Kansas football head coach Lance Leipold essentially confirmed something Jayhawks fans had suspected for quite some time.
Mizzou and Kansas have been bitter enemies for over 100 years, and the Border War is widely recognized as one of the most heated rivalries in collegiate athletics history.
Before the Tigers bolted to the SEC in 2012, the two schools competed annually in each sport. Since then, they have met twice in basketball (excluding exhibitions) and several times in other sports. However, they must wait until 2025 and 2026 to play in football for a scheduled home-and-home series.
Both schools had an opportunity to break the silence in football by competing in the Liberty Bowl against one another last year. Yet there was one issue — Mizzou wasn’t willing to. They opted to square off against Wake Forest in the Gasparilla Bowl, where they eventually lost 27-17.
At least, that’s what Brett McMurphy of The Action Network reported. He received a lot of slack for it, because he uses undisclosed sources and Mizzou fans were in denial about it. If you want to see how insistent the Tiger fanbase was that they were not avoiding Kansas, just check out the replies on this tweet from McMurphy.
McMurphy’s bombshell was never officially confirmed, but a recent comment from Kansas football head coach Lance Leipold suggested that McMurphy was right after all.
During an online interview, Leipold was asked when the next Mizzou-Kansas game would take place. He responded 2025, which is true, then made a witty remark and took a shot at Mizzou for allegedly ducking them last year.
Watch it for yourself:
“When is the next Mizzou/KU game??”
— Braiden Turner (@bturner23) September 14, 2023
“Well it was supposed to be the Liberty Bowl last year but that’s another conversation”
Confirmed Mizzou dodged KU🤦♂️🤦♂️
🎥: @InsideWiscoShow pic.twitter.com/2GokeANHiv
There you have it, folks. The head coach of Kansas football himself acknowledged that Mizzou didn’t want to play the Jayhawks last season. It’s difficult to find a more credible source than that.
You can use the excuse that it would lower ticket prices and the anticipation heading into the game in Columbia two years from now. No matter how you spin it, though, the fact of the matter is that Kansas was willing to play Mizzou in the Liberty Bowl, and Mizzou was not.