"Uncalled for": Eli Drinkwitz calls out viral rivalry hype video that featured history of slavery

Kansas leaned all the way into the history of the Border War before kicking off with Missouri on Friday night, and Eli Drinkwitz was not going to let it slide once the game was over.

The Jayhawks released a two-minute pregame video narrating the origins of the rivalry, tracing it to the "Bleeding Kansas" era and the Civil War violence along the state line. It cast abolitionist John Brown as Kansas' avatar and pro-slavery guerrilla leader William Quantrill as Missouri's, built around one line of narration: "There's right and wrong. There's Kansas and Missouri." 

It didn't take long for the clip to go viral, as it picked up more than 30 million impressions inside 48 hours.

Missouri handled the on-field aspect of the actual matchup, winning 38-21 at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium. Drinkwitz mentioned the video at the podium.

"I thought that was uncalled for. This is about two teams playing football," Drinkwitz said. "I'm just glad the whole right-versus-wrong crap got settled on the football field. I get there's a past to it, but why are we stirring that bullcrap up? It's 9/11. We need more unity."

The game was played last Thursday night, on the 25th anniversary of 9/11. Drinkwitz also made no secret of how he handled the finish.

"I was embarrassed for them, to be honest, and that's why I tried to embarrass them at the end," Drinkwitz said. He added that Missouri "left Kansas bleeding again," and said he doesn't really care whether the series continues.

Leipold went the other way. Kansas' sixth-year head coach, who built a six-time national champion at Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater before stops at Buffalo and now Kansas, kept his answer short and left Drinkwitz to his approach.

"That's his prerogative to coach his team the way he wants to coach it," Leipold said. "He wants to keep trying to score, that's his prerogative. It's our job to try to stop it."

Kansas had trouble stopping it most of the night. Jamal Roberts ran for 125 yards and a touchdown for Missouri, and backup quarterback Matt Zollers threw a pass late, the sort of thing behind Leipold's "keep trying to score" line. Isaiah Marshall finished with 168 passing yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions for the Jayhawks, who fell to 1-1 on the year.

For Drinkwitz, now in his seventh season at Missouri after a head-coaching stop at Appalachian State, this was a second straight win in the renewed rivalry. Missouri took last year's meeting 42-31 at Faurot Field.

At least for the foreseeable future, both coaches won't have to field many more questions about the video, but the temperature of this series continues to climb and despite it being arguably one of the lesser talked about rivalries in college football, as those conversations revolve around games like Michigan and Ohio State and Auburn and Alabama. 

Stay tuned to The Scoop for more.