Lance Leipold Reveals What He Learned About Kansas' Rivalry with Mizzou

The game just about everybody has circled on the Missouri Tigers' 2025 schedule is the Week 2 matchup against the Kansas Jayhawks.

Kansas head coach Lance Leipold is included in that group.

"To go to Columbia this year will be special," Leipold said Wednesday to Big 12 Studios at the conference's media days. "I’m sure there’s a lot of people on both sides of it that are going to be fired up. To see some of these rivalries get renewed is special and will be a great time, and we’re looking forward to it."

Missouri's 2024 non-conference schedule featured no rivalries. There was so little history on the slate for MU, the program had a combined three games previously played against their non-conference opponents.

In a time where an expanded College Football Playoff field incentivizes a weak non-conference schedule, some are worried rivalries like Missouri-Kansas will become increasingly less common.

But there's also an effort to preserve the rare environment, tradition and memories rivalries bring on. The one against Missouri is what Leipold has come to realize is the one most important to Kansas fans.

“Rivalry games are what makes college football so special," Leipold said. "I didn’t really realize when I first got to Lawrence that the Kansas-Missouri game is more of a rivalry than Kansas-Kansas State."

Leipold has coached against Missouri three times in his career as an assistant at Nebraska from 2001-2003, but the 2025 matchup will be his first matchup against the Tigers as a head coach.

Missouri takes on Kansas Sept. 6 at 2:30 p.m. at Faurot Field. It will be the first matchup between the two teams since 2011, and the first in Columbia since 2006.