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1) I understand this has been a frustrating year for Missouri fans. It hit me this morning what I think the most disappointing part is. You didn't start this season (or at least the vast majority of you) looking at ten wins or a division title. You started it looking for relevance. Win a game you're not supposed to, scare somebody you're not supposed to, play games that get people's attention. And that's not happening. There are only 12 guaranteed games in a season. These are events. For some people, these are the 12 most anticipated days of the year (you can talk about whether it should be that way, but that's a different discussion because it is that way). And we're headed into our third straight week where there's just not any real reason to be overly interested. Two Saturdays ago was the bye. Last Saturday was a game that was for 12th, 13th or 14th in the SEC and was only televised because it was contractually obligated to be televised and four teams in the league didn't play. This Saturday is a game that harkens back to the mid-80s with the role of Nebraska or Oklahoma being played by the Georgia Bulldogs. There's simply no reason to expect this game to be interesting. That doesn't mean it's impossible, but if you play this game ten times, there's probably one or two where Missouri is within a couple of touchdowns late.
Some sports fans lose interest when their team can't win a title. But most college football fans aren't that way. Most of you are there till the bitter end. And I know there are some people reading this thinking "What do you mean it's not interesting? This is my team playing and by God don't tell me it's not interesting." But for most of us, we're going on a full month of games that don't really give you any reason to pay attention other than the fact that you always pay attention.
I think we'd all love for atmospheres like we saw in East Lansing last weekend to return. But I don't think anybody's asking for that quite yet. You're asking for games that you look forward to. You're asking for games that people outside of Columbia and the town of the other school might pay attention to. College football games should be events. College football seasons should create memories. Right now, this season just feels like a slog to the end to see if you can be playing for a sixth win on the day after Thanksgiving. And that's not nothing. That should be a goal for this team. But I think I can speak for everyone reading this when I say I sure can't wait until we're following games that mean more than that again.
2) There is some intrigue around Mizzou this week in one regard. We don't know right now who the starting quarterback will be in Athens. Let's say this first: Even the most vocal critics of Connor Bazelak couldn't have wanted him to leave the starting lineup this way. Nobody's rooting for an injury. We don't know right now what Bazelak's injury is or how serious it is. My guess is we won't really know until Saturday. It's possible Eli Drinkwitz tells us tomorrow that he's not going to play, but I'd be surprised by that. When Missouri releases the injury report on Thursday, my guess is that Bazelak will be listed as questionable. If Bazelak is able to play, I'm pretty confident he's going to start. Drinkwitz didn't take him out of Saturday's game until he didn't have a choice. You can disagree with the coach if you want to, but it's very obvious he believes Bazelak is the quarterback who gives him the best chance to win a game. It's my opinion Bazelak has been playing at something less than 100% for a few weeks now. I think Drinkwitz believes that Bazelak at 80% (or whatever percentage he is at) gives him a better chance to win than Brady Cook or Tyler Macon at 100%. You can disagree with that stance, but I don't think at this point you can disagree that it IS his stance.
3) The downturn in Bazelak's play--whether due to injury or not--has been impossible to ignore. I wanted to take a little deeper look at it. I had a theory on Saturday night that you can draw a line in Bazelak's season with the interception at Boston College. So I went back to look at it. The interception came on the final play of the game. Here is Bazelak's season split into everything before that pass and everything since.
Before the OT interception at BC: 106/153 (69.3%), 1200 yards, 10 touchdowns, 2 interceptions, 7.84 yards per attempt
After the OT interception at BC: 100/149 (67.1%), 938 yards, 3 touchdowns, 6 interceptions, 6.3 yards per attempt.
Before the interception, he had a 5:1 touchdown to interception ratio. Since, it's 1:2. He is completing approximately the same percentage of his throws, but each attempt has been for 1.5 yards less. Every single time he throws the ball he's averaging a yard and a half less than before that interception even though the number of completions and attempts are virtually identical. His average QB rating in the first four games was 156.18. In the last four games, it's 123.71. His best QB rating in the last four games was 148.61 in the Vanderbilt game. That's his best game and it's worse than his average through the first four games.
I don't know if it's injury or confidence or something else. I think it's probably a combination of all of them. But it's undeniable that it has happened.
4) So who is going to start if Bazelak can't play? Drinkwitz said on Saturday he had no idea. Maybe that's true. I don't think it is, but maybe it will truly be determined in practice this week. But to me, he answered the question when he said the decision to go with Tyler Macon was "situational" and in a different situation Brady Cook would have played. Someone who was at the game on Saturday told me when Bazelak went down, Cook started throwing on the sideline. That tells me he thought he was going in because he was the No. 2 quarterback. But then Macon went in. The reason is pretty obvious: Missouri wasn't going to throw the ball and Drinkwitz thought Macon gave Missouri a better chance to run it effectively and run out the clock. If Missouri had been in a tie game or behind, I think Cook would have been the guy. And I think Cook will be the guy on Saturday if Bazelak can't play. I'd be willing to bet Missouri's staff is working on some plays and packages for Macon over the last month of the season, but I'd also expect Cook to be the starter on Saturday if Bazelak can't play.
5) Whoever is at quarterback, at least he'll have Tyler Badie behind him. I started thinking about just how much of Missouri's offense Badie has been this season. He's not the most singularly dominant offensive player Missouri has had since I've been covering them. To me, that's always going to be Brad Smith.
Here are Missouri's total offensive numbers and Smith's total offense in his four years:
2002
Total 4642
Smith 3512
Smith's percentage of total yards: 75.66
2003
Total 4838
Smith 3134
Smith's percentage of total yards: 64.78
2004
Total 4405
Smith 2738
Smith's percentage of total yards: 62.16
2005
Total 5157
Smith 3605
Smith's percentage of total yards: 69.90
In Smith's worst year, he was responsible for 62.16% of Missouri's total offensive yardage. For his career:
Total 19,042
Smith 12,989
Smith's percentage of total yards: 68.21
So, yeah, Tyler Badie isn't THAT this season. But he has 1294 yards of total offense this season through eight games. Missouri has 3632 overall. That is 35.6% of Missouri's yards from scrimmage coming from one player. There are two non-quarterbacks who I thought might be in that neighborhood in Missouri's recent history so I looked them up.
1998 Devin West: West set the single season rushing record with 1,578 yards and had 43 receiving. His 1,621 total yards accounted for 42.1% of Missouri's total offense (and that's with Corby Jones at quarterback and a pretty damn good 8-4 team).
2020 Larry Rountree: Rountree ran for 972 yards and had 100 receiving. He accounted for 26.66% of Missouri's 4020 offensive yards.
So I think it's fair to say Badie is Missouri's most singularly important offensive player since 2005 and probably third among players in the last 25 years behind Smith and West. That's pretty good.
