Mizzou will return to Arrowhead in 2020 to face Arkansas on Thanksgiving weekend

No major college football program has played more games at Arrowhead Stadium than Missouri. The Tigers will add to the list in 2020 with a contest against Arkansas.

Mizzou and Chiefs announced on Tuesday that the Tigers’ annual Battle Line Rivalry game against Arkansas is coming to Kansas City. Currently the game is set for Nov. 28, 2020, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, but it could move. The Tigers will play the Hogs in Little Rock on Nov. 29 this fall, on Black Friday.

“Obviously, Kansas City has provided Mizzou football and the university with outstanding support over the years and some great games,” Mizzou athletic director Jim Sterk said.

Missouri will play two games at Arrowhead over the next several years. In addition to the 2020 game, the school has agreed to play a power-five conference opponent in Kansas City by 2025.

“We don’t have that figured out yet,” Sterk said. “We’ll be looking at options.”

Mizzou is 6-2 at Arrowhead and last played there against BYU on Nov. 14, 2015. MU won 20-16 in a game that Tigers players threatened to boycott because of race issues on campus. The Tigers went 4-1 during a five-year stretch against Kansas at Arrowhead from 2007-11.

The Tigers defeated Arkansas State in Kansas City in 2005. Mizzou’s Arrowhead losses came on successive Saturdays in 2008, to Kansas in the regular season finale and Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship game.

Missouri has typically drawn well at Arrowhead. Attendance for the 2007 game against Kansas, 80,537, is the largest non-Chiefs crowd in stadium history.

Kansas State, Oklahoma and Kansas have each played at least six games at Arrowhead.

“It’s an important part of the state, it’s our second-largest alumni base, so it’s a win-win for us,” Sterk said of Kansas City.

The Arkansas game won’t be part of the Tigers’ season ticket package in 2020. Sterk noted that “Columbia is a little slower and students are out of town” on Thanksgiving week.

“That tied in really well and made the game a natural to work out,” he said.

Mizzou will play six games at Memorial Stadium in Columbia in 2020: SEC matchups against Vanderbilt (Sept. 12), Georgia (Oct. 17) and Homecoming vs. Kentucky (Oct. 24), as well as nonconference games vs. Central Arkansas (Sept. 5), Eastern Michigan (Sept. 26) and Louisiana (Nov. 21).

“You have to make sure to keep at least six games at home,” Sterk said. “Also, this exposure helps bring other people to our games in Columbia. It’s a win-win that way.”

Arrowhead Stadium’s history of hosting college football games dates to its inaugural year, when Grambling met Mississippi Valley State in 1972.

The next college game, Nebraska-Oklahoma State in 1998, started a run of contests that often saw the stadium play host to multiple college contests in a season. Arrowhead has been the site of five Big 12 championship games, five games in the Missouri-Kansas rivalry, a two-year Kansas State-Iowa State series, and nearly 20 games involving Division II or NAIA schools.

The Division II series between Northwest Missouri and Pittsburg State returns to Arrowhead on Oct. 12.

This story was originally published August 27, 2019 at 3:00 PM.