Tigers vs. Jayhawks

Mark Godich

Description

Missouri and Kansas went from unranked at the start of the 2007 college football season to playing for No. 1 in the country on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so no wonder Brent Musburger chose his words carefully as he addressed a national television audience moments before kickoff of the rivals' historic meeting. "Let this sink in," Musburger, the long-time broadcaster, said. "If either Kansas or Missouri wins their next two games, they will play for the national championship." Kansas and Missouri? Really? Really. The 2007 college football season was unlike any other. Yet in a year filled with unfathomable twists and turns, Missouri and Kansas kept winning, setting up the biggest game ever played in the oldest rivalry west of the Mississippi. Tigers versus Jayhawks: From the Civil War to the Battle for No. 1 dissects the monumental meeting, but it does much more than that. This book traces the bad blood between fans of the schools to the Civil War and before. It examines how Coaches Gary Pinkel of Missouri and Mark Mangino of Kansas built Big 12 doormats into national-title contenders. It deconstructs the deal that was struck to move the 2007 game to Kansas City, Mo., denying the Jayhawks the opportunity to host the biggest game in program history on their campus. It explores the Orange Bowl's head-scratching decision to invite Kansas over Missouri. Most important, this book takes the reader inside Arrowhead, inside the locker rooms, inside the huddles, inside the headsets, inside the heads of the players and coaches and administrators. The unquestioned leader of the Tigers was defensive tackle Lorenzo Williams. He describes in chilling detail the shocking death of teammate Aaron O'Neal, who collapsed in front of him after a voluntary workout in July 2005. Williams talks about the circuitous route he took to Columbia as well as the direct path he took to sack Kansas quarterback Todd Reesing for a safety on the game's signature play. Tight end Martin Rucker, who signed with his home-state school because he wanted to be the guy who put the Tigers back on the football map, recalls the special satisfaction he got when he scored on a fake field goal against Nebraska. Chase Daniel reveals why he honored his commitment to Mizzou even after his beloved Texas Longhorns made an 11th-hour offer. And the follow-the-book Pinkel explains why he broke one of the tenets of Coaching 101 with the message he delivered to his captains two days after an October loss to Oklahoma. Mangino reflects on the fall afternoon in 2004 that was a turning point for his program, when after a bitter loss he showed his players he had their backs. Reesing shares how a star quarterback from Austin ended up in Lawrence and how he played with a chip on his shoulder after one Texas school told him he was on its B-list of recruits. And Carl Peterson discusses how he worked tirelessly for 15 years to bring the game to Arrowhead, finally fulfilling a dream of Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt. It would arguably be the city's biggest sporting event ever. The atmosphere was electric. "You could feel the hostility in the air," Mizzou backup quarterback Chase Patton says. These are just a few of the storylines surrounding the biggest game two bitter, border rivals will ever play, a game a former President called the best he has ever seen. As the 2007 season played out, Missouri and Kansas became the talk of the college football world. And for one frigid November night, all eyes were on Arrowhead Stadium. Missouri-Kansas? Really!

Sujets

• USA
• Fútbol americano
• American football
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: Ascend Books
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780988996496
• Langue: English

Extrait

TIGERS vs. JAYHAWKS
From the Civil War to the Battle for No. 1
By Mark Godich
Foreword by Joe Posnanski
“Finally, Kansas and Missouri have provided a game to match one of the oldest, bitterest rivalries in college football.”
— Chuck Carlton, The Dallas Morning News
“Most great college sports rivalries emerge from memorable moments on the field, coaching feuds or recruiting battles, but the annual football game between the Kansas Jayhawks and the Missouri Tigers, to be played tomorrow night in Kansas City, Mo., with unusually high import, taps into a mutual animosity born of a flashpoint in American history.”
— Kevin Butterfield, for The New York Times
“They have been enemies since the 1850s, when pro-slavery Missouri clashed with abolitionist Kansas in a precursor to the Civil War. Their football meetings have been considerably less momentous. More often than not, the Tigers have underachieved, and Jayhawks football generally has been a messy warm-up act for one of the nation’s most prestigious basketball programs. But things will be very different Saturday night at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo., when No. 2 Kansas and No. 3 Missouri square off. The victor will move one win away from the national championship game.”
— Herb Gould, The Chicago Sun-Times
“As the universities of Kansas and Missouri prepare to play the most important football game in their 117-year-old rivalry, trash talking is rampant here in a metropolis that straddles both states. Yet this isn’t just the usual back-and-forth about which quarterback or defense is superior. … Rather, this trash talking is focused on which state’s residents behaved more abominably amid the Civil War.”
— Adam Thompson, The Wall Street Journal
“This is big. And blindsiding. When the teams agreed to move their ’07 and ’08 meetings off campus to Arrowhead, it barely registered a blip beyond Lawrence and Columbia. Now it smacks of genius.”
— John Helsley, The Oklahoman
“Kansas against Missouri is the nation’s second-oldest football rivalry. Minnesota and Wisconsin have played 117 times. Tonight will mark the 116th time the Jayhawks and Tigers have played—but never with so much national impact. It is the first time since 1973 both teams are nationally ranked, and the first time ever both are in the top 10 of The Associated Press poll.”
— Diane Pucin, Los Angeles Times
“It truly does boggle the mind. Neither team was ranked in the preseason Top 25. Kansas didn’t get a single vote. You may not see such a dramatic one-season rise in football fortunes in two downtrodden programs for another generation.”
— Lee Barfknecht, Omaha World-Herald
“The best rivalry in college sports—at least in terms of historical perspective —will be highlighted for the rest of the country Saturday. You can have Texas-Oklahoma, Auburn-Alabama, Michigan-Ohio State or USC-UCLA. But for my money, no rivalry has the basic historical hostility of Missouri vs. Kansas.”
— Tim Griffin, San Antonio Express–News
“You might have to go back to the Civil War to find the last time Missouri-Kansas meant anything on a national level. Saturday night, it’s all in. National title. Heisman Trophy. Prime-time national audience. Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium. To folks in those precincts, of course, it’s always been the equivalent of Ohio State-Michigan or Auburn-Alabama. This time, they get to share it with the rest of the college football world.”
— Mike Kern, The Philadelphia Daily News
“The rivalry has always been fierce. This time around, it’s also important. Really important.”
—Doug Tucker, The Associated Press

 
 
 
 
 
 
Stumping on the campaign trail in the spring of 2008, Bill and Hillary Clinton visited Columbia. Dave and Susie Christensen were invited to the on-campus reception and, figuring they might never get another opportunity to rub elbows with a U.S. President, they decided to attend. In the receiving line, Christensen told Clinton what he did for a living, and the ever-personable 42nd President became especially engaged. Clinton mentioned the showdown at Arrowhead. “He said, ‘I watched every minute of that game,’” Christensen recalls. “He said it was the best football game he had ever seen.”

Copyright © 2013 by Mark Godich
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To Leigh, the love of my life
CHAPTERS Foreword The Rivalry   By Joe Posnanski 1. Four Upsetting College Years   A Texan gets his first taste of the rivalry 2. The Border War   The bad blood traces to the Civil War and before 3. Olive Branch   The early meetings, the first homecoming and the 1960 showdown 4. Toledo? Pinkel?   A coaching hire and starting a QB named Smith raise eyebrows 5. Zo and Ruck (or T)   How two cornerstones for Missouri football arrived in Columbia 6. The Missouri Spread   Pinkel changes, and so does the offense 7. A.O.   The legacy of Aaron O’Neal 8. “I Should Have Won an Emmy”   The winding road Mark Mangino took to get to Lawrence 9. Sparky   Todd Reesing, the quarterback nobody wanted 10. Chase’s Time   A cocksure gunslinger from Texas signals in a new era in Missouri football 11. 2007: Chaos   How Kansas went from receiving no votes in the AP poll to No. 2 in the country 12. Strictly Business   Missouri’s no-nonsense march through the first two months of the 2007 season 13. Finish!   The Tigers learn how to win in November 14. Game Day!   The week leading up to the biggest game two bitter rivals will ever play 15. First Quarter: “Is that our best play?”   A gamble fails, but Missouri still takes the early lead 16. Second Quarter: “I baited him so good”   The Tigers swing the momentum on back-to-back plays 17. Third Quarter: “He reminds me a little of a Peyton Manning”   Daniel gets in a rhythm, and the Jayhawks heat up 18. Fourth Quarter: “The border belongs to the Tigers”   Missouri’s unquestioned leader seals the victory 19. Orange Crush   Twenty minutes from a shot at the national championship 20. Homecoming   Back in Dallas, ringing in the New Year with family and friends at the Cotton Bowl
Foreword
The Rivalry
By Joe Posnanski
Sports always seem at their most magical when the unexpected happens. And the unexpected so rarely happened in Kansas City. I think that’s why the 2007 football game between Missouri and Kansas still glows so brightly in our collective memory. Everything about that season still glows. We just didn’t see it coming.
You have to understand that in Kansas City in the 2000s, we tended to see everything coming. I had been a columnist at The Kansas City Star for more than a decade, but that just meant the same stories annually. The Royals were terrible. Check! The Chiefs lost their playoff game. Check! Kansas lost in the NCAA basketball tournament. Check! Missouri’s season, whatever the sport, ended in heartbreak. Check!
When you live in the Midwest for a long time, you get used to the flatness of the land … and you learn to appreciate you can usually see the storms coming from miles and miles away. That’s how it was for sports too.
But that 2007 season? No, we were totally blindsided.
Kansas football was an afterthought to all but a few stubborn old Jayhawks fans. I would run into those folks every now and again when speaking at an alumni function; they would regale me with stories of Gale Sayers and John Riggins, and they would talk about the glory years of Kansas football — or, more correctly, the glory year, since they were almost always talking about 1968 and Kansas’ stirring 15–14 loss to Penn State in the Orange Bowl. The Jayhawks had tied for the Big Eight championship that year. They would not challenge for another conference title for more than a quarter century. Not that most Kansas fans noticed. They were watching basketball.
And Missouri football, if anything, was an even more troubling mix because Missouri fans actually did care about football, care intently, and the Tigers always let them down. It wasn’t just the losing, though there was plenty of it. It was the way Missouri lost. The Tigers famously lost a game against Colorado in 1990 when officials gave the Buffaloes a fifth down. They famously lost a game against Nebraska in 1997 when a receiver kicked the ball to a teammate. But these are just the ones that cut through the national consciousness. A real Missouri fan can spend hours listing the cruel games fate has played with Tigers football.
And