KANSAS CITY, Mo. — There was Kerry Meier’s broken-route run toward the end zone on a hobbled leg, Jake Sharp’s rushing touchdown that must have aggravated his cracked ribs and Todd Reesing’s late touchdown throws from a cut-up hand that would require stitches. Those all showed KU’s toughness.

But Kansas players and coaches never like to discuss aches and pains, so for now we’ll stick to the tangible evidence, the mud and grass stains.

You know, the ones the KU players wore on their snow-soaked jerseys like camouflage as they sprinted toward midfield after the blocked field goal, where some cried, some laughed, some cheered and some banged the Mizzou drum. Those stains told the story.

It began with a long shot, a team that was supposed to lose by 16 points. It ended in the middle of that field Saturday afternoon with an improbable 40-37 victory for Kansas against its archrival, and the stains acting as a perfect symbol for an identity, the one the Jayhawks had wanted to forge all season.

Finally, they had dug deeper than an opponent. Finally, they were tougher.

“This,” Kansas coach Mark Mangino said, “is the guttiest win we’ve ever had.”

Before Saturday, when the games were close, they folded. South Florida edged them out at the end. Nebraska knocked them around for an entire second half. The Texas, Texas Tech and Oklahoma games aren’t even worth discussing.

So nobody expected much on Saturday. Yeah, it was the Border Showdown, and Mizzou and KU fans would tailgate early and yell at each other from opposite parking lots about William Quantrill and John Brown and claim their state was better, but that was about the only reason for excitement. This was not 2007. Last year’s Border Showdown was a seminal sporting moment. It was supposed to be the game the players would tell their grandkids about in 50 years.

This year’s game was supposed to be Missouri’s warm-up for the Big 12 Championship Game. Chase Daniel would take his time in the pocket and pick the defense apart, and Jeremy Maclin would leave KU defenders behind as if they were chasing him with their shoes untied.

Kansas couldn’t deal with that kind of speed, that athleticism. The Jayhawks were beat up. Black and blue would’ve been a more telling uniform color than crimson and blue.

On Monday, Reesing couldn’t lift his arm. Meier practiced on one leg. He had for at least the last month. Sharp had cracked ribs. Mike Rivera had been playing hurt most of the year, and Joe Mortensen had never quite recovered from two knee surgeries.

But on Saturday, they were all on the field. Reesing got leveled and cut his hand and still threw for 375 yards and that last beautiful touchdown pass in the falling snow. Meier caught 14 passes. Sharp rumbled for a 19-yard touchdown run.

The healthy guys, relatively speaking, showed some grit as well. Darrell Stuckey bolted down the field shortly after a Reesing turnover and caused one for Missouri, stripping the ball away from a sprinting Daniel. Jake Laptad pressured Daniel and got a safety. The kicker, Jacob Branstetter, speared Maclin on one of his returns.

“Missouri is a finesse team,” Rivera said. “KU is a hard-nosed team. We go out there and fight.”

That’s what they did. The Jayhawks fought. Kansas trailed and made all the big plays up until the very end when Phillip Strozier blocked Jeff Wolfert’s field goal and turned this Border Showdown into everything that last year’s wasn’t, a sports masterpiece.

“Everybody will remember this,” Stuckey said, “and talk about this for the next year.”

They’ll talk about so many different parts of the game. Reesing’s heroic throws from his injured hand, Meier’s hobbled touchdown route, Dezmon Briscoe’s grabs and kickoff returns, Stuckey’s first-quarter chase after Chase, and yes, the jerseys, the soaking wet, mud-covered, grass-stained jerseys.

Those are the reminders, the symbols, the words that tell the tale of how Kansas discovered its gritty identity and out-toughed Missouri on Saturday. There are so many of them.

But really, the story’s not so complex.

“The only way I can describe it,” Mangino said, “is courage.”

— — Edited by Arthur Hur