51ºÚÁÏ

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Thursday was the appetizer. Or the opening act. Or maybe the prologue.

It had value: It was tasty, it was fun — it set the stage for what’s to come. But it’s easy to look past Missouri’s season-opening 61-6 win over Central Arkansas for what’s to come.

The Tigers thumped the Bears in expected fashion, displaying some real positives on the field. New quarterback Beau Pribula looked smooth, quick and comfortable in the Mizzou offense. Depth across the backfield and receiving corps showed up. The defense didn’t allow a point until there were just 22 seconds left in the game.

The negatives were more incidental: significant injuries to quarterback Sam Horn and kicker Blake Craig, which will affect the Tigers down the road.

Set all of that aside, if you haven’t already. What Mizzou did to a Football Championship Subdivision program matters little beyond a day or two afterward, if that.

Now, it’s about what MU can do to Kansas.

The Border War, back for the first time since Nov. 26, 2011, has long burned bright on the horizon of this year’s schedule. Brighter than the opener, brighter than a team like Alabama coming to town in October.

Southeastern Conference games are supposed to mean more, but nothing means more than this game, this rivalry, to Mizzou fans.

It seemed palpable among the 57,000-plus who sold out Faurot Field for the opener: This is cool and all, but just wait for next weekend. Tigers-Jayhawks, at 2:30 p.m. Saturday. Resale tickets, as of this weekend, cost at least $178 a pop. The most anticipated MU game in ... quite some time.

Both teams have had their warm-ups. Mizzou, as has become tradition under coach Eli Drinkwitz, got its 60-piece apéritif against an FCS program. Starters got their first games, first scores of the season out of the way without much pressure. Depth players and youngsters got a chance to get in-game reps in case they’re needed later in the campaign.

KU opened its partially renovated stadium, complete with stalks of grain patterned into the end zones, by beating Fresno State 31-7 in a Week 0 contest. Veteran Jayhawks quarterback Jalon Daniels threw for three touchdowns, and the Kansas defense twice picked off Fresno State quarterback E.J. Warner — son of 51ºÚÁÏ Rams great Kurt — while allowing only 75 team rushing yards.

Then, on Friday, KU cruised to a 46-7 win over Wagner, an FCS team.

All of that is merely a preamble.

“It’s a great starting point for the first game, for this game,� Mizzou middle linebacker Josiah Trotter said after leading the team in tackles against Central Arkansas. “Each and every single day, these games keep turning up a notch.�

Trotter is new to the Tigers, in via the transfer portal this offseason. Yet he gets it, almost immediately. Week 1 will be nothing like Week 2 in Columbia, Missouri.

And for what it’s worth, Saturday won’t be Trotter’s first game against the Jayhawks. He led West Virginia with 11 tackles in the Mountaineers’ 32-28 win over Kansas last season.

But that game means nothing compared to what MU-KU will mean. West Virginia only plays Kansas because it joined the Big 12 after Missouri’s exit.

Mizzou hasn’t seen a game like what’s to come on Saturday in nearly a decade and a half: the spite, the spirited, spitting fire of one of the fiercest rivalries in college sports.

Buckle up, Tigers. It’s Border War week.