the plays KU ran with Ballard in orbit motion out of the slot, a reverse pass that Ballard threw to Marshall which resulted in six yards, the starting quarterback getting the wind knocked out of him and the backup getting injured. It felt perhaps better suited for the goal line than midfield.

“I had no clue Cole was hurt the whole time,” Marshall said. “I came back to the sideline right after we scored and I was trying to find him, but he was nowhere to be found. Then that’s when I found out he got hurt. Shoutout Cole, he threw a great pass to me, he took a big hit. He’s a great teammate, great leader, so it’s very tough for me.”

Ballard went to the locker room, then eventually returned with his right arm in a sling. Leipold said postgame that early evaluations of his injury had produced “something on the more positive side.”

• Last year at Faurot Field, Missouri limited Daniel Hishaw Jr. to six carries for 11 yards and Leshon Williams to three carries for minus-5 yards.

This year, not to say that KU had a defeatist attitude in this respect, but it felt like KU decided in advance that it did not want to spend much time establishing anything resembling a normal running game. Yasin Willis did not receive his fourth carry until 10:50 remained in the third quarter. A 24-yard run by Dylan Edwards was the only notable thing either of KU’s backs did on the ground, and they combined otherwise to carry the ball 13 times for 31 yards.

“We did know that, playing against a deep and athletic SEC line, that it was going to be a challenge for us running the football, and there’s some things there that made it difficult,” Leipold said.

It just might have been worth devoting some more time to the run game in the early stages given that KU knew Marshall was coming in with minimal experience and saw quickly that he was not building much of a rhythm. The Jayhawks weren’t far behind enough in the first half to justify this small quantity of touches.

In the Jayhawks’ defense, though, as Leipold pointed out, they were not often in favorable down-and-distance situations to facilitate the run game.

• KU did demonstrate at least one successful response to last year’s result. The Jayhawks were incredibly well prepared for stretch and outside-zone rushes. KU limited Jamal Roberts vastly more effectively than it had either him or Ahmad Hardy in 2025, with defensive ends setting the edge and linebackers and safeties helping in run support.

It wasn’t even just the usual suspects who helped stop the run. Defensive tackle Kevin Oatis, for example, forced a loss of three yards on one play that helped lead to a blocked field goal.

The Tigers did adjust well in this regard. After a defensive timeout in the second quarter, they deployed a sort of delayed handoff from quarterback Austin Simmons on which several Jayhawks overpursued, allowing Roberts to burst up the middle for a 64-yard touchdown, by far his best play of the night. They used that same style of handoff multiple times later on. Don’t be surprised if other teams try it now, too.

“They scouted us pretty well versus LIU, last game, I think that’s where they got it from, but it was just bad eyes,” linebacker Trey Lathan said. “That’s what really hit us off.”

• What more can be said about Leroy Harris III? As Leipold said, he’s an excellent player and people around the country are starting to figure that out. The Tennessee native is starting to deliver on his latest round of offseason hype thanks to his striking combination of size and speed, which allowed him to track down Roberts and Simmons on various occasions on Friday, including on Missouri’s opening drive and a key third down in the fourth quarter. He was the only Jayhawk with more than one pressure as assessed by Pro Football Focus.

But perhaps even more notably, he broke up two passes, forced a fumble and blocked a field goal. Just another day at the office after four tackles for loss against LIU.

• I’ll keep this one brief, and there’s plenty of season left, but suffice it to say that KU’s pass defense did not look on Friday to be significantly better than it was in 2025. One could argue that the lack of pressure, especially from players other than Harris, didn’t help, but Simmons was also getting the ball out so quickly as to render that less relevant, and he usually already had a receiver headed toward the sideline with a fair bit of separation.

He finished a clinical 19-for-29 passing with 292 yards and three touchdowns, and a few of those incompletions were drops. According to PFF, nickel back Elijah Cannon was targeted eight times and allowed seven catches for 95 yards and a touchdown.

The burden of proof is still on the Jayhawks’ secondary to demonstrate that it can frustrate opposing quarterbacks, and a KU cornerback still hasn’t intercepted a pass since November 2024.

• The crowd at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium can create an intense environment even at just 32,000 strong (the listed attendance for Friday’s sellout).

“You can see when this place is completed that it’s going to be a pretty awesome atmosphere for college football,” Leipold said.

The force of the KU fans’ passion was evident for the Border War, and it had a noticeable effect on the game, considering the Tigers’ six false starts. The question is whether they will bring that same energy to any other games in a home slate that includes Middle Tennessee, Baylor, UCF and BYU.

“We need them here to create the environment that we need for a home-field advantage,” Leipold said, “and I think when we correct some things we’ll be an exciting football team to watch.”

As unfortunate as Marshall’s consecutive second-half turnovers were for the game state, by the way, the effect on the crowd was nearly as dire. They quieted the KU student section for a bit and fired up the Tigers’ players, who were suddenly dancing on the sidelines and pumping up their own fans in the southeast corner.

• I’m not sure about how KU is handling Cam Pickett. The former Ball State transfer, who tied for the team lead in catches last year, returned from injury against Missouri after missing the season opener. But per PFF, he played just five snaps and was targeted three times, catching two passes for six yards.

Last season, Pickett started strong before getting injured midway through his first game as a Jayhawk, but he never actually missed time and instead just played small quantities of snaps for the next several weeks. In the span of the next four games he caught seven passes in an average of 20.5 snaps.

Was that the best use of Pickett’s talents? Is he distracting enough to opposing defenses to use as a decoy? Would it instead be better to just sit him out until he is healthy enough to play at something close to full strength? I don’t know the answer — I don’t even know the specifics of his injury — but he certainly did not have a lot to do one way or the other with the outcome against Missouri.