Turner Gill may be in his first year at the helm at Kansas, but he isn’t a greenhorn when it comes to going head-to-head with Gary Pinkel.

The two coaches have met once, that being in 2008 when a Gill-led Buffalo squad competed admirably with the then-No. 5 ranked Tigers in a 41-21 Mizzou win. While Mizzou won comfortably, Buffalo hung with Mizzou in the first half of the Sept. 20 game. The same Mizzou team that clobbered Nevada 69-17 the previous week found themselves up just 20-14 at halftime, with a late Jeff Wolfert field goal saving them from going into the half up just three.

Mizzou didn’t pull away quickly, either. After a 27-yard touchdown pass from Chase Daniel to Danario Alexander to put Mizzou up 27-14, Buffalo punched back with quick scoring drive to cut Mizzou’s lead to 27-21 midway through the third quarter. Mizzou would go on to score 15 unanswered points to win comfortably, but it took the Tigers two and a half quarters for their superior talent to take over.

While the 2008 Buffalo Bulls weren’t completely bereft of talent—quarterback Drew Willy threw for over 3,000 yards with a 25/6 touchdown/interception ratio, for example—Mizzou’s squad was far more talented. And Buffalo was able to hang with Mizzou for more than half the game.

That same talent discrepancy exists between Gill’s Kansas and Pinkel’s Mizzou teams this season. There’s not enough coachspeak in the world about competitors and whatnot to deny that.

But Gill’s put a scare into Mizzou with a less talented team before. And that team didn’t have the added motivation of a fierce, hateful rivalry, either.