Texas A&M Aggies (3) vs. Missouri Tigers, 11/8/2025, 2:30pm CST

Texas A&M 38 – Missouri 17, Attendance: 57,321

Weather: Cloudy, 59; Ticket: $167 Seat Geek, Face: $120 Parking: $120 / Free

“Right experience, Wrong conference” by Tree

The University of Missouri is in Columbia, a little over two hours from either Kansas City or St. Louis. We stayed in downtown Columbia. Depending on your mindset, it is either a very large town or a small city. In any case, it is a classic college town. There is large park system but no real tourist attractions other than the standard offerings that surround a land grant university.

We hit several bars and restaurants during our stay, all easily walkable from our Airbnb. The locals were friendly and welcoming to visiting fans. Note that I booked very early. As with any Power 4 university, the lodging is going to go quickly and at a high price. For a trip to see Mizzou, it is worth making the effort to stay in Columbia for the weekend.

Mizzou has traditional tailgating parking lots surrounding the stadium. I had a potential tailgating connection (again delivered by my friend, Bulldawg Barry). However, as I was going to the game with a couple of Aggies, I thought it would be best to procure a parking spot to tailgate just in case the connection didn’t work out. I bought a spot in Lot X on Stubhub for $92.

As it turned out, we did not need it. Our connection, Dave T., came through with the goods. He secured both a spot to park (literally across the street from Lot X) and place to tailgate right next to this crew. Dave and his family have been tailgating here for years, and they had all the gear. With tents, big screen tv, and plenty of food, it was as good a tailgate as we have seen in all our years of tailgating. They were even gracious enough to let us put up our Texas popup and hang an A&M flag.

As always though, it is the people who make a tailgate. These Tiger fans were great, sharing some of their best tailgating experiences over the years. It was not surprising that Barry, our great Georgia tailgate host, ended up being good friends with Dave and his crew. Fans who know how to tailgate well tend to be the kind of friendly folks that support the visiting opponents – mixing great vibes in with some good ole’ fashioned hate. We had a couple of folks check out Somanystadiums signs as well. Regarding the other lots, the tailgating seemed robust from Lot X inward towards the stadium. The tailgating looked to be as good as any other Power 4 school we have been to.

Missouri plays at Faurot Field at Memorial Stadium. Or at least, that’s the name at the time of this writing. The north end zone is to be greatly upgraded, and the school is selling the naming rights of the stadium, undoubtedly, to offset some of the cost and provide some NIL funds. We saw the construction in all its glory and the north stadium was pure dirt, steel and concrete. Typically, a “Rock M” sits in that end zone. To Missouri’s credit, they are keeping a small general admission hill in the end zone. Reduced in size, of course, but at least something will still there. At one time, the stadium held 75,000 but the future expansion will put it more like 65,000.

We bought our tickets via Seat Geek which routed us to Ticket Master, Mizzou’s ticket vendor. I abhor Ticket Master for online tickets. I have found the app to be glitchy and ineffective. Today there was no difference as we and about 20,000 other people waited in a queue for about a half hour as Ticket Master broke in some new technology. I hope it gets better, because it was one of the worst entry processes I have seen in a long time.

Our ~$170 tickets got us bench seats in upper level at about the 50-yard line. They were good seats for that price. I saw seatbacks in the endzone and assumed that the lower level has some too. There was only one video scoreboard, but there will be two with the renovation. The concessions were standard fare. I got a bit worried when I first saw just bottled beverages, but another stand had a soda fountain with a decent souvenir cup.

They do serve alcohol – perhaps overserve based on a later fan experience. As for the fans, we continued to find them to be very friendly and kind. Their attire was more Midwest than Southern. There were lots of sweatshirts and blue jeans, even among the college kids. I am sure the slightly cooler weather had some influence on that, but that usually doesn’t stop the boys from going shirtless and the girls from wearing miniskirts.

The game started off with a military flyover and a decent entrance by the team. The Tigers signature cheer is M-I-Z – Z-O-U chanted from side of the stadium to the other. Sometimes the cheer incorporates a “F K U” in reference to rival, Kansas, which I found to be amusing. The school itself has some signature architectural Columns that the students sprint through to Jesse Hall during welcome week. My notes say there was a similar one up the stadium stands, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what that looked like. The band was pretty good and included performing robots. I should say robot, because the robot dog broke down about a minute into the song. Supposedly, there is also “Big Mo” the largest brass drum in college football, but I don’t recall seeing it nor is it present in any of my photos.

Their mascot, Truman the Tiger, is named after the Missouri native and former president, Harry S. Truman. He did the normal mascot stuff, mildly entertaining at times. The team does a Tiger Walk prior to the game, but it wasn’t the first nor the last school to do that. The Mizzou cheer is good, but the fans really excelled at singing “Mr. Brightside.” That tradition has been around since 2016, and it showed. It sounded very good – maybe better than anywhere else I have heard it.

A&M pretty much ran away from this one, opening a 14-0 lead in the first half which was aided by a couple of Missouri mistakes. Midway through the 2nd quarter with the Aggies holding a tenuous 7-0 lead, the Tigers finally put a decent drive together that ultimately stalled at the A&M 32. The kick was missed, but the Aggies had jumped offside. Faced with fourth and five, Mizzou opted to go for it and came up short. A 45-yard field goal is not a gimmie in college football, but the odds had to have been better than converting a fourth and five, especially against the Aggies monstrous defensive line.

The Aggies, however, could only respond with one first down and had to punt it away. Unfortunately, the next play was a Tiger interception/fumble that the Aggies punched in on their next snap. Texas A&M extended their fourteen-point lead in the 3rd quarter to 21-0. Urgency set in and Missouri finally scored a touchdown. It looked like momentum was finally moving the Tigers way as they held the Aggie offense to a fourth and three at their own 34. However, in a brilliant play call, Texas A&M ran a fake punt that went 48 yards to the Mizzou 18. The Tiger defense stiffened and the Aggies settled for a field goal, but the damage to the momentum was palpable.

Still, Missouri held Texas A&M scoreless through the remainder of the third quarter. After a rousing intermission with the crowd still jumping from the previously mentioned “Mr. Brightside” sing-along, the Tigers forced a fumble and drove down to kick a field goal, cutting the lead to 24-10.

Alas, that was as close as the Tigers would get. A&M scored another touchdown, which plucky Mizzou answered with a 45-yard touchdown run. It was still a 14-point margin, with the score sitting at 31-17. A&M would tack one more on for some cushion and could have scored again had they not taken their foot off the pedal.

Considering that the Tigers were being led by a third string QB in his first start, it could have been much worse. The grit of Mizzou that night and their overall recent SEC success is good enough that you should not have to worry about the Tigers giving you a good game to watch when visiting Columbia.

We had a good time at Missouri and found folks extremely friendly. From the grocery clerk that checked us out Saturday morning, who later waved us down after the game from a hospitality cart to the judge sitting next to me during the game, everyone was very nice. And, of course, our tailgate with Dave and his family was outstanding.

Even an experience that could have been unpleasant turned out to be fun. The fan sitting behind me was, as my mom would say, “in her cups”, could not have been more apologetic as she continued to drop her phone on me during the game. Turns out she was a recent grad (not from Mizzou mind you) and just having a good time. By the third quarter, she took a tumble as she was heading to the row exit. Again – no harm, no foul, although from that point on her friends and family took over the serving role and the phone drops disappeared right along with her buzz. I have been to other stadiums where this would have been a big deal, but at Mizzou, everyone just kind of stepped up and made sure she safely had a good time the rest of the game.

Given that, and the overall quality of our experience, it would probably lead you to believe I would define the Mizzou experience as “Must See”. Instead, I would say it more like one not to avoid. There are a couple of things. One, it feels like the Tigers are in the wrong conference – culturally. They should be in either the Big 12 or the Big 10. It is not as though they don’t compete well in the SEC; the Tigers just doesn’t fit. The atmosphere against other SEC schools might be good, but it doesn’t create the true, deep seated rivalry drama. There’s a reason why when they say, “F K U” the ”K” is not for Kentucky.

Deep rivalries drive the college game day experience, and Missouri’s SEC brethren are clearly not top of mind. They have lots of traditions at Missouri. Heck, they are credited with creating the first Homecoming. So, it isn’t like they don’t have college tradition bona fides. They just are not rooted in football and that makes a difference on Saturdays.

The second knock against Mizzou is their pedigree. They have not won a national championship. If they had been a national power, it may have added enough to the overall experience to put them on the “Must See” list. But without that, it is just another very good place to see a game. Which, is still not a bad thing.

You will have great time if you go to Columbia to see a football game, but it doesn’t need to be on your bucket list.