Why Mizzou's Eli Drinkwitz 'left Kansas bleeding again,' in Border War win

LAWRENCE, KAN. — Eli Drinkwitz was seconds away from victory, needing only a few kneels to drain the clock out with an approaching final score of 38-21 in arguably the most intense rivalry game in all of college football.

Instead, he tried to score, calling a play for backup quarterback Matt Zollers to throw toward the end zone. Zollers missed, and the game was ended a play later after Xai’Shaun Edwards’ 6-yard run short of the end zone, but the sentiment was there: Drinkwitz wanted to send a message to Missouri’s rivals.

“I just wanted to let (KU coach Lance Leipold) know, like, 'Dude, what are y'all doing?'” Drinkwitz said. “It was a football game. It shouldn’t be bigger than that.”

Despite Drinkwitz’s wishes, the Border War rivalry is far bigger than football, even in modern discussions. The rivalry traces back to the Civil War era and Bleeding Kansas, when citizens of the two states participated in ruthless warfare across state lines largely over clashing ideologies of slavery.

Kansas made that the focal point of their promotion of Friday’s Border War matchup, posting a promotional video on social media about ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong.’ The video also played pregame at the David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium.

“I was disappointed in the rivalry, the turn that it took today,” Drinkwitz said. “I thought that was uncalled for, and this is about two teams playing football, and especially on 9/11 when we need more unity now than ever before, to to be putting some stuff on your screen, celebrating — I mean, everybody's got complicated pasts — and to make that an icon was bizarre to me. So I'm just glad that this whole right versus wrong bullcrap that was started just got settled on the football field because it's a football game… This country needs unity now more than ever, and I was embarrassed for him to be honest. And that's why I tried to embarrass him at the end.”

If Drinkwitz is looking for unity, it seems unlikely he’ll find it with Kansas. The game was incredibly chippy, littered with scuffles and mini-altercations throughout. The teams won’t square off again until 2031, followed by one more contest in 2032 being the final matchup in the current contract.

“I don't really care if it continues or not,” Drinkwitz said postgame. “I mean, if they're going to be weird about it, then what's the point? They want to have a football game and play a football game and have a great rivalry on the border, then awesome, let's do it.

“But if we want to make it deeper than that, man, like we left Kansas bleeding again.”

MU players seemed to share Drinkwitz’s sentiment of punishing Kansas for the narrative it spun throughout the week. Multiple Tigers could be seen getting hype on the sideline when Drinkwitz tried to run up the score. Postgame, left tackle Cayden Green attempted to plant a Missouri flag on the field in front of dozens of Jayhawks.

“Just because like stuff that happened in the past — like I love my people and all that, and I think like slavery and all that stuff was a terrible thing — but like that has nothing to do with football,” Green said. … “So we just tried to keep the main thing the main thing, and I don't think they were doing the same.”

Missouri did what Green said well, outplaying Kansas on the gridiron. It wasn't pretty, but a strong second half helped boost the Tigers over the Jayhawks to make Missouri 2-0 since the rivalry resumed in 2025, beating the Jayhawks on both sides of the state line.

Drinkwitz took to Twitter/X shortly after the game’s conclusion, firing four posts including one in response to the Kansas promo video, ending his posting spree with a final statement:

“Y’all are WEIRD….. Winners WIN!!!! And I know that’s RIGHT!!!!!”

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