As near as I can tell (though Google can only do so much, of course), insidestl.com blogger Tim McKernan was the first to tag the name "Armageddon at Arrowhead" to next Saturday night's Kansas-Missouri game. He did so back on October 23--after tickets for the game had sold out. I'm greatly relieved to discover that this is a genuine media-driven moniker and not some sad marketing hype. As a grassroots title, it's pretty cool. If some dork in white shirt and dark tie whipped it up last July, well, I'd be blowing chunks every time I heard that phrase.

The name's perfect--and perfectly wrong, which makes it perfect once again. This game is the ultimate battle of good vs. evil, even if one's conception of good and evil relies entirely on team loyalty. I grew up believing that Missouri interlopers were evil slaver types. I spent three years in Lawrence, Kan., which might be the only city in the nation whose school district has extensive John Brown Day celebrations (at least it did back in the late 70s). Folks in Lawrence still talk about Quantrill's Raid as if it happened yesterday rather than 1863.

There's a story in the Kansas City Star today about a judge in the KC area who has a print of a famous painting of the raid sitting on his office wall. He added a little plaque at the bottom that reads: "Scoreboard: Missouri 183, Kansas 0." He says he laughs a little whenever he looks at the picture.

Laughing at mass murder is not generally looked upon as charming. Unless, of course, college football is involved.

People take their Missouri or Kansas loyalties seriously. The schools even compete vigorously in the annual U.S. News and World Report rankings--and it makes me proud to say that my alma mater has spanked Kansas the last few years in this category.

Of course, I think those rankings are silly, but any chance to beat Kansas is a good one. And this Saturday, Missouri has a chance to return the favor for 1960, when the Tigers were #1 and needed only a win over a crappy Kansas team to sit one Orange Bowl win away from the national championship. Didn't happen, and so Iowa, Ole Miss and Washington split the title.

Now we have the BCS, and all Missouri needs to do is win two more games and it will be in the BCS Championship Game (all caps because that's an official name). If we've learned nothing else this year, it's that there are at least eight--if not 16--teams out there that are good enough to win the national title. But we don't have a playoff, and we're stuck with the BCS. And damned if Missouri and Kansas don't have a shot at winning it all.

As a turncoat Mizzou fan (I shed my Jayhawk past the moment my parents's Suburban crossed the Missouri River at Boonville in 1987 on the way to my freshman year at MU), I'd like to give a little perspective on how bizarre this season truly is. Neither Kansas nor Missouri have won a conference championship since the 1960s. Even former conference punching bag Kansas State has won since then. Among the major conferences, the only more surprising pairing in such a big game might be Vanderbilt and Kentucky. Or, perhaps, Duke and Wake Forest. Except that Wake won the ACC last year. Maybe that unthinkable event last year was a portent for this crazy college football season.

I'd like a word about those K-State fans. As much as I dislike KU, its fans aren't, by and large, pricks. They're mean, and they say truly disgusting and reprehensible things about folks from Missouri. That's fine. It's a rivalry. But at the end of the day (or maybe a couple days later, if the game was particularly contentious), there is a sort of wary mutual respect. Most of the time, I get along with KU football fans.

On the other hand, K-State football fans are whiny, arrogant blowhards. A few years ago, I sat through a Missouri game in the Kansas State section (my parents are K-State alumni and they got the tickets). Missouri almost upset the Wildcats, and all I heard from the fans was how the refs were out to get K-State, how no one gave K-State any respect and the like. I kinda wanted to say "If your guys played a little better, they'd be ahead by four touchdowns."

Of course, after Missouri stomped K-State flat yesterday, a number of Wildcat fans chanted "Beat KU! Beat KU!" as the Tigers left the field. That moves them up a notch in my book.

Nonetheless, rabid K-State fans turn my stomach. They're a bit like rabid Chiefs fans, and those folks embarrass me and my own strong Chiefs fandom. But I don't hate K-State itself. K-State is just a farming college out in the middle of nowhere. Certainly not a threat to the survival of the State of Missouri. Kansas, on the other hand, is a worthy adversary, an institution of quality and (as much as I hate to say it) strength.

Which is why the evil Jayhawks must be vanquished next Saturday night. The time has come. The date and place have been appointed. Satan and his minions must be banished once and for all.

Rock chalk chicken hawk.

Fuck KU!

Not the most original of sentiments, I know, but it works for me.

Jon Worley's parents and most of his aunts and uncles graduated from a certain farming college out in the middle of nowhere. Oh, and his Grandpa taught there for decades. There's also the doctorate his dad picked up at the University of Gehenna (er, Kansas). No worries. The line in the limestone has been drawn and battle positions have been readied. It's on!