What’s the all-time series record between KU & MU in football? They don’t agree
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kansas and Missouri disagree on the 1960 game's outcome due to player eligibility.
- Missouri credits a forfeit win; Kansas maintains its 23-7 on-field victory result.
- Ongoing dispute leaves the all-time football series record officially unsettled.
The renewal of the Kansas-Missouri football rivalry means the return of a longstanding dispute between the Border War participants regarding the all-time record in the 120-game series.
The 2025 Missouri football media guide indicates that by winning the last three meetings and five of the last six, MU has staked a claim to a 57-54-9 record over the Jayhawks. The 2025 KU football media guide agrees Mizzou leads the series but with a 56-55-9 mark heading into Saturday’s 2:30 p.m. kickoff at Faurot Field at Memorial Stadium.
The reason for the disagreement has everything to do with the 1960 meeting between the schools. KU defeated Missouri, 23-7, in the final game of the 1960 regular season, contested in Columbia. However the result was questioned then and now because KU used an ineligible player, halfback Bert Coan, resulting in a conference-ordered forfeit of the victory by a 5-3 vote of league faculty members taken several weeks after the game.
It was a huge game.
MU entered as the No. 1-ranked team in the country at 9-0. KU entered 6-2-1, its only two defeats to Syracuse and Iowa, teams ranked No. 2 and 1 at the time of the KU games.
The problem with Coan’s participation?
He transferred to KU from TCU after his freshman year, amid speculation that Coan had accepted a flight from a KU booster to an all-star game in Chicago held after his freshman year. Indeed, the flight and ticket to the game were judged to be extra benefits. The KU booster denied that he recruited Coan, who scored two TDs in that 1960 game vs. MU.
KU continues to consider the 1960 result a Jayhawk victory (with a 23-7 score and asterisk in media guide), citing the actual final tally on the scoreboard in Columbia that day. MU records the result as a Mizzou victory, a 7-23 score and an asterisk in the Tigers’ record book.
On Dec. 8, 1960 in Kansas City, representatives from all eight conference schools voted on the matter of Coan’s eligibility. Prior to that meeting, a 6-2 vote was required to pass measures concerning player eligibility.
According to the Lawrence Journal-World, “it was a certainty that Kansas would vote that Coan was eligible, and Kansas State and Oklahoma State were known to have sided with the Jayhawks on the issue, too. But, in a bizarre twist, the first order of business at the meeting that day changed the policy, and a simple majority — instead of three-fourths — was all that was needed to pass measures like the one Coan was about to be tried on. It turned out to be awfully convenient for those against the Jayhawks: KU was stripped of its Big Eight title — and of victories over Colorado (in which Coan played) and Missouri — by a 5-3 vote.”
Kansas, K-State and Oklahoma State ultimately deemed the Jayhawks innocent of providing “excessive entertainment” to Coan. Five schools believed otherwise and voted against Coan and the Jayhawks.
Along with the forfeits of the two victories in which Coan played (he was injured much of the season), the running back was ordered to sit out the first five games of the 1961 season. Coan was injured and did not play for KU in 1961. Instead he turned pro and wound up playing one season with San Diego and six with the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFL.
There’s certainly been a lot of questions raised from fans and media about the 1960 game result the past many years.
“I was the football guy from 1986 to 2000 so I would guess (there were questions about the all-time series record) probably every year,” former Missouri sports information director/current Mizzou athletic department archivist/historian Bob Brendel told The Star on Monday in a phone conversation.
“I always did hate when the questions came up. That’s the way it had always been listed when I got there. I wasn’t going to be the guy that made a change (in the game result), that’s for sure,” he added.
Doug Vance, who arrived at KU in 1983 to work as sports information director for KU and football SID under coach Mike Gottfried (he also had the position during the Bob Valesente, Glen Mason, Terry Allen and Mark Mangino years) noted Monday in a phone conversation that “the policy, if you can call it that, was in place before I got there, that Kansas recognized that game as a victory.
“From the next year (1961) on there was a discrepancy in the record book that remained because neither school was going to change their policy on that situation. Obviously you were aware of it (when updating records year after year) and I was aware of it,” Vance added. “We’re always trained to be consistent, everybody on the same page. So it went against everything I had been taught. But it was just unusual circumstances.
“College sports has unusual circumstances all the time, so we tried not to make a big deal of it. It was just the way we looked at the series, and Missouri looked at it differently, and nobody hid anything. Neither school ever made a big deal out of it, that I recall. I don’t recall any time Missouri asked us to change, and I know we never asked Missouri to change while I was there (1983 to 2003).”
Both Vance and Brendel said the record of the KU-MU series was never discussed in administrative meetings during their tenures.
“I don’t remember it ever coming up,” Brendel said. “Even when Dan Devine (former MU football coach) came back as AD in the early ‘90s I don’t remember it ever coming up.”
“It was what it was. One school looked at it one way and another school looked at it another and just proceeded on. We tried to not make an issue out of it,” Vance added.
That only adds to the rivalry, Vance said.
“The schools dislike each other so much they can’t even agree on the record,” Vance noted.
Of course, if KU ever thought about changing course and declaring the 1960 game a defeat, it would have faced stern opposition from former head coach Don Fambrough, who despised Missouri and let everybody know about it yearly until he passed away in 2011.
“You know, all the coaches … Don Fambrough indoctrinated all these coaches into the meaning of the rivalry,” Vance said. “Obviously, coach Fambrough was the guy every year … the media always wanted quotes from him. He fanned the flames, so to speak, and helped the coach of the team, whoever it was at the time, know history and what it meant to KU.
“Coach Fambrough was the guy who stoked the fire. So I think coach Fambrough probably may have been an influence on Kansas, taking a stand on this and not wanting to change (the 1960 result).”
This story was originally published September 2, 2025 at 9:52 AM with the headline "What’s the all-time series record between KU & MU in football? They don’t agree."
