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1) There have probably been better eight-day regular season stretches for Mizzou fans than the current one, but I can't imagine there have been many.
Saturday: Mizzou football at No. 1 (2) Georgia
Monday: Mizzou basketball opens its second season under Dennis Gates against Arkansas-Pine Bluff.
Friday: Basketball hosts Memphis
Saturday: Football hosts No. 12/14 Tennessee
What a week. Two football games against top 15 teams that will decide whether this is a really good season or a great season for Mizzou. I'm not going to pretend UAPB is a super exciting game (or that I could tell you one thing about it), but hoops hysteria is as high as it's been in at least six years for Tiger fans. And you get an early-season measuring stick against Memphis, which isn't a top 25 team, but like Mizzou got a handful of votes in both polls.
This is the third of what will be about ten stories on the site today. By the time the Tigers kick off against Tennessee on Saturday at 2:30, we'll have had more than 30 stories for the week. But it's not just the busiest week of the year, it's actually an exciting and meaningful one. November is always busy for people who cover college sports, but there are a lot of places where one or both of the sports don't garner all that much interest. A lot of football teams are already just playing out the string. A lot of fanbases don't get into basketball until January (or March). That's not the case here. There's incredible buzz around both programs at Mizzou. It hasn't been that way in a while. Soak it up.
2) Because there's so much going on, I'm not going to spend a ton of time looking back at the 30-21 loss to Georgia. But we do need to go ahead and wrap things up from that one.
There are two ways I think people are feeling coming out of that game and I think both are completely valid.
The upside: Missouri just went toe to toe with the best program (you can argue whether Georgia is the best team this year, but you can't argue anyone other than Georgia is the best program in the country right now) in college football. On their field. In a game that had Georgia's attention and in which the Bulldogs played pretty well--not perfectly, but certainly not badly. Missouri belonged in that game. If Mizzou started the season with "something to prove" it no longer has anything to prove. The progress is undeniable. We came into this year viewing it as make or break for Eli Drinkwitz. It's a definite "make." The optimists have been rewarded for their faith, the pessimists absolutely should have been convinced. Missouri is 7-2. The two losses have come to top 20 teams, both of whom started the season as perceived national title contenders and both were still in doubt with five minutes to go in the fourth quarter. If you aren't excited about the future of Mizzou football right now, you either aren't paying attention or wake up on a sunny, 85-degree day looking for the lone cloud in the sky.
The downside: How many opportunities like Saturday do you get? There are a handful or two of programs in college football that are going to start every season with legitimate playoff or national title hopes (that number goes up next year, by the way). But if you aren't a fan of one of those programs, the truth is that you're hoping to get in that conversation once every few years. Missouri has now been in it probably six times in 20 years (2007, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2023). That's a pretty good ratio for a program that isn't viewed as one of the sport's heavyweights.
Of course, Missouri hasn't broken all the way through in any of those six opportunities. And, trust me, I do understand those who come out of Saturday disappointed. You have a team that proved it was good enough to be in that conversation. It just didn't get one break or didn't make one play. And that's the difference between being in the conversation and actually making it. Getting close is a whole hell of a lot better than what has happened in the last eight years, but it also leaves you wanting a little bit more and thinking about what could have been. And it isn't a guarantee you're getting back here next year or the year after that. It's absolutely possible. But as of now, you just don't know. And, yeah, the near misses hurt.
Overall, Mizzou fans should absolutely be optimistic about the future of the program and proud of the effort their team put forth on Saturday night. But it's okay if it stung more than usual too. If losing didn't hurt, it didn't matter enough. Most of the time when Missouri loses to Georgia, Tiger fans are disappointed because you want to win every game, but ultimately, they haven't been playing for much of anything recently. They were on Saturday night. It was there for the taking and it ultimately slipped away. And that's tough to swallow. But it's way more fun to have those chances and miss out on them than never to have had them at all.
3) A few random things coming out of that loss to the Bulldogs:
*I think Brady Cook probably slipped behind Carson Beck for second-team all-SEC. Beck has more passing yards, a higher completion percentage, more yards per attempt, the same number of touchdown passes and fewer interceptions. Cook will absolutely still be honorable mention all-conference if he finishes the season well, but I think the all-conference spots will go to Jayden Daniels and Beck.
*Cody Schrader still leads the SEC in rushing yards. He has 919, Ray Davis of Kentucky has 903. Jaylen Wright (TN) is at 826 and Quinshon Judkins (OM) has 793. Schrader absolutely has a shot to be first-team all-SEC. He needs 201 yards to break into the top-10 all-time single-season rushing leaders at Mizzou. He is 297 yards away from 6th place. He is 393 yards from 4th. Those are all within reach when you add a bowl game to the mix.
*The biggest difference in Saturday's game (other than turnovers) was third down:
Missouri did a great job of getting UGA to third down, it just didn't do quite enough to get out of it. And the Tigers' own offense didn't cash in quite enough of its own chances.
*Saturday was the rare loss that actually helped the program in terms of national perception. I don't want to say nothing was lost. They can't go to the SEC Championship Game. They can't make the College Football Playoff. They absolutely lost some things. But I think Missouri turned heads on Saturday even if it came up short on the scoreboard. The last time I remember feeling that way was after the kick and catch loss to Nebraska in 1997. Yes, Mizzou lost, but they actually entered the top 25 after that and people that hadn't been paying attention to Missouri football started to do so. I think Saturday had the same effect.
