Better neutral-site atmosphere for college football: Arrowhead Stadium or St. Louis&#8217; Edwards Jones Dome?</p><p>Nobody better qualified to render an opinion than Missouri&#8217;s Tigers, who have played two of their previous four games in the Show-Me State&#8217;s showcase structures under the similar circumstances of a full house and national attention.</p><p>So I asked. Not the coaches, players or athletic administrators who would feel compelled to knock it straight down the fairway, but fans who attended both the Border War against Kansas at Arrowhead last November and Saturday&#8217;s scrum with Illinois near the Arch.</p><p>The fans know better. They&#8217;re the ones who shivered last year, who put up with the bad acoustics last weekend and loved every minute of it when their team came out on top. Because our sampling is stacked with Kansas Citians, we&#8217;ll start with a plugged-in St. Louisan.</p><p>&#8220;It was a fantastic event, and we look forward to it every year,&#8221; Robin Wenneker, past president of the St. Louis Tigers Club, said of MU-Illinois. &#8220;But MU-KU is more intense. We don&#8217;t deal with Missouri-Illinois day-to-day, in an in-your-face way.&#8221;</p><p>That&#8217;s also the consensus from faithful on this side of the state. Because the Illini and Mizzou don&#8217;t share a conference or a history that dates to the Civil War, their relationship tends to be more, well, civil.</p><p>&#8220;Missouri and Illini fans didn&#8217;t really interact much,&#8221; said Brian Yates of Lee&#8217;s Summit.</p><p>Even if recent events give Missouri as much reason to sneer at Illinois as Kansas. The defeated rivals from both sides played in BCS bowls.</p><p>Still, &#8220;Outside of greater St. Louis, I think everyone pretty much considers this a more friendly rivalry and tend to root each other on in their conference seasons,&#8221; said Dave Tyson of Kansas City.</p><p>Which suggests a different type of atmosphere, at least to the Kansas City Tigers, fueled by a deeper sense of hostility.</p><p>&#8220;The pregame at Arrowhead is beyond compare,&#8221; said Jason Wright of Mason, Mo. &#8220;The noise level at Arrowhead was much louder than the dome.&#8221;</p><p>Kind of a no-lose either way, and just having this comparison speaks to a stroke of fortune for Missouri.</p><p>The sleeping-giant descriptions about Missouri are trite but true. Over the years, too much homegrown talent got away, and the metropolitan-area bases have felt disconnected, not unlike what&#8217;s happened in basketball in the Mizzou Arena era.</p><p>The rise of Missouri football coinciding with agreements to play in St. Louis and Kansas City has engaged the state in a way I&#8217;ve never seen. Last year, going into the Arrowhead game, the sense was Kansas would be better represented.</p><p>But Missouri fans seemed to come up with every loose ticket, and by kickoff the stadium was closer to 50-50 than anybody expected. This season, the season-ticket sales record was shattered.</p><p>As for the future of these games, nothing is assured. MU-Illinois is locked up through 2010, and this is the second year of a two-year agreement between Kansas and Missouri.</p><p>Missouri officials are sensitive about taking games away from Columbia, and Tigers coach Gary Pinkel during last basketball season stressed the importance of playing a conference rival on campus.</p><p>But if the money is right &#8212; Missouri, along with Kansas and Illinois, banks between $1 million and $1.3 million for each game when it wouldn&#8217;t make money in years the games were played on the road &#8212; the talks to extend the series at neutral sites will continue.</p><p>Kansas City was lucky to get KU-MU under remarkable circumstances. Odds are against the teams playing for a No. 1 ranking this time. But a tremendous atmosphere? Count on it.