Every Sunday morning we’ll do a deep dive on Saturday’s game. Here are ten thoughts from the Tigers’ 20-10 win over Kentucky:
1) The score doesn’t even come close to representing that game. It could have been 40-7. Missouri dominated that game from the jump. In every way. It was one of the more dominant performances I can ever remember seeing from a Missouri team. It was like a non-conference game against Eastern Michigan. There simply wasn’t a stretch of more than about 40 seconds where it seemed like Kentucky had any chance to win that game. They weren’t competitive. Missouri was the better team in every facet. I suppose you can spend time being bummed out that Missouri dominated that way and yet only won 20-10, but that seems silly to me. It reminded me a lot of the Chiefs/Bills game last Monday. If you watched those games, there was zero doubt who the better team was. But there were just enough weird things that happened that the worse team technically still had a chance to win the game for a little bit in the fourth quarter. Even though really, they didn’t.
2) Some coaches have a system. The best coaches make their system fit the talent on their team. Two weeks ago, Eli Drinkwitz saw some things on tape that led him to believe Missouri could exploit the LSU secondary and the Tigers threw the ball all over the yard and emptied the playbook in a 44-41 win. Coming into this week, Drinkwitz saw a defense that was dropping seven or eight guys into coverage and tricking quarterbacks into throwing interceptions, turning those interceptions into points and winning two blowouts. So Drinkwitz avoided the risky throws and his team pounded the ball down Kentucky’s throat for 60 minutes. Connor Bazelak threw one deep ball that I remember, an overthrow of Damon Hazelton. He threw another ball maybe 20 yards downfield that he completed to Jalen Knox. I don’t remember anything else long (I'll double check the passing chart later today, but PFF grades and info for the game are not yet available). I don’t remember a single ball that seemed at risk of being intercepted. Drinkwitz simply removed the risk by avoiding what Kentucky had feasted on the last two weeks. Coming into the game, we knew Kentucky wasn’t going to average more than a pick six per game, but what we didn’t know was if the Wildcats could win a game when that didn’t happen. Now we know. They couldn’t. In two weeks, Missouri has won two completely different games against two completely different teams by avoiding the opponent's strengths and attacking its weaknesses. That's coaching.
3) If I could boil that game down to a word, it would be this: Methodical. Missouri ran 92 plays. Two of them went for more than 20 yards. The Tigers averaged only .6 yards more per play than Kentucky did. BUT THEY RAN 56 MORE PLAYS. Larry Rountree averaged just 3.4 yards per carry. BUT HE CARRIED IT 37 TIMES. Missouri simply lined up and took what was there on every snap. And then they did it again. And again. And again. And they wore Kentucky out to the point the Wildcats were sitting down on the field injured (?) in the middle of drives to catch their breath. Missouri beat Kentucky at its own game. If you’d have told me one team was going to run the ball 62 times and hold it for more than 43 minutes I would have told you it was really too bad that Missouri had just lost its sixth straight game to Kentucky. Mizzou simply out-toughed the team that has built its program on being tough the last few years.
4) Speaking of Larry Rountree, can we just take a moment of appreciation for the dude? He’s now the third leading rusher in Mizzou history. He’s never going to be remembered like Brad Smith (nor should he be). He probably won’t be mentioned in the same sentence as guys like Wilder or West or Josey (but he probably should be). He’ll end four years with a little better than .500 record and it’s a shame he couldn’t have won a few more games in his time in Columbia because he deserves to be remembered more than I think he probably will be. He’s a team guy who simply shows up and does his job every day. He’s in the discussion with the best running backs in school history in my opinion. And he’s the most important player on this offense.
5) Of course, the offense only works if you have a quarterback and I’m getting closer and closer to being sure Mizzou has a quarterback. I listen to a college football podcast called “The Solid Verbal.” They refer to former Mizzou QB James Franklin as “Casual Dress James Franklin” because he always looked like he was just hanging out in the pocket. He could have been back there making a sandwich or knitting a scarf. Connor Bazelak has that same calm. His feet rarely seem to move until they have to. Then when he does move, he makes the right decision between running and throwing a lot more often than not. He threw one bad ball I can remember tonight (and now I don’t even remember the specifics). Drinkwitz said there was one time he should have run and he threw. That’s about it. Dude took 92 snaps and I can remember two bad ones. I think that’s a ratio every quarterback in the country would take. Oh by the way, that was his fourth career start.
1) The score doesn’t even come close to representing that game. It could have been 40-7. Missouri dominated that game from the jump. In every way. It was one of the more dominant performances I can ever remember seeing from a Missouri team. It was like a non-conference game against Eastern Michigan. There simply wasn’t a stretch of more than about 40 seconds where it seemed like Kentucky had any chance to win that game. They weren’t competitive. Missouri was the better team in every facet. I suppose you can spend time being bummed out that Missouri dominated that way and yet only won 20-10, but that seems silly to me. It reminded me a lot of the Chiefs/Bills game last Monday. If you watched those games, there was zero doubt who the better team was. But there were just enough weird things that happened that the worse team technically still had a chance to win the game for a little bit in the fourth quarter. Even though really, they didn’t.
2) Some coaches have a system. The best coaches make their system fit the talent on their team. Two weeks ago, Eli Drinkwitz saw some things on tape that led him to believe Missouri could exploit the LSU secondary and the Tigers threw the ball all over the yard and emptied the playbook in a 44-41 win. Coming into this week, Drinkwitz saw a defense that was dropping seven or eight guys into coverage and tricking quarterbacks into throwing interceptions, turning those interceptions into points and winning two blowouts. So Drinkwitz avoided the risky throws and his team pounded the ball down Kentucky’s throat for 60 minutes. Connor Bazelak threw one deep ball that I remember, an overthrow of Damon Hazelton. He threw another ball maybe 20 yards downfield that he completed to Jalen Knox. I don’t remember anything else long (I'll double check the passing chart later today, but PFF grades and info for the game are not yet available). I don’t remember a single ball that seemed at risk of being intercepted. Drinkwitz simply removed the risk by avoiding what Kentucky had feasted on the last two weeks. Coming into the game, we knew Kentucky wasn’t going to average more than a pick six per game, but what we didn’t know was if the Wildcats could win a game when that didn’t happen. Now we know. They couldn’t. In two weeks, Missouri has won two completely different games against two completely different teams by avoiding the opponent's strengths and attacking its weaknesses. That's coaching.
3) If I could boil that game down to a word, it would be this: Methodical. Missouri ran 92 plays. Two of them went for more than 20 yards. The Tigers averaged only .6 yards more per play than Kentucky did. BUT THEY RAN 56 MORE PLAYS. Larry Rountree averaged just 3.4 yards per carry. BUT HE CARRIED IT 37 TIMES. Missouri simply lined up and took what was there on every snap. And then they did it again. And again. And again. And they wore Kentucky out to the point the Wildcats were sitting down on the field injured (?) in the middle of drives to catch their breath. Missouri beat Kentucky at its own game. If you’d have told me one team was going to run the ball 62 times and hold it for more than 43 minutes I would have told you it was really too bad that Missouri had just lost its sixth straight game to Kentucky. Mizzou simply out-toughed the team that has built its program on being tough the last few years.
4) Speaking of Larry Rountree, can we just take a moment of appreciation for the dude? He’s now the third leading rusher in Mizzou history. He’s never going to be remembered like Brad Smith (nor should he be). He probably won’t be mentioned in the same sentence as guys like Wilder or West or Josey (but he probably should be). He’ll end four years with a little better than .500 record and it’s a shame he couldn’t have won a few more games in his time in Columbia because he deserves to be remembered more than I think he probably will be. He’s a team guy who simply shows up and does his job every day. He’s in the discussion with the best running backs in school history in my opinion. And he’s the most important player on this offense.
5) Of course, the offense only works if you have a quarterback and I’m getting closer and closer to being sure Mizzou has a quarterback. I listen to a college football podcast called “The Solid Verbal.” They refer to former Mizzou QB James Franklin as “Casual Dress James Franklin” because he always looked like he was just hanging out in the pocket. He could have been back there making a sandwich or knitting a scarf. Connor Bazelak has that same calm. His feet rarely seem to move until they have to. Then when he does move, he makes the right decision between running and throwing a lot more often than not. He threw one bad ball I can remember tonight (and now I don’t even remember the specifics). Drinkwitz said there was one time he should have run and he threw. That’s about it. Dude took 92 snaps and I can remember two bad ones. I think that’s a ratio every quarterback in the country would take. Oh by the way, that was his fourth career start.
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