Mizzou will play a very important football game on Friday night on a very important day in America’s history.
And when the 23rd-ranked Tigers take the field in Lawrence for a primetime edition of the Border War against Kansas, they’ll be paying tribute to every 9/11 victim by wearing special helmet stickers. So, while Mizzou will be trying very hard to win a rivalry game that kicks off at about 8 p.m. ET on FOX, there will be heavy emotion for both teams for that other reason on the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
The Tigers and Jayhawks will be a Border War battle between 1-0 teams, and Mizzou will be playing with that special touch of emotion contained on their helmets.
The Mizzou football social media account announced the Tigers’ touching gesture on Friday afternoon, just hours before kickoff, with this post that shows off the special helmet sticker that will be featured on those Mizzou helmets:
ESPN’s FPI believes Mizzou has a solid chance to win in hostile territory with those helmet stickers as an emotional driving force, of course. The FPI is giving the Tigers a 63.2% chance to prevail in Lawrence and improve to 2-0 on the season.
There will be heavy hearts everywhere, on the field and in the crowd, and with the emotion of the Mizzou-Kansas rivalry mixed into the backdrop, the national TV showcase on a Friday night on 9/11 promises to be a spectacle in every way.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
