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1) Are we ready to say Missouri's defense is for real? I'm not ready to say it's elite. I'm ready to say it's definitely better than it has been. Here are the statistical rankings through four weeks:
Scoring defense: 19
Rushing defense: 27 (more on this in a bit)
Passing defense: 5 (more on this too)
Total defense: 6
Here is the complete list of teams that rank in the top 27 in the country in all four of those statistical categories: Wisconsin, Ohio State, Navy, Michigan State, Mizzou, Clemson, UAB
There are seven. That's pretty good company. If you took away the two long runs by Wyoming, Mizzou would rank seventh in the country against the run. I understand you can't do that, just saying that a few plays can still really skew the stats at this point in the season.
2) Some will argue that the traditional stats don't tell the whole story. So how about these rankings:
Yards per rush: 25th
Yards per pass: 4th
Yards per play: 5th
Those are elite defensive numbers. I touched on this after the game and have seen many posters agree, Ryan Walters deserves more credit than he's going to get. The first two years were not good and I'm not going to argue against that. I said after the Wyoming game it was far for him to be on the hot seat. But man he has responded. Two plays really stick out to me: The Nick Bolton pick six against SEMO and the Ronnell Perkins pick six against South Carolina were scheme plays. Those were cases of a guy being in exactly the right place because of the system and then following through and making the play. And people will say the schedule hasn't been very good, but Missouri has played two Power Five teams. South Carolina was better against Alabama and North Carolina than it was against Mizzou offensively. West Virginia was better against NC State and Kansas offensively than it was against Mizzou. Credit where it's due.
3) The biggest surprise has been the defensive line. Missouri is 23rd in the country in tackles for loss and 36th in sacks. Those aren't elite level numbers, but the defense doesn't have to be elite. It has to be solid. It's been that. Jordan Elliott has been very good. But the two biggest surprises on the defensive line for me have been Kobie Whiteside and Chris Turner. Whiteside only has six tackles, but three of them are sacks and he's been in the backfield a ton. Turner also has six tackles, but he has two sacks and he's the guy that batted the pass that Cale Garrett eventually covered for a touchdown on Saturday. And I haven't even mentioned Tre Williams, who has 11 quarterback pressures including seven hits. Both of those numbers lead the team. The four starting defensive linemen have 38 pressures, six sacks, 13 hits and 19 hurries.
For fun, multiply those numbers by three since we're a third of the way through the season. It would come out to 152 pressures, 24 sacks, 52 hits and 76 hurries. Last year, Mizzou's four most productive defensive linemen (Beckner, Elliott, Williams and Turner) had 80 pressures, 10 sacks, 20 hits and 50 hurries. So the defensive line has approximately doubled its production in the pass rush through the first third of the season. And that's without Trajan Jeffcoat, who was supposed to start.
4) While the defensive line has been the biggest surprise, the safeties have been the biggest improvement. I thought Tyree Gillespie was the best player on the field on Saturday. Joshuah Bledsoe was good too. They were both really bad against Wyoming and it showed. They now rank third and fourth on the team with 11 and 9 tackles, respectively (Cale Garrett has 32 and Nick Bolton 17). Gillespie hasn't missed a tackle since the Wyoming game when he missed three. Bledsoe has missed only one. Good safeties are like having a shot blocker in basketball. They can clean up a lot of mistakes. If your guards keep getting beat off dribble penetration, but you have a dude blocking five shots a game, a lot of people don't really talk about your guards sucking on defense because the defense overall looks pretty good. Same with good safeties. Guys in front of them can mess up, but if the safeties can cover the problems, people don't notice. Sure it's better if everybody's good, but if you can only be really good at one position, safety might be the best one to be really good at.
5) Let's talk some offense and let's start at quarterback. Saturday was probably Kelly Bryant's worst day throwing the football. Barry Odom said after the game he thought Bryant was a little too geeked up playing against his home state school and a lot of guys he knew. He did a good job settling down throughout the game. But we saw what we all knew we were going to see at some point: Missouri asked Bryant to be a major weapon with his legs. Before Saturday, Bryant had 24 carries for 26 yards. Saturday he had 17 for 77. I don't think we're going to see that every week, but I liked seeing it on Saturday because Missouri needed it. There had been a clear hesitancy to let him run the ball the first three weeks. But when Mizzou had to lean on it, they leaned on it. That's smart.
