We are proud to welcome Will Garrett, Agency Sales Manager of Missouri Farm Bureau Insurance as our partner and sponsor. When you’re looking for in-depth analysis of everything happening at Mizzou, Monday Morning Thoughts is the place to go. When you’re looking for an in-depth review of your insurance policies, Will Garrett is who you need. Born and raised a Tiger fan, Will is proud of his hometown and takes pride in protecting his community, and the people in it. The time to prepare for tomorrow is today. Find Will in his office just south of Faurot Field! Click here to get in touch with Will and start the process.
1) Let's start this week with a nod to the person I'd consider the MVP of the first quarter of Missouri's season. Job well done, Corey Batoon. There were a lot of questions about Missouri's defense and they weren't unfair. Blake Baker had overseen a pretty impressive overhaul in two seasons and the Tigers had lost five players to the NFL off that side of the ball. Through three weeks, Mizzou is playing better defense than it did at just about any point last year. The first two weeks were impressive in that back-to-back shutouts are always impressive, but Batoon hadn't faced a team that could stress his defense at all. You don't really have to come up with a master plan when you're just better than the other team at every position.
Mizzou still had a talent advantage on Saturday against Boston College, but it was far less pronounced. And the Eagles were the first team that brought in players who could strain a major conference defense. Thomas Castellanos ran for more yards than any quarterback who didn't win the Heisman Trophy last year. He'd started this year with six touchdowns and no interceptions. Missouri's defense of him was the reason the Tigers won the game.
Batoon, quite simply, bet against Castellanos as a passer. He came in with a plan to keep the BC quarterback in the pocket. The way Eli Drinkwitz described it was if you rush past a mobile quarterback, you're basically playing 10 on 11 at that point. So the plan was for Missouri to never get further upfield than Castellanos. If you have a pocket QB, you can afford to rush around him. Get a little further upfield and come back for the sack. You do that with Castellanos he's going to run into the spot the defensive end just vacated. So Missouri simply played contain on him, gave him time to throw and bet on him making a couple of mistakes. And he did it. He had two interceptions. They were both brutal throws. The first, to Tre'Vez Johnson, got Missouri back in the game. The second, to Dreyden Norwood, kept momentum with the Tigers.
There's a very simple but almost always overlooked fact in college football (and honestly in most sports): More games are lost than won. Missouri didn't force the issue. Batoon didn't ask his defense to go win the game. He asked it to allow Castellanos to lose it. And that's exactly what happened.
2) But it wasn't just the effort on Castellanos that impressed on Saturday. Boston College came into the game with three other players who had run for at least 100 yards through the first two weeks. Here are those players per game averages in the first two games:
Treshaun Ward: 20 carries, 132 yards, 6.5 ypc, 0.5 TD
Kye Robichaux: 25 carries, 112 yards, 4.5 ypc, 0.5 TD
Turbo Richard: 19 carries, 102 yards, 5.3 ypc, 0 TD
Here's what they did against Mizzou:
Ward: 6 carries, 21 yards, 3.5 ypc, 0 TD
Robichaux: 6 carries, 9 yards, 1.5 ypc, 0 TD
Richard: 1 carry, 3 yards, 3.0 ypc, 0 TD
As a group, the BC running backs were averaging 173 yards per game and 5.4 yards per carry coming in. Against Mizzou, they had 39 yards and 2.6 yards per carry. They were less than half as productive against the Tigers as they had been against Florida State and Duquesne.
In the first quarter, Boston College ran the ball 13 times for 45 yards. In the rest of the game, BC ran 13 times for a yard. One yard. The Eagles averaged 0.076 yards per rush for the final three quarters of the game. Even if you take away the two sacks of Castellanos, Missouri allowed 2.4 yards per carry for the entire afternoon. You can't play run defense better than that against a team that wants to run the ball.
Long story short: It is often said that a defensive coordinator wants to make his opponent win left handed. Batoon did that against BC. If the Eagles were going to beat Missouri, it was going to happen because they threw the ball well enough to do it. They didn't.
3) The defense through the first three games is the main reason I'm adjusting my expectations for this team. Well, one of two main reasons.
I, like most people, came into this season thinking the offense would be better than the defense. The defense might be good. Might even end up being as good as it was last year. But I thought it would take a minute. I thought the Tigers would probably struggle a little bit in September and ask the offense to go score enough to win a couple of these games. That hasn't happened. Yes, there were two major breakdowns on Saturday that led directly to 14 BC points and you can't just wipe those away. But overall, the defense has had very, very few issues.
Mizzou has allowed 16 plays of ten yards or more through three games. Only Ohio State has allowed fewer. The Buckeyes have given up eight such plays in two games. Mizzou has allowed four 20-yard plays, or 1.3 per game. The only teams allowing fewer per game are Ohio State, Georgia, Alabama, Louisville, Louisiana-Lafayette and Tennessee. They're making their opponents work for virtually everything they get. And the most impressive part is they're doing it with so many new faces.
"You got to remember, I got new staff members," Drinkwitz said. "I got a lot of new staff. I got a lot of new players. And so for us to have to face adversity and then figure out who we are, who we can count on, what are you going to do with your backs against the wall and you're tired? I think was really important."
4) The other big reason I'm adjusting my expectations for Mizzou? The schedule.
There was talk all offseason about Mizzou having a "manageable SEC schedule." I know you guys got tired of hearing it and started to get offended by it. Again, nobody is saying Missouri has an easy schedule. It's tougher than the ACC and Big 12 schedules. Probably a lot of the Big Ten schedules. But Missouri isn't in those leagues. It's in the SEC. And in terms of the SEC, it's an easy schedule.
Here's the thing: The schedule isn't as tough as I thought it was a month ago.
Murray State, Buffalo and UMASS (lost 38-3 to Buffalo on Saturday) don't count. Those are and always were wins.
Boston College is better than we thought. South Carolina is too. Arkansas probably is.
Oklahoma, Mississippi State, Auburn and Texas A&M are worse than I expected them to be. Or at least they have been through three weeks.
Alabama is what I expected. Vanderbilt is about that too. A week ago, most would have said Vandy was better than anticipated, but then it lost to a bad Georgia State team, allowing the Panthers to go seven plays in less than a minute for the game-winning touchdown. So Vandy's ceiling may be higher than we thought, but the floor is probably lower.
That's four teams that aren't as good as I thought they'd be and three that are a little better. Missouri has already beaten one of those three. I think Mizzou's schedule looks easier than it did at the start of the season. Not by leaps and bounds. The difference may be minor. But it's still a difference. I would now pick Missouri to win 11 games. At the beginning of the year, I said winning less than ten games couldn't be considered a bad season. And it still probably can't. But honestly, if Missouri doesn't go at least 10-2 with this schedule, they've left something on the table. I'm not saying OU, A&M or South Carolina are easy games. But those are the only three on the schedule I look at and give Mizzou less than about a 75% chance of winning outside of Alabama. So even if you lose one of them, it would take a pretty substantial upset in a game you should absolutely win not to get to ten. I think Missouri is better than SC and A&M and it gets OU at home.
There are two ways this team wins fewer than ten: You lose two of the three "swing" game. Or you lose at least one game that you absolutely shouldn't lose. If either of those things happen, it's a disappointment. Again, I'm not going to tell you 9-3 is a failure...but 9-3 will absolutely leave me thinking that Mizzou missed a gigantic opportunity.
5) As long as we're on the subject, here's what Mizzou's opponents did last week, their current record and what they have next.
Murray State: Beat Mississippi Valley 59-8. The Racers are 1-2, they're off this week before playing North Dakota Sept 28
Buffalo: Beat UMASS 38-3. They're 2-1 and play at Northern Illinois Saturday
Boston College: Lost to Mizzou 27-21. They're 2-1 and host Michigan State Saturday
Vanderbilt: Lost to Georgia State 36-32. They're 2-1 at Mizzou on Saturday.
Texas A&M: Beat Florida 33-20. They're 2-1 and host Bowling Green Saturday
Massachusetts: Lost to Buffalo 38-3. They're 0-3 and host Central Connecticut State Saturday
Auburn: Beat New Mexico 45-19. They're 2-1 and host Arkansas Saturday
Alabama: Beat Wisconsin 42-10. They're 3-0 and are off this week before hosting Georgia Sept 28
Oklahoma: Beat Tulane 34-19. They're 3-0 and host Tennessee Saturday
South Carolina: Lost to LSU 36-33. They're 2-1 and host Akron Saturday
Mississippi State: Lost to Toledo 41-17. They're 1-2 and host Florida Saturday
Arkansas: Beat UAB 37-27. They're 2-1 and are at Auburn Saturday
Last edited:
