Mizzou, Illini to end football series at Dome
Veteran sportswriter and Illini mouthpiece Loren Tate reports that the season-opening football series between Missouri and Illinois at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis will end after the 2010 season.
Read his report on the IlliniHQ website.
Here’s what Illinois AD Ron Guenther said: “Eventually, we might resume (the series) on a home-and-home basis, or perhaps return to St. Louis, but we have been leaning toward games on campus at some point in the future.”
And here’s what Guenther probably meant: We completed $120 million in stadium improvements in 2008. We want to add another home game every year, not play a neutral-site game.
The Arch Rivalry event has given the lie to a local lament that the Dome is an automatic buzzkill for football fans. Capacity crowds rocked The Ed in ‘07 and ‘08 as Illinois stormed back from huge deficits each time, only to lose 40-34 and 52-42 to highly-ranked Mizzou teams laden with NFL prospects.
The game should rotate campus to campus. If St. Louis wants college football then they need to get a year end bowl.
With $410 in TIF, we’ll ALL be helping Paul McKee buy up Tucker Blvd.
Now, back to football . . .
I would like to see MU take advantage of this potential open date in the schedule to play some traditional powerhouses such as, OSU, LSU, VT, Florida or some other school from the east side of the country. Rarely does MU compete to the east. Also, I would like to see us get rid of one other cream puff game. I realize we need these wins to compete for the north title. I would just like to see how we would fair outside of our conference or the Midwest in a game, instead of a computers opinion.
Sad. This game has helped Missouri for the past 4 years… and some years it would help Illinois. I hate to see it die.
I will say this, however… to the person that is hoping to replace this with a game vs. a powerhouse. (OU, NEB, etc..) Come on… There is a reason why this game was scheduled with IL. They would take the game. While Mizzou would be all over playing OU, Nebraska or Texas… they do not share the enthusiasm, I am certain.
Slightly delusional to think that you could improve the opponent here. Kind of funny, actually. IL has a better chance of landing a big name school to play than Missouri does… and IL was a .500 team last year.
Hey Brett…try some finding some success on the football field and then come with your trash. Slipping and falling into a BCS game and then getting waxed by USC doesn’t count as success in my book. But then again, you’re probably used to mediocrity…MIZZOU-RAH!!!!
Notre Dame??!!! HAHAHAHAHA You Mizzou fans may want to wait for, I don’t know, more than two successful Top 25 years prior to pretending you’re any kind of football powerhouse. Notre Dame looks at Missouri football like a lion looks at a gnat.
— Brett Schulte
June 1st, 2009
Mizzou fans are forgetting that Coach Pinkel pulled out of a home and home series season opener against the University of Iowa about 5 years ago. Why? The Hawkeyes has finished 3 straight years in the top 10, and Mizzou couldn’t compete. Now Illinois has done this to Mizzou. Good, except that it hurts St. Louis. Bring another border war here for a season opener (MO borders 8 states, and 5 are not in the Big 12). In fact, BEG Iowa to forgive Mizzou!
I agree with the previous post. Iowa city is only 4 hours(or less) from STL. Iowa fans like to travel with the team and like Cardinals Baseball.
WTF?
Cubfan300, first off as an Illini fan, we never should have been to the rose bowl. Did you watch the game? complete and utter domination by USC, immediately followed by a 5-7 season. Second, until Mizzou can beat Oklahoma or Texas consistently, they will always be considered a mid-pack big 12 team. You cannot beat up on the likes of Baylor, KSU, Iowa State, and colorado (see cupcakes) and consider yourself a powerhouse. In addition, until the big 10 can show up to a bowl game, or to pasadena and actually win, the entire conference will be mid-pack. This game simply put was two evenly matched teams that might make a new years day bowl (if lucky…You can see how well mizzou handled the pressure of being number 1).
SEC football is far and away superior to any other conference. The last three BCS championships have gone to the SEC with a total of 5 championships in the 11 year BCS history. Those are facts you cannot argue against. Ask Mizzou favorite Bob Stoops how good the SEC can be. He has lost to them in the championship game 2 out of 2 times while stomping mizzou a perfect 6 out of 6.
It really doesn’t matter to me, what does matter is that the NCAA put together a real playoff. It’s unfortunate that of all the sports NCAA Division I has, the mosted watched sport doesn’t have a playoff. They’re (NCAA) more interested in the University that can draw the most revenue than the football teams who deserve to play for a title. With all that a player and coach goes through before and during the season, ends up going undefeated for the year and still can’t play for the championship because of the Universities lack of notariety or strengh of schedule. Having a computer decide on who should be where is flat out stupid. It starts on the field and should end of the field. Regardless of your schedule, if you loose one game, it shouldn’t prohibit you from playing for the championship yet along having a perfect record and still not make it. Instead of the NCAA having all the say-so the Goverment doesn’t have a choice but to do what’s right instead of doing what’s wrong for all the decades. What since does it make to prepare for a football season knowing that you can’t play for the championship because of your University lack of Schedule