{"id":13853,"date":"2026-11-03T09:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T15:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/?p=13853"},"modified":"2026-11-03T09:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T15:48:10","slug":"inside-mizzou-footballs-1896-winning-trip-to-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/2026\/11\/03\/inside-mizzou-footballs-1896-winning-trip-to-mexico\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Mizzou Football&#8217;s 1896 Winning Trip to Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/11\/Football-in-Mexico-hero.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1006\" height=\"488\" src=\"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/11\/Football-in-Mexico-hero.png\" alt=\"1896 Mizzou Football team (left) and a program from the series featuring Mizzou team captain Tom Shawhan\" class=\"wp-image-13854\" srcset=\"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/11\/Football-in-Mexico-hero.png 1006w, https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/11\/Football-in-Mexico-hero-300x146.png 300w, https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/11\/Football-in-Mexico-hero-768x373.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1006px) 100vw, 1006px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>1896 Mizzou Football team (left) and a program from the series featuring Mizzou team captain Tom Shawhan<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This weekend, the Tigers take on the University of Texas Longhorns at home for a Top-20 matchup in Memorial Stadium. These teams have a long history of competition, including a trip 130 years ago that has the dual distinction of being 1) the first college football game played in Mexico and 2) a precursor to the modern bowl game.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After finishing the official 1896 season in Texas, including a 10-0 win over the Longhorns, Mizzou and UT agreed to a series of games in Monterrey and Mexico City as part of a cross-border journey stretching from December 23 through New Year\u2019s Day. The Tigers reportedly received a personal invite from Mexico\u2019s then-president, but not the permission of university administration back in Columbia, Missouri, leading some to call them the \u201crunaway\u201d team.&nbsp;I would have provided permission and probably would have joined the team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mizzou came out on top in the series, counting two wins that secured the team\u2019s legendary status. Among the earliest events of its kind, a 1979 issue of the Sporting News called the series \u201cthe first post-season, holiday-week, neutral-site football games.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We look forward to adding another historic win against Texas this weekend. To learn more about the Mexico series, check a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/story\/_\/id\/49744376\/1896-missouri-tigers-texas-longhorns-mexico-football\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recent article from ESPN<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2014 Mun<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This weekend, the Tigers take on the University of Texas Longhorns at home for a Top-20 matchup in Memorial Stadium. These teams have a long history of competition, including a trip 130 years ago that has the dual distinction of being 1) the first college football game played in Mexico and 2) a precursor to the modern bowl game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13853"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13858,"href":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13853\/revisions\/13858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/president.missouri.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}