KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Missouri Tigers won the highly anticipated Border War rivalry game against the Kansas Jayhawks on Saturday.
Kansas and Missouri fans were at KC Live! in the Power and Light District to watch the game.
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It’s been more than a decade since the two teams faced off.
“Obviously, rooting for the Jayhawks, we are super excited,” said Lizzie Smith.
The Kansas and Missouri football teams last met in November 2011, and the anticipation has been building ever since.
“Obviously, we’ve seen each other in basketball, so that always builds a rivalry, but in football it’s like oh my gosh this is the biggest thing ever and we’ve just been excited for it for so long,” Smith explained.
The game on Saturday lived up to the hype.
“It’s been a minute since we played each other, but I can definitely tell it’s going to be a crazy game. Just watch the second half, we are going to come back and we are going to win,” said Mizzou fan Nathan Neary.
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“We are not a first-half team, we are a second-half team, so it’s going to be better as the game continues.”
The once-annual showdown between the Tigers and Jayhawks has been on hiatus since 2011, when Missouri jumped from the Big 12 Conference to the SEC. Fans remember the rivalry well.
“This is a huge game. We’ve been excited for this for a while, so to see everyone come out, I’m super excited and Rock Chalk,” Smith said.
“I was just raised to hate KU. We don’t like them, and we have to beat them,” said Erin Manis.
Others didn’t have quite as strong an opinion about the outcome.
“I just want to see both teams have fun,” one man watching the game at KC Live said.
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There was a great deal of excitement surrounding the return of the Border War Showdown. Watch parties were planned around the Kansas City metro and in Lawrence for people who didn’t make the trip to Columbia.
The University of Kansas hosted a Border Showdown watch party at the newly renovated David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium.
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