Football thoughts
1. First things first, the defense is very, very good.
Good enough that competent quarterback play should be enough to win games going forward.
We all remember the early-season issue with deep passes, but those have disappeared. The Tigers allow just 161.4 passing yards per game, which is good for eighth in the country and second in the SEC behind Texas, which leads the NCAA at 135.3.
The rushing defense isn’t quite as highly ranked, at 133.4 yards per game, the Tigers sit at 51st in the country and 10th in the conference, but at just 18.44 points allowed per game they are tied for 16th in the country and sixth in the SEC.
The lasting complaint I had going into the weekend was a lack of turnovers, which was covered up by the Tigers’ ability to get off the field on third down. Missouri allows teams to convert on third down on just 28.21 percent of attempts.
But while the defense had been suffocating in most games, it wasn’t necessarily exciting the way last year’s was.
Going into Saturday, the Tigers had five interceptions and three fumble recovers. And while one turnover a game isn’t abysmal, and a few had come at key moments, seven of the eight came in non-conference games, meaning Missouri had created just one turnover in four key matchups, a fumble recovery against Auburn. And that became a missed field goal attempt.
The Tigers hadn’t created a single point of a turnover in a conference game.
Until Saturday.
They were gifted a couple by Jackson Arnold just being unable to hold onto the ball. The Sooners put the ball on the ground six times and lost four, with multiple just being Arnold losing control running around.
But Missouri was able to jump on four of them, including the game-winning touchdown, the second defensive touchdown of the season and first since Week 1 when Toriano Pride returned an interception for a touchdown.
Add on that the Tiger offense was able to turn one of the two that had a following drive into a touchdown that extended Missouri’s lead and it was a very productive day.
The defense is a great unit and is what I mostly credit for the wins against Auburn and Oklahoma, allowing the offense to come on late, put it together and look like heroes.
2. Speaking of competent quarterback play.
Drew Pyne played fine. Not incredible, but he got the job done and that’s all you can ask at a certain point.
That was one of the best bounce-back performances I’ve seen almost entirely because of just how bad the performance at Alabama was.
The two weeks of first-team reps clearly got Pyne more confident and he made throw after throw in the second half that made me think, ‘Huh, that’s the best throw I’ve seen him make.’ Ending with the perfectly-placed touchdown to Theo Wease. Which, what an incredible catch.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a great performance. He still completed just over 50 percent of his passes for 143 yards, but that did end up being the best passing performance of the day since Arnold struggled so much, unless you want to count a punter.
But just thinking back, he stayed in the pocket and got destroyed while completing a pass to Luther Burden, setting up the screen touchdown to Wease, he found Brett Norfleet crossing the back of the end zone for a touchdown, the slant to Wease to start the final drive was a rocket, he trusted the deep pass to Burden on third-and-16 and then the perfect pass to Wease for his third touchdown.
That’s a lot of good passes, and I’m sure I forgot another one or two, to follow up a performance where the passes to Alabama players looked more on target than the passes to Tigers.
Depending on how long Pyne has to be the guy this year, the Tigers don’t need him to go out firing 50-yard passes and piling up 300 yards a game like Brady Cook did for a significant portion of last year.
They just need him to facilitate the run game, take advantage of the passing opportunities when they appear and don’t turn the ball over.
He did all three yesterday and it meant the revival of the rivalry with Oklahoma gets to start with a W.
3. I know the numbers don’t look good for the key receivers this year and we’ve talked a good bit about why the past few weeks.
But, boy, they’re damn talented. Burden just keeps adding catches to his career highlight reel that Mizzou fans are going to be able to look back on for years. And the Wease revenge game narrative was very fun.
From getting booed during the starting lineup announcement to catching two touchdowns and getting to run back over to the visitor section and tell them to go home. Just a great, fun story for a guy who essentially got ran out of Norman after being there for four years and never really living up to the full potential promised to the Sooners.
Wease had 37 catches for 530 yards and four touchdowns in his best season in Oklahoma in 2021, but he’s already far surpassed his three-year numbers in Oklahoma in one and a half years in Columbia. Last year, he posted career bests of 49 catches, 682 yards and six touchdowns, and his performance Saturday got him to 552 yards and three touchdowns on 41 catches.
With three games left this regular season, Wease is poised to once again reset his career best, even without his starting quarterback for a significant portion of the year.
Those two are an incredibly special pair.
4. Jamal Roberts should be the lead back the rest of the year.
I know he had the fumble that nearly lost the game, that’s unfortunate for the narrative that’s been forming in my head the past few weeks.
But ever since he scored the game winner against Auburn and took a key role against Alabama, I can’t shake that he looks best out of the group when he’s out there. It definitely helped the Tigers to have Nate Noel back out there Saturday and having them both split carries with Marcus Carroll will help keep all three from wearing out, so that’s what I expect through the rest of the year.
But Roberts looks like he should take the lead from here. He hasn’t had the breakaway runs either of the others have had yet, but he’s still a redshirt freshman getting adjusted to the speed of the game. He was definitely the strongest-looking runner Saturday and with an extra emphasis on establishing the run the rest of the year, and it doesn’t hurt that he’s looked pretty good in pass protection.
I think getting Roberts as comfortable as possible will be a major key for next year when Carroll and Noel are gone.
Other sports thoughts
1. I really don’t like the amount of rotations Dennis Gates uses.
After diving in one time on the rotation stats, it’s just too much. No single group played more than four and a half minutes together against Howard.
It’s early in the season, the rotations will tighten up as we get into the series portion of the schedule, but how are guys supposed to get into a rhythm together? And that’s from a game that was much closer than it should have been because of the inability to shoot 3s.
I know I’m not the first to question the rotational choices Gates makes, which is why I’ve started keeping track. I like putting numbers to things and I think just having the evidence of which groups work best together and which groups play most together could be very telling this season.
2. Speaking of the inability to shoot 3s in the home opener.
I don’t think that’s going to be a lasting problem. Gates definitely likes to have his team shoot from deep, he keeps telling us he wants to shoot more. He wants guys at every position to shoot 3s.
And I think he’s got the personnel to do it effectively, one really bad game doesn’t signal what the whole season is going to be like. But even without being able to shoot the way the 2022-23 team did, it looked pretty clear to me that there’s an extra emphasis on getting into the paint and to the free-throw line that’s actually sunk in with this year’s group.
Gates brought up the free-throw disparity after every game last year and I was always left with the thought ‘Well, ya. The other team tried to get in the paint and your guys didn’t. You’re going to lose the free-throw battle if you don’t ever go near the basket.’ But I think even just Mark Mitchell might be enough to try to change that. He was attacking the basket repeatedly and making the free throws when he got to the line. Maybe bringing in that extra experience from Duke will be enough to get the rest of the team to buy in on actually attacking the basket.
3. The volleyball team stays winning.
I don’t know enough about volleyball to tell you exactly what the change has been, but Dawn Sullivan has brought the team back from a couple of down years incredibly fast. They’re back atop the SEC after winning Sunday and with only five matches left on the schedule, they’ve already beat the toughest team they will face.
They’ve got No. 22 Florida at home on Friday and from the people I saw walking into the Hernes Center after the women’s basketball game yesterday, I bet there’s going to be a lot of fan support for that one.
After that, they’ll have two home games to finish the season with No. 13 Kentucky and Auburn.
Questions
1. We’re a little more than a month post switch here and I feel like I’ve started getting into more of a rhythm as I’ve gone. Through the first month is there anything about the change in coverage that you particularly liked and want me to do more of?
2. And along the same line, is there anything I haven’t been doing that you are looking for? I’m working on getting some video and audio content going, I’ve heard those requests. Just trying to get to a point where adding video editing into my week doesn’t push me into working 60 hours a week. But anything else you’re hoping for me to add?
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