Missouri alumni sent word to Coach Alfred Bull, demanding that Iowa play the game without Frank Holbrook. After years in the conference cellar, the Hawkeyes weren’t going to bench their best player for a road game against the three-time defending league champions. Coach Bull flatly stated that there would be no game if Frank Holbrook were not allowed to play, and since the Tigers would face a heavy punitive fine for scrapping the contest, they really had no choice but to play the game. But they weren’t obligated to be civilized about it. On the train ride down, Holbrook was refused admittance to all the hotels in Columbia upon his arrival, before finally being taken in and given the "royal treatment" by a black barber.

On the field, Iowa easily took control of the game. Missouri wasn’t that talented, as evidenced by their 2-3 record, and the Hawkeyes got on the board first with a touchdown run by halfback Joe Meyers. Later in the half, the crowd was really whipped into a frenzy, when Holbrook crossed the goal line for Iowa to give the visitors a 12-0 lead.

The University of Iowa's student newspaper wrote that "probably never in the history of professionalism or amateur sports, either east or west, has such a disgraceful exhibition been given as that at Columbia, when the football teams of the Universities of Missouri and Iowa attempted to play their league game."