“If a man wants to divorce me and says our relationship has no value to him, and then he asks me if he can sleep with me, the answer is, ‘No.’ We’re not going to play them any more because they decided that playing us was not important to them.”
— Baylor women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey, Oct. 19, when asked about playing Texas A&M in the future
“KU-Missouri is a great rivalry. The University of Kansas is a great Midwestern school, loyal to our Midwestern conference and to our Midwestern roots. The KU-Missouri rivalry belongs in the Big 12 Conference. Should Missouri decide to leave the Big 12, we would wish them well.”
— Kansas AD Sheahon Zenger, Oct. 21
“Missouri forfeits a century-old rivalry. We win.”
— Kansas athletics department, Nov. 6
The 1,000th Iowa State football game was played October 28, 2000, against Missouri. ISU won 39-20. (The ticket above is from four years later, when a missed field goal cost ISU its chance at an outright Big 12 North title.)
The first Big 12 women’s basketball game tipped off at noon on January 4, 1997, in Ames. ISU defeated Missouri 61-50 in front of what was then the 10th-largest women’s crowd in Hilton history (2,134).
In each of Iowa State’s Big Three sports, the same four teams have challenged the Cyclones the most. And now one of them is out the door and one is going.
| Football (1892-2020) | Men's BB (1907-2015) | Women's BB (1973-2015) |
|---|---|---|
| 105 Nebraska | 252 Kansas | 97 Kansas State |
| 104 Missouri | 235 Missouri | 92 Kansas |
| 104 Kansas State | 234 Nebraska | 76 Nebraska |
| 100 Kansas | 233 Kansas State | 74 Missouri |
| 85 Oklahoma | 211 Oklahoma | 70 Oklahoma |
It’s hard to over-emphasize what’s disappearing here. If you tack on the 11 Texas A&M games to the records against Colorado, Missouri, and Nebraska, those four departing/departed Big 12 teams account for one-fourth of the football games Iowa State ever played through 2011. The Big 12 as it existed in 2009 accounts for about 55% of ISU’s games overall. (Another 10% belongs to Iowa colleges that are mostly D-III now.)
Ties binding five universities in four states in the heart of America, with more than a century of shared athletics history, have been torn apart by television and ego.
Ironically, if Missouri does leave next year as planned, the last team from Iowa to defeat Missouri in football will be…the Iowa Hawkeyes.