Eli Drinkwitz arrived at his midweek press conference with an old oak box, the letters engraved on its commemorative plaque slightly faded by time.

The Missouri football head coach’s interesting artifact: The game ball from the first Mizzou homecoming game against Kansas in 1911, when then-Mizzou athletic director Chester Brewer urged the school’s alumni to return to campus and pack the bleachers at Rollins Field for the game against the hated Jayhawks.

Must be homecoming week in Columbia — a little bit earlier than usual.

Some accounts claim the 1911 Mizzou-KU game to be the first mention of homecoming — the game that started the national tradition. Other accounts, like those at Illinois and Baylor , claim they were the first.

We’re not here to argue one way or another. Missouri

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