The Missouri Western–Northwest Missouri State football rivalry between the

Missouri Western Griffons football The Missouri Western Griffons football program represents Missouri Western State University in college football and competes in the Division II level (D-II) of the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA). In 1989, Missouri Western becam ...

team and

Northwest Missouri State Bearcats football The Northwest Missouri State Bearcats football program represents Northwest Missouri State University in college football. They participate in Division II sports within the NCAA. The team plays their home games at Bearcat Stadium, located on ...

team is between two

Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association The Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA) is a List of NCAA conferences, college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the NCAA Division II, Division II level, headquartered ...

NCAA Division II NCAA Division II (D-II) is an intermediate-level division of competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). It offers an alternative to both the larger and better-funded Division I and to the scholarship-free environmen ...

rivals that are less than 50 miles apart. The schools off the field are constantly competing for state funds in the same market ever since Missouri Western expanded from a junior college to a four-year college in 1969 fulfilling a Missouri governor

Warren Hearnes Warren Eastman Hearnes (July 24, 1923 – August 16, 2009) was an American politician who served as the 46th governor of Missouri from 1965 to 1973. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first officeholder eligible to serve two consecutiv ...

campaign promise to build the school

St. Joseph, Missouri St. Joseph is a city in and the county seat of Buchanan County, Missouri. Small parts of St. Joseph extend into Andrew County. Located on the Missouri River, it is the principal city of the St. Joseph Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includ ...

(2000 population 73,912). At the time Northwest at Maryville (2000 population 10,581) founded in 1905 was the sole four-year state college in northwest Missouri. In 1988, the state under

John Ashcroft John David Ashcroft (born May 9, 1942) is an American lawyer, lobbyist and former politician who served as the 79th U.S. Attorney General in the George W. Bush administration from 2001 to 2005. A former U.S. Senator from Missouri and the 50th ...

recommended that Northwest be closed altogether. In the wake of the ultimately abandoned proposal, both schools have considerably ramped up their football programs with Northwest appearing in ten

NCAA Division II National Football Championship The NCAA Division II Football Championship is an American college football tournament played annually to determine a champion at the NCAA Division II level. It was first held in 1973, as a single-elimination tournament with eight teams. The tourna ...

s (winning six) while Missouri Western has hosted the

Kansas City Chiefs The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The tea ...

summer training camp starting since 2010. The rivalry on the field is a big draw. The biggest crowds at

Spratt Stadium Spratt Memorial Stadium, also known as Craig Field at Spratt Stadium, is a 7,500 seat stadium in St. Joseph, Missouri, United States, on the campus of Missouri Western State University. In 2010, it became the summer training camp for the Kansas ...

are 10,129 in 2009 and 9,007 in 2007. A crowd of 9,346 attended the September 13, 2008 game—the second biggest at Northwest's

Bearcat Stadium Bearcat Stadium (formerly Memorial Stadium and Rickenbrode Stadium) is the football stadium of the Northwest Missouri State University Bearcats in Maryville, Missouri and is the oldest continuous site for any NCAA Division II school. It has a ca ...

. The 2010 game was attended by 10,805 the biggest in the stadium history.

Game results

^A During the 2010 and 2011 college football seasons, the Griffons and Bearcats played twice; in this case, the second meeting was in the playoffs.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Missouri Western-Northwest Missouri State football rivalry College football rivalries in the United States Missouri Western Griffons football Northwest Missouri State Bearcats football 1981 establishments in Missouri

Game results

See also

References