1. Wow. One of the ugliest games I’ve ever seen from an aesthetic standpoint turned out to be quite the thriller. This is why you keep watching college football even when your team is eliminated from the playoff after four weeks. You never know when something crazy is going to happen.
2. Eli Drinkwitz has stones to trust an offense that had done just about nothing right all game to win it for him on the last play. He didn't call a perfect game. But his gamble worked. Major props.
3. Credit to Connor Bazelak as well. The dude is clearly hurt. He heard boos from the home crowd all night. He knew he was going to get blasted on that last play. But he got the ball where it needed to go. I’m not trying to argue he played a great game. His lack of mobility was a clear issue. Maybe Brady Cook would have been better. But Bazelak also didn’t turn the ball over and delivered on the biggest play of the game and the season. Good for him.
4. What if I had told you a month ago that Missouri’s defense would have put the team on its back against an SEC opponent? I’ve never seen a team flip-flop so drastically during a single season. There was a time when the Mizzou offense was putting up 30 points a game but it wasn’t enough because the defense was the worst in the country. Now, the defense just made play after play against an offense that’s been really good for most of the season. Unreal. I don’t remember a single missed tackle by Mizzou. Like everyone else, I was critical of Steve Wilks for much of this season, so I have to give him a ton of credit now.
5. The Missouri defensive front was great. Trajan Jeffcoat, Isaiah McGuire and Jatorian Hansford all made big plays. The starting linebackers, Chad Bailey and Blaze Alldredge, looked like two of the best players on the field. And true freshman DJ Jackson stepped up big time in his first career start.
6. Mizzou is going bowling. I still don’t feel like six wins is any incredible accomplishment, but with this team riding high, who says you can't get to seven? And regardless of what happens next week, the team can sell the fact that it rallied and got better and turned this season around when it looked pretty bleak and at a bare minimum matched last year’s win percentage. That’s significant. A team that also came up one play short two different times early in the season made that one play tonight. Again, that’s progress that can be sold.
It’s hard to dive too deep in this space when the game goes down to the final play, but we’ll have tons more coverage to come. Enjoy.
2. Eli Drinkwitz has stones to trust an offense that had done just about nothing right all game to win it for him on the last play. He didn't call a perfect game. But his gamble worked. Major props.
3. Credit to Connor Bazelak as well. The dude is clearly hurt. He heard boos from the home crowd all night. He knew he was going to get blasted on that last play. But he got the ball where it needed to go. I’m not trying to argue he played a great game. His lack of mobility was a clear issue. Maybe Brady Cook would have been better. But Bazelak also didn’t turn the ball over and delivered on the biggest play of the game and the season. Good for him.
4. What if I had told you a month ago that Missouri’s defense would have put the team on its back against an SEC opponent? I’ve never seen a team flip-flop so drastically during a single season. There was a time when the Mizzou offense was putting up 30 points a game but it wasn’t enough because the defense was the worst in the country. Now, the defense just made play after play against an offense that’s been really good for most of the season. Unreal. I don’t remember a single missed tackle by Mizzou. Like everyone else, I was critical of Steve Wilks for much of this season, so I have to give him a ton of credit now.
5. The Missouri defensive front was great. Trajan Jeffcoat, Isaiah McGuire and Jatorian Hansford all made big plays. The starting linebackers, Chad Bailey and Blaze Alldredge, looked like two of the best players on the field. And true freshman DJ Jackson stepped up big time in his first career start.
6. Mizzou is going bowling. I still don’t feel like six wins is any incredible accomplishment, but with this team riding high, who says you can't get to seven? And regardless of what happens next week, the team can sell the fact that it rallied and got better and turned this season around when it looked pretty bleak and at a bare minimum matched last year’s win percentage. That’s significant. A team that also came up one play short two different times early in the season made that one play tonight. Again, that’s progress that can be sold.
It’s hard to dive too deep in this space when the game goes down to the final play, but we’ll have tons more coverage to come. Enjoy.
