Back in 2011, just days after the University of Missouri announced it would be abandoning the Big 12 for the greener pastures of the Southeastern Conference, then-Mizzou athletic director Mike Alden pleaded to keep a century-old rivalry alive with Kansas.
The Border War stretched back not just to the 1800s, but the bad blood pre-dated the Civil War itself. Now Missouri was leaving its longtime rival—helping throw the conference into turmoil as Texas A&M went to the SEC, Colorado joined the Pac 12 and Nebraska moved to the Big Ten—and Alden just couldn’t understand why the Jayhawks wouldn’t want to continue playing the Tigers.
