In what could be the final edition of the Border War for the foreseeable future, Missouri opens up as a significant favorite at 22.5 over the Kansas Jayhawks. The Tigers are coming off of a narrow win over Texas Tech without suspended head coach Gary Pinkel, while the Jayhawks were blown out by Texas A&m and head into this one with head coach Turner Gill expected to be on the way out in the very near future.
Since opening at 22.5 last night the line has moved even further as the money seems to really favor the Tigers. The game is really a statement regarding how far Kansas has fallen. The Tigers are good, but they aren't the Chase Daniel Tigers or even the Blaine Gabbert Tigers. This Missouri team is beatable if you have a competitive team and other decent programs have shown that to be the case. Kansas unfortunately is no where close to where they were just four years ago when this rivalry had a huge moment in the spotlight with both programs sitting in the top five.
It's a different time and what appears to be the closing of a pretty demoralizing time in Kansas football history. It will be interesting to see if the Kansas players have anything left in the tank. Gill certainly has an uphill battle in terms of motivating his group as Gill appears to be entering his final game and this past weekends disaster in College Station appeared to finally break a little bit of the spirit in even the grittiest of Jayhawk players.