The Mizzou Esports League of Legends LAN, which took place from Oct 17-18, was an incredible experience for the OU Esports players. They played in six matches across both days, from the seed matches on Saturday to the single-elimination tournament on Sunday.
The seven-hour journey from Norman, Oklahoma, to Columbia, Missouri, did little to dampen the League team’s spirits, and they arrived at the LAN in the Mizzou Esports Facility ready for the games.
Mizzou Esports, established in 2019, is a long-running organization that partners with OU Esports. Colin Graham, the Esports Coordinator for Mizzou, invited OU for their inaugural League of Legends Invitational in 2025, and OU was invited back for the second year in a row.
“I saw a gap in LAN opportunities, specifically for League of Legends because we had none anymore,” Graham said. “HUE Fest got tabled. (66 Games) never came back. I saw (the gap) as an opportunity to offer LAN opportunities to teams across the country.”
Graham was able to bring LAN experience to collegiate League of Legends programs to give them a resource to meet other people and make connections ordinarily reserved for pro players. Hosting this event was a natural extension of the energy and abilities of Mizzou Esports.
I spoke with members of the Mizzou staff and social media team, and the energy in the complex was high. Eleven teams came to compete in person and packed the Mizzou Esports Facility. There were originally fourteen teams invited to compete, but three had to drop out for various reasons.
“Unfortunately, for various factors, we have a couple fewer teams here than we thought,” August Bohl, a social media lead for Mizzou Esports, said. “We had a lot of teams drop out right up against the event.”
The turnout was still excellent, and the staff was happy to host all the teams.
“You have a lot of big-name schools come out, and it’s super cool to see,” Edward Tran, a Mizzou Esports community lead, said. “Especially when you’re a person that lives in Missouri or a middle state. You don’t really recognize esports being anywhere else because you’ve only seen it in (big states).”
Tran enjoyed seeing all sorts of schools come to Columbia to compete, which proved to be a learning opportunity for everyone involved.
“Colin tries to price these things out,” Tran said. “He wants to make it reasonable for schools to come out, but he also wants to make sure that we get a little bit back from it. Seeing both sides is super cool.”
When speaking to people like Tran, it struck me that Mizzou Esports has staff comparable to OU Esports, with production members, a director, and social media managers. This infrastructure is being utilized across many collegiate programs.
“We’ve had some personnel shifts from last year, so it’s been a bit of a scramble to get things together,” Bohl said. “I think we’ve set a pretty decent benchmark. Here is the minimum or what I am expecting our team to do for one of these events.”
Various companies sponsored the LAN, including be quiet!, MSI, advanceGG, FIFINE, Howard Tech and Spectrum. Some sponsors provided prizes for raffles and for the top four teams in the bracket tournament, including gaming chairs from Spectrum Industries, microphones and arms from FIFINE and miscellaneous swag from Mizzou Esports.
The Friday matches were seed placements for the single-elimination tournament on Saturday. OU played against Kansas University, the University of Michigan, Missouri Baptist University and Missouri S&T. The schools showcased a wide variety of skills, which gave OU the chance to see high-skill teams in action.
OU lost their first three matches, but turned things around for a win against S&T in a 30-3 stomp.
“In that game, we were playing a lot more aggressively as a team,” Connor “Cman” Corbin said. “Throughout the day, our teamwork improved, and a lot of these teams are very well-oiled teams and synergized. Seeing those games all day helped us pick that up into our play.”
The victory was well-needed after a long day against high-skill teams. The match against MBU was particularly rough, as OU went against an atypical team composition.
“It was a Lulu mid and a Sylas support,” Corbin said. “When we were drafting, we thought the Sylas was going mid, and the Lulu would be support, but [MBU] played the reverse, and I think it went well because that team was so highly ranked.”
Despite the loss against MBU, OU took it in stride and played a great match against S&T to close out day one on a win.
Image credits: Mizzou Esports Social Media team
Day two marked the start of the single-elimination tournament. This tournament held best-of-three matches, in which the team that won two of three rounds would take the match.
OU started seeded 8th against the University of Missouri-Kansas City, which was seeded 9th. OU took a 2-0 victory against UMKC, which secured their spot in the quarterfinals.
“UMKC gave us a bit more of a fight than I was expecting,” Brandon “PenguinArchitect” White, the OU League coach, said. “The fact that the OU guys were able to band together and didn’t put too much of a foot wrong was great. They were able to play around the strengths and weaknesses that we had in our comp.”
White was pleased with the team’s performance, as well as how they improved and loosened up over the course of the tournament.
Unfortunately, OU lost against the top-seeded college, MOBAP, 0-2 in the quarterfinals. OU put up a great effort against MOBAP but ultimately lost against the higher-skilled team.
“The games were a lot closer than the match on Saturday would have hinted at,” White said. “I think we’ve found a niche playstyle that we hadn’t tried before that will probably carry for the rest of the season.”
White plans to work on a strategy that gets his team’s support player to roam the map to help other players instead of remaining locked to the bottom lane, which is typical for a League team setup.
White is excited to see how the League team grows over the course of the fall and spring semesters. The team members are also optimistic about how they can grow and hope to perform even better in the rest of the matches for the Fall NECC season.
Overall, this was a great learning experience for the team and brought an opportunity for the members to grow. OU has a standing invitation to come back, which will help strengthen the bonds between OU and Mizzou’s esports programs.
