At what point does this defense look at the offense and just let the bird fly and stop playing?

All we ever hear is that Sam Horn (and the majority of the Freshmen/ RS-FR) are not ready to play…

Well, if Cook can’t get it done at what point does Drink get the youth movement rolling on offense? Will Sam Horn see the field this year? I’m not sold he will and that’s a big problem for the future.

IMO, Sam Horn doesn’t have to start (yet) but he needs to see the field a lot starting with Vandy. I know Drink is playing to win every game as he should, but we need to see what Horn has before next season.

Out for the game.

.

Seventh Series for defense: HUGE gain of 41 for UF on second down and then TFL for -4 on the next play. This defense will make up for its mistakes quickly. Got to give them that. The first designed run for Richardson goes nowhere. MIZ has got him locked up in the pass game and run game. Which is why they should be up instead of tied. ANOTHER missed FG by UF. MIZ 10, UF 10

Seventh Series for offense: Stalls out again after another 16-yard gain by Peat. I’m going to be honest this offense isn’t very good.

Eighth Series for the defense: Another HUGE run to start the possession. Good defense by Dreyden Norwood and WR couldn’t hold on to it. Missed tackles rearing its ugly head for Mizzou again though. Florida trying to go for it on 4th and 2 and Richardson gets a gain of 32. Then a 2-yard TD. MIZ 10, UF 17

It’s crazy because Mizzou should be winning probably and they’ve yet to lead.

Eighth Series for the offense: Burden is down after first down with a left leg injury. The thin WR room gets thinner. MIZ moving the ball down the field this drive. Peat with a bad drop on second down. Brady Cook with a 13-yard run on 3rd and 9. It’s good that they have a QB who can do that. An interception by Cook again. This one is more on Cook. He had a clean pocket. I don’t know if Dove was supposed to do a hitch or an in-route but Cook threw the ball like it should’ve been an in route. Inside the UF 15 and it's all for nothing.

End of 3rd Quarter: MIZ 10, UF 17

I don’t post often, and there’s many things that are quite easy to be objectively critical about, but the top one is paying someone to solely work on ST and to be as abysmal as they are. Mevis misses earlier in the year aside, they have a terrible punt team, rarely return a kick, before Burden rarely even fielded punts, and have had multiple false starts and alignment penalties. Just a waste of resources. Enough!

*Missouri should win this game. Let me be clear about that. They've had the ball for more than 20 minutes. They've been the better team on all but two plays (a pick six and a punt return). It is a disappointment if Missouri does not finish this off. This game should not even be very close.

*Despite that, it's a tie game. If you're into finding silver linings and searching for rainbows, that's cool. Maybe they''ll make me eat my words in the second half. But I saw a lot to be concerned about. Everyone is welcome to an opinion. This is probably going to be more negative than a lot of people believe is warranted. So be it.

*I'm just going to copy and paste this paragraph for every road game: Missouri made too many mistakes and looked all in all unprepared at the start of a road game against a Power Five team. In three road games this season, they've been outscored 31-3 in the first quarter. They managed to fight back and get in the game against Auburn. They've done the same thing today. But they're not losing games at the end. They're losing them at the beginning. Even the UGA game, they left a ton of points on the board in the first 30 minutes that sure would have come in handy when UGA got things together in the fourth quarter. If they don't win this one, they lost it in the first 20 minutes, not the last five. Fans and media often harp on halftime adjustments as a sign of good coaching. The best sign of good coaching is teams that come out of the chute ready to play with a successful game plan. Missouri doesn't. Almost ever.

*Mizzou has a center problem. I don't know if Bence Polgar was the answer or not. I don't know if Connor Tollison can be the answer in the future. But he's not ready now. A holding penalty, a snap when Brady Cook wasn't even looking for the ball. It's been a consistent problem position all season.

*Mizzou also has a quarterback problem to some extent. Cook's numbers look good. Missouri can win games if he just manages the game, makes easy throws and doesn't make a mistake. But the pick six was a crushing mistake. I don't know if there's a better solution on the roster. The frustrating part is that Cook shows flashes of being solid. He's shown some today. But because of the limitations of the rest of the offense, it feels like the Tigers need a QB capable of being the reason they win some of these games. And I'm not sure they have that.

*Mizzou also has a special teams problem. The punting is inconsistent. The coverage is not very good.

*Expectations for Luther Burden were too high and unfair. But he still has to be better than he has been.

*The defense is legit good. It might have to score to win this game. Blake Baker has done an incredible job on that side of the ball. It's good enough to give Missouri a chance to win every single game on the schedule if it can get any help at all from the offense.

*The recipe for this team all season long is simple: Run the ball, bleed the clock, play great defense and try to win every game 20-17. It won't be pretty, it won't be exciting and I understand if you're angry that that's still the case in year three with an offensive head coach, but that's where we're at.

*I don't understand a single thing about the offense in the final minute. He looked like he was playing for a field goal. Does he have that little trust in his offense to not mess up? I mean, on one hand I get it. But on the other, you're not going to win SEC games if you can't make a play every now and again.

*That said, Billy Napier was worse in the final minute than Eli Drinkwitz. With 24 seconds left, you make Missouri run its field goal unit out there in chaos and get the kick off. Instead, he let Mizzou get set and have an easy kick. He just gave Missouri three points. And Missouri gave up a chance to have seven. The last 60 seconds were just awful on both sides of the ball.

All state caliber linebacker, 5'11" 220, currently flying under the radar. bone-crushing tackler with good speed and great instincts. High character young man that can flatout play.

GP and BO > drink when it comes to these decisions.

At least Burden won’t transfer now

Is there anything more predictable than Luther Burden being hurt?

Like clockwork!

Just when it seemed our defense might take control of this game, they have a horrible series.

Florida is now in control of this game.

One consistent theme:

This team will do whatever it takes to lose close games.

-Mevis Miss game winning chip shot FG.
-Peat fumbling at goal line to lose.

This Defense is night and day different!

Because it is the boards consistent position that every loss means recruits will leave - is mizzou still recruiting the kid? Oklahoma looks like a mess (not that mizzou looks much better).

Way to come back! Now let’s bring home a victory!

Tried to tell yall. He wanted the job too.

Just missing My Pillow

Fourth Series for offense (continued): Mizzou doesn’t get much on 3rd and short. Macon under center on 4th and 2…all for nothing. Take the delay of game. Put Macon out there for what????

Fourth Series for defense: Offsides penalty on (Jeffcoat) a play that should’ve been a TFL. Rakestraw with a great PBU and ANOTHER offsides penalty negates it. It was Tyrone Hopper (#5) who was offsides but UF was holding so play offsets. 1st and 10 instead of 2nd and 10. The run defense is still holding up well. Force a FG attempt from 50-yards…wide left. Still MIZ 0, UF 10.

Fifth Series for offense: Brady Cook not sliding again and it looks like he paid for it on first down. It’s looking like the run blocking is worse than UF’s run defense. That’s no bueno (no good for my non-Spanish speakers). Singleback pistol again on 3rd and 1 and it gained two. Man, I’m going to tell y’all every time how much I don’t like that formation. Tollison sold with an early snap but Cook made a gutsy play and picked it up and threw the ball away for 2nd and 10. Peat with a HUGE pickup although if he keeps it outside he gets more than 28 yards. Schrader gets in from four yards out. MIZ 7, UF 10

MIZ coming alive in the second quarter like usual which is okay because UF isn’t doing much with it.

Fifth Series for defense: Rakestraw with another PBU. Best defensive back for MIZ today. DJ Coleman with the strip sack. I thought Richardson’s hand was going forward, to be honest. But the ruling is confirmed (I guess his arm motion was more of some underhanded nonsense idk).

Sixth Series for offense: TE Tyler Stephens with a catch of 4 yards and a first down. MIZ has to get a touchdown here. You get a fumble and you drive the ball inside the 10. Can’t settle for a FG as you did before half last week. Out of the timeout, a QB Draw up the middle (deja vu from the same play at Kansas State they ran out of the rain delay). No one got open on third down so it was a good coverage sack by Gervon Dexter of UF. Mevis from 28-yards out is good. MIZ 10, UF 10
Sixth Series for defense: All of them timeouts Florida just used so they could kneel the ball.

End of 2nd: MIZ 10, UF 10

I have been a faithful viewer ever since it began but there ain’t no way I’m watching Saturday. It’s pretty bad when I’m choosing to watch Paaaaawl and Tebow kiss gator butt but I cannot contribute to the game day ratings. And with any luck the chicken hawks will be embarrassed on national tv for being frauds. Anyone else boycotting ?

“Running clock please”.

QB 1: 1,394 Yards; 52.8 % completion; 8 TDs/5 INTs; Sacked 12 times & -70 yards rushing 0 TD; RTG 107.1; QBR 44.9 (Team 3-2; SOS 60)

QB 2: 997 Yards; 63.1% completion; 5 TDs/4 INTs; Sacked 8 times & 145 yards rushing 2 TD; RTG 128.5; QBR 59.3 (Team 2-3; SOS 41)

QB 3: 822 Yards; 3 TDs/6 INTs; sacked 4 times & 210 Yards 2 TD; 106.8 RTG; 28.6 QBR (Team 1-4; SOS 75)

SOS = Strength of Schedule

I couldn’t care less how unlikely it is that Drink is gone after this year. If the rumors are true that he wants out, maybe it happens, but he’s obviously not done anything here to warrant any better jobs looking at him.

So, if I’m DRF and I’m compiling a coaching hotboard, here are a few guys I’d focus hard on (in no particular order):

- Dave Clawson - Wake Forest
Clawson’s career W/L is nothing great on the surface, but when you dig further into the numbers, his coaching career has been quite outstanding. Every stop he’s been, he took a team that had a recent tradition of losing and 3/4 jobs he’s taken over were with teams coming off 4 or fewer win seasons, with Bowling Green being the one outlier with a 6 win season before Dawson took over.

At every single stop, he’s produced a season with double digit wins, including an 11–3 season last year with WAKE FOREST (only the 2nd double digit win season of WF’s 115 year history, and tied for most wins by a WF team).

- Matt Campbell - Iowa State
I lobbied hard for Campbell before Odom was hired and I’ll continue to do so even though he’d be a candidate at schools far better than Missouri. Campbell has a new contract with ISU and also has NFL teams calling for his services, so this is nothing but a pipe dream.

- Charles Huff - Marshall
Formerly at Alabama as the AHC/RB coach, Huff is an elite recruiter and player developer. In his first season with Marshall, he took Marshall to a Bowl game (which they’d been on a decent little run of bowl games, so not a huge accomplishment). Yesterday, his Thundering Herd went into South Bend and took down an overrated, but still ranked 8th, Irish squad which is better than any win Drink has ever had. Similar story as Drink — young, energetic coach who’s a monster on the recruiting trail but has yet to show whether he can build a program. I’d take my chances, as he appears to already be a better HC.

- P.J. Fleck - Minnesota
Minnesota is probably at worst, a lateral move in regards to Mizzou, but I’d certainly go all out for Fleck. He’s shown what he can do with limited resources in a conference full of teams with tradition.

- Alex Grinch - Oklahoma
We all know his past. He’s been very successful at every stop but has never been a HC. Could be the next Matt Campbell or he could be the next massive underachiever in a very long list of star coordinators who fall flat at the highest level of CFB. He’s earned the chance at getting a HC gig, but I’m not sold that it should be at the P5 level. Could be worth the risk if he’s willing to take lower dollars and assemble a star cast of assistant coaches.

- Bobby Petrino - MO State
Another coach we all know about. Slime ball who can flat out coach. Do you stoop low enough at a chance for a couple years of a coach that can maybe bring you back to somewhat relevance in the SEC?

- Jeff Traylor - UTSA
Another guy who’s in his 3rd year as a HC with a background heavy at the P5 level, with some SEC coaching experience. Lost yesterday to a very good Houston squad in 3 OTs and led the Roadrunners to a 12-win season in 2021. Another man who can flat out coach but hasn’t proven to be able to build a program.

- Jamey Chadwell - Coastal Carolina
Chadwell has made CCU into the “next” Utah, Boise St, TCU, etc of the old BCS era. They’re incredibly well-coached, have been nationally ranked now for I believe 2 full seasons and have knocked off some good teams in the process. Already recruits within the SEC footprint.

It’s just that simple.

We don’t have an SEC level QB on the roster.

Needs to be someone else.