We’ve jumped a long way in the series from 1911 and the first homecoming 25 years into the future. The series was even throughout those 25 years at 11-11-2, but that left the Tigers trailing 15-24-6 overall.
Then came a 19-3 win in 1936 starting a string of 14 wins in the next 19 games to put the Tigers in front in the series for the first time at 39-38-7.
Mizzou began a dominant stretch with a homecoming win on Nov. 26, 1936 to finish 6-2-1 overall that season and 3-1-1 in Big 6 conference play. And a pretty big change happened just the season before as Don Faurot took over the program in 1935 and led the team through the 1942 season, winning the Big 6 three times.
With a tie in 1935, this game marked Faurot’s first win in the Border War.
The game was played Thanksgiving night, so we’re going to look at paper’s from Nov. 27 and hope reporters back then were working hard on holidays.
First thing, from the Kansas City Times, there was apparently a crash on U.S. 40 eight miles west of Columbia, causing the game to be delayed by an hour and a half.
That was a little extra bit before the story, but our main story begins with the headline “TIGERS TOO STRONG” with sub headlines that read “The Snow at Columbia Can’t Be Blamed for the Jayhawks’ Defeat.” “K.U. PLAYS GREAT GAME” “Kansas Rooters Have Only Praise for Team’s Surprising Battle Against Odds.” “COLD KEEPS DOWN CROWD” “Many with Tickets Prefer Warm Hotel Rooms to Seats in the Stadium.”
The story is listed as written “By a member of the Star’s Staff” so we finally have somewhat of a byline, but not one that I can credit. Also, it seems odd to give so much credit for great play to Kansas when it was a 19-3 Missouri win, but there’s still a fun lead.
“The Missouri Tigers defeated the Kansas Jayhawkers, 19 to 3 today, but the snow had nothing to do with it. Two years ago here the Jayhawkers defeated the Tigers and the snow didn’t have anything to do with that. This is written out of deference to the snow, which can be justly blamed for everything except the defeat of Kansas.”
I do love having deference for the snow. That’s a very fun way to start a sports story.
The story says there were about 14,000 people in attendance, a low number credited to the weather.
OK, finally some actual news about the game, Kansas led 3-0 at halftime, but the second half was all Missouri.
The Tigers fumbled on the first play of the game, once again credited to the snow, leading to a 25-yard field goal that gave Kansas the early lead. That was it for scoring in the first half.
And now we’re back to snow.
“There are various types of snow. There is the snow which falls when you have just received a new sled for Christmas. There is the snow which falls when your team is winning. And there is the snow which fell for Kansas to drive over on the way home.”
The Tigers got going in the third quarter, scoring the game’s first touchdown when “Jack Frye threw a forward pass to Jack Duncan.” A good ole combo of Jacks and still mentioning that it was a forward pass.
Then “in the fourth quarter the Bengals ran wild.”
Kansas City native Henry Mahley ran in a 60-yard touchdown and captain Al Londe scored on a 6-yard touchdown to create the final margin.
I’m really glad we’ve hit a point in sports journalism where everybody is using full names.
The game was credited as one of the best in several years, but injuries depleated Kansas and Missouri was able to continue throwing new bodies into the snow.
Faurot after the game said:
“I was afraid right up to the finish,” the young mentor confessed. “Kansas played a stubborn game and made matters tough for us by getting off in the lead. That’s the very thing I was most afraid of. But everything turned out all right although it took us a long time to get started.”
Tiger fans got a happy Thanksgiving, the first Border War win of Faurot’s tenure and turned what had been a six-year streak of shutouts with five losses into the start of a seven-year streak without a loss on the way to getting back to tying the series in the mid 1950s.
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