After Missouri fell 31-13 to Mississippi State on Nov. 5 to drop to 4-5 overall and BYU edged San Jose State 17-16 last weekend to improve to 7-2, the neutral field game some 125 miles away from Columbia held little interest nationally. But last Saturday, following a series of race-related incidents on campus and an African-American graduate student went on a hunger strike in protest, Missouri's players threatened to boycott all football activities, including the BYU game, until the university system president resigned.
Suddenly, this game is must-see TV, if only to learn how a team handles this sort of adversity.