Governor's Cup (Kansas)

Governor's Cup (Kansas)

The Kansas–Kansas State football rivalry is an American college football rivalry between the Kansas Jayhawks football team of the University of Kansas and Kansas State Wildcats football team of Kansas State University. The Governor's Cup is the trophy awarded to the winner of the game. It has been awarded every year since 1969.

Kansas State University leads the Cup series, with a 24–19–1 advantage. (Kansas forfeited a 1980 victory.) The most recent game, played on October 6, 2012, was won by Kansas State 56–16.

The two teams had a very long history prior to the inauguration of the Governor's Cup: they began play in 1902 and have faced each other every season since 1911, making this the third-longest uninterrupted series in college football history. The University of Kansas built a large advantage in the series by 1923, and still leads the overall series, although the two schools disagree on the record. KU does not acknowledge a 1980 forfeit, though the Big 8 Conference forced KU to vacate victories. As a result, KU claims to lead the overall series 65-40-5, while Kansas State reports the record as 64-41-5.

The Cup is actually the third trophy associated with the rivalry. In 1902, in the very first match-up, a "Governor's Trophy" was given to the winning team. Then, beginning in the 1940 football season, the winner of the KU-KSU contest received the "Peace Pact Trophy", which was miniature bronze goalposts. The Peace Pact Trophy was intended to keep the winning team's student body from tearing down the loser's goalposts. However, as years went by, both of these prior trophies were forgotten.