<table> </table> Mark Mangino, Oklahoma assistant and Kansas coaching candidate, had to be convinced when he met the Jayhawks job interview contingent led by then-athletic director Al Bohl in a conference room at an Oklahoma City airport hotel.</p><p>Bohl, who could sell Michael Phelps a life jacket, vowed that Kansas would spend like the big boys. He told Mangino about the &#8220;KU Air Force,&#8221; private jets available for recruiting trips.</p><p>At the time, Kansas had two airplanes for the entire university, and Bohl was pitching a mirage, as Mangino later discovered.</p><p>&#8220;The Air Force quickly became ground troops,&#8221; Mangino said.</p><p>That was Kansas football.</p><p>&#8226; &#8226; &#8226;</p><p>The problem with booing is the collateral damage. Missouri fans didn&#8217;t intend to disparage the players as they trudged off the field as losers to Bowling Green in Gary Pinkel&#8217;s debut.</p><p>These were general malaise boos. The here-we-go-again boos were delivered after a play just before halftime when a Tigers pass landed closer to a team manager than the intended receiver.</p><p>That was Missouri football.</p><p>&#8226; &#8226; &#8226;</p><p>From that to this.</p><p>Good luck if you don&#8217;t have a ticket to this year&#8217;s Border War game at Arrowhead Stadium. Imagine any other time as an MU or KU fan, wanting to see your team play in an 80,000-seat stadium and having to visit a ticket broker.</p><p>From hissing fans and huckster administrators to scalped tickets, Missouri and Kansas remarkably have arrived together near the top of college football&#8217;s hierarchy.</p><p>Check out the preseason polls. The Associated Press lists the Tigers No. 6, the Jayhawks No. 14, high-water marks as Big 12 programs for both.</p><p>Although these bitter rivals don&#8217;t tend to revel in the other&#8217;s success, their parallel rise has revved interest in these parts as if it were, well, basketball season. Remember when mid-October and the beginning of basketball practice marked the end of football season, especially in Lawrence?</p><p>&#8220;Absolutely, I&#8217;m excited about going to the games,&#8221; said KU hoops coach Bill Self.</p><p>Who wouldn&#8217;t be after a 2007 season in which the Jayhawks finished 12-1 with an Orange Bowl triumph and No. 7 final ranking, and the Tigers wound up 12-2 after their Cotton Bowl romp for the No. 4 rating?</p><p>Oh, and there was that skirmish at Arrowhead last November.</p><p>A Missouri lead, a Kansas comeback and finally a Tigers victory celebration in the most-hyped and most-watched battle in the rivalry&#8217;s 117-year history.</p><p>How could it not be? The undefeated Jayhawks ranked second. The Tigers were No. 4. With top-ranked LSU having lost the day before and second-ranked West Virginia struggling against Pittsburgh at the same time, this game was for No. 1.</p><p>More than 11 million viewers tuned in on ABC, making it the highest-rated regular-season game of the year.</p><p>A record audience tuned in to ESPN&#8217;s pregame show, &#8220;Game Day,&#8221; which created a State Line Road in the Arrowhead parking lot.</p><p><em>Sports Illustrated</em> featured Kansas on the cover the week of the game, Missouri on the cover the week after it won 36-28 and took over the top spot in the polls.</p><p>A majority of returning starters for both sides, starting with quarterbacks Chase Daniel at Missouri and Todd Reesing at Kansas, makes this season the most highly anticipated in Columbia and Lawrence &#8212; and Kansas City, where the teams will clash again on Nov. 29.</p><p>Let the hyperbole begin.</p><p>&#8220;This game is just as big as the Texas-Oklahoma &#8216;Red River Shootout&#8217; or &#8216;The Game&#8217; between Michigan and Ohio State,&#8221; said U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who played college football at Prairie View A&amp;M.