Each Sunday morning I'll offer up ten things that stood out to me about Saturday's game. Here's the wrap next morning view of the 35-12 loss to the Vols.
1) I don’t think Missouri is the worst team in the SEC. But I think it has had the worst first two weeks. Vandy stuck around all day with A&M in week one. Ole Miss took down Kentucky yesterday and Mississippi State beat LSU in week one. Arkansas led Georgia at half and then beat the team that beat LSU. Missouri doesn’t have a first half touchdown and has been down a combined 63-12 before it has scored one in either game. Against Alabama, hey, it happens. That’s the best team in the country, so be it. But yesterday was discouraging. I thought it was a step back. Going into the game I said the goal was to have a shot entering the fourth quarter. And I specifically said on the pregame show, “Not a shot where you’re down two touchdowns and if everything goes perfectly you might get into a tie game.” I meant a game where you felt like they had given themselves a real shot entering the fourth quarter. Missouri didn’t have it. Sure, you can say, well if they don’t throw that pick maybe. And, yeah, maybe. But they did throw the pick…and there was no guarantee even if they hadn’t. I’m not writing anything off…but it’s been a rough two weeks and I don’t see a great chance it gets better next week. It gets a little more discouraging when you look around and see every other team in the league has had more reasons to feel good in the first two weeks.
2) That said, I’m not surprised. I haven’t seen anything that makes me change my prediction for the season. Yet. I picked them to beat Vandy and Arkansas and somebody else. They can still get one against Kentucky or South Carolina or maybe even Mississippi State if the Tigers catch them on the right day. So I still think 3-7 is the play…but I’d be much more likely to bet the under on that than I would the over based on what I’ve seen the first two weeks. At this point, there are no guaranteed wins on the schedule.
3) I can admit when I’m wrong and I was wrong on the quarterback. I didn’t think Shawn Robinson had done anything to lose his job in week one. I thought he was better than I expected him to be. But he did something to lose it on Saturday. Missouri simply looked bad with him at quarterback. And then Connor Bazelak came in and they looked a lot better. Immediately. I’m trying to do so many things during the game that I’m not going to pretend to be able to be the best real time analyst. Some people who were watching along with us believed that the play calling looked different with Bazelak than it did with Robinson. That may be true. But even if it is, Bazelak did a better job of executing the plays called for him than Robinson did. So unless you believe Eli Drinkwitz was just calling better plays all day with Bazelak in (I've personally never understood why they don't call the touchdown play more often), you’ve got to lean toward Bazelak being the guy (and you also have to admit that it appears as of now that the head coach chose the wrong guy as his starting QB coming out of camp). I think it should happen Tuesday. I completely understand why Drinkwitz didn’t commit to that in the postgame press conference. Most coaches don’t do that. They want to watch the film and wait before making a change in the heat of the moment. Make sure your eyes confirm what your head is telling you. But I think that change should come Tuesday. Take the “or” off the depth chart. Go with the guy who clearly played much better. Because if you keep playing both of them and riding the hot hand, I think you run the risk of having two guys feeling like they’re playing for their job on every possession and I don’t think that ends up being a good thing for the offense. I think it's a disservice to both of them to keep up the guessing game all season long, and I don't really think at this point it's a competitive advantage of any sort. I’ll be interested to see what he says on Tuesday. I believe he should name Bazelak the starting QB.
4) The wide receiver position is still an issue. The most glaring example was a dropped 86-yard touchdown by Dominic Gicinto on a ball that simply couldn’t have been walked up and placed to him any better than it was thrown. Mizzou’s receivers had a total of nine catches and five drops. Damon Hazelton and Jalen Knox had four each, although Knox had a couple of pretty glaring drops too. For the season, the wide receivers have 25 catches and eight drops. That's a drop on a full 1/4 of the passes thrown to a wideout. That's not even kind of close to good enough. Keke Chism had one catch on a broken play (I’m not writing Chism off, but this is a good example of why I’m hesitant to believe the hype on a player I haven’t actually seen with my own eyes based on what’s said in camp). Not a single reserve wideout caught a pass and Gicinto’s drop was the only time one was even targeted. The three starting receivers combined for 140 snaps. All the rest combined for 35. Maybe that’s normal, but it seems very top heavy to me. Especially because Hazleton and Chism played 57 and 56, respectively. You’re not going to make it through the season with only two receivers who are a threat to do anything.
5) We’ve spent enough time on the offense. While 12 points isn’t enough to win, the offense isn’t the main reason Missouri lost this game. The offense was supposed to be a question mark. The defense wasn’t. It was awful from start to finish. Tennessee marched down the field on its first drive. It never really slowed down. Missouri faced only eight drives all game (it was one of the fastest games I can remember in a long time). The Tigers gave up five touchdowns, a missed field goal, and forced two punts. Six of the eight drives lasted at least eight plays. All six covered at least 47 yards. Tennessee dominated the Tigers when they had the ball. Last year the Vols threw for 415 yards on Mizzou. This year they ran for 232 and had 26 first downs. Yuck.
1) I don’t think Missouri is the worst team in the SEC. But I think it has had the worst first two weeks. Vandy stuck around all day with A&M in week one. Ole Miss took down Kentucky yesterday and Mississippi State beat LSU in week one. Arkansas led Georgia at half and then beat the team that beat LSU. Missouri doesn’t have a first half touchdown and has been down a combined 63-12 before it has scored one in either game. Against Alabama, hey, it happens. That’s the best team in the country, so be it. But yesterday was discouraging. I thought it was a step back. Going into the game I said the goal was to have a shot entering the fourth quarter. And I specifically said on the pregame show, “Not a shot where you’re down two touchdowns and if everything goes perfectly you might get into a tie game.” I meant a game where you felt like they had given themselves a real shot entering the fourth quarter. Missouri didn’t have it. Sure, you can say, well if they don’t throw that pick maybe. And, yeah, maybe. But they did throw the pick…and there was no guarantee even if they hadn’t. I’m not writing anything off…but it’s been a rough two weeks and I don’t see a great chance it gets better next week. It gets a little more discouraging when you look around and see every other team in the league has had more reasons to feel good in the first two weeks.
2) That said, I’m not surprised. I haven’t seen anything that makes me change my prediction for the season. Yet. I picked them to beat Vandy and Arkansas and somebody else. They can still get one against Kentucky or South Carolina or maybe even Mississippi State if the Tigers catch them on the right day. So I still think 3-7 is the play…but I’d be much more likely to bet the under on that than I would the over based on what I’ve seen the first two weeks. At this point, there are no guaranteed wins on the schedule.
3) I can admit when I’m wrong and I was wrong on the quarterback. I didn’t think Shawn Robinson had done anything to lose his job in week one. I thought he was better than I expected him to be. But he did something to lose it on Saturday. Missouri simply looked bad with him at quarterback. And then Connor Bazelak came in and they looked a lot better. Immediately. I’m trying to do so many things during the game that I’m not going to pretend to be able to be the best real time analyst. Some people who were watching along with us believed that the play calling looked different with Bazelak than it did with Robinson. That may be true. But even if it is, Bazelak did a better job of executing the plays called for him than Robinson did. So unless you believe Eli Drinkwitz was just calling better plays all day with Bazelak in (I've personally never understood why they don't call the touchdown play more often), you’ve got to lean toward Bazelak being the guy (and you also have to admit that it appears as of now that the head coach chose the wrong guy as his starting QB coming out of camp). I think it should happen Tuesday. I completely understand why Drinkwitz didn’t commit to that in the postgame press conference. Most coaches don’t do that. They want to watch the film and wait before making a change in the heat of the moment. Make sure your eyes confirm what your head is telling you. But I think that change should come Tuesday. Take the “or” off the depth chart. Go with the guy who clearly played much better. Because if you keep playing both of them and riding the hot hand, I think you run the risk of having two guys feeling like they’re playing for their job on every possession and I don’t think that ends up being a good thing for the offense. I think it's a disservice to both of them to keep up the guessing game all season long, and I don't really think at this point it's a competitive advantage of any sort. I’ll be interested to see what he says on Tuesday. I believe he should name Bazelak the starting QB.
4) The wide receiver position is still an issue. The most glaring example was a dropped 86-yard touchdown by Dominic Gicinto on a ball that simply couldn’t have been walked up and placed to him any better than it was thrown. Mizzou’s receivers had a total of nine catches and five drops. Damon Hazelton and Jalen Knox had four each, although Knox had a couple of pretty glaring drops too. For the season, the wide receivers have 25 catches and eight drops. That's a drop on a full 1/4 of the passes thrown to a wideout. That's not even kind of close to good enough. Keke Chism had one catch on a broken play (I’m not writing Chism off, but this is a good example of why I’m hesitant to believe the hype on a player I haven’t actually seen with my own eyes based on what’s said in camp). Not a single reserve wideout caught a pass and Gicinto’s drop was the only time one was even targeted. The three starting receivers combined for 140 snaps. All the rest combined for 35. Maybe that’s normal, but it seems very top heavy to me. Especially because Hazleton and Chism played 57 and 56, respectively. You’re not going to make it through the season with only two receivers who are a threat to do anything.
5) We’ve spent enough time on the offense. While 12 points isn’t enough to win, the offense isn’t the main reason Missouri lost this game. The offense was supposed to be a question mark. The defense wasn’t. It was awful from start to finish. Tennessee marched down the field on its first drive. It never really slowed down. Missouri faced only eight drives all game (it was one of the fastest games I can remember in a long time). The Tigers gave up five touchdowns, a missed field goal, and forced two punts. Six of the eight drives lasted at least eight plays. All six covered at least 47 yards. Tennessee dominated the Tigers when they had the ball. Last year the Vols threw for 415 yards on Mizzou. This year they ran for 232 and had 26 first downs. Yuck.
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