I posted some initial quick thoughts last night and Mitchell had his instant takeaways after the game. Now we go a little more in depth after a little time to think about what we watched. Here are ten thoughts on the 51-32 loss to Mississippi State to end the regular season.
1) Eli Drinkwitz has been Missouri’s coach for about 375 days. Saturday was the first day I saw him appear to be worn out. If you ask anyone about Drinkwitz, the first word that comes to mind is energy. He looked and sounded like his had been sapped after the game Saturday. Sure, part of it is a disappointing loss. But these coaches and players have been on campus for six months to play ten games. They’ve been tested three times a week and had games moved and cancelled and postponed and rescheduled. They find out every Monday who they’re going to play then every Friday if they’re going to play then every Saturday who is actually available to play. They’ve done it all to entertain us and to make the schools money. I think they deserve a lot of credit and probably thanks for it. It was a weird season. A lot of it wasn’t really all that enjoyable. But I’m glad they had it. It took a lot to pull it off and I think they’re exhausted. I think the best thing to do would probably be to opt out of a bowl game or simply to cancel all the non-playoff bowl games. But that’s not going to happen. They’ll play and they’ll try to win and we’ll cover it.
2) Saturday was Connor Bazelak’s worst game. He’s been up and down this season. There’s been a lot of good, but it there have been some bumps in the road too. That’s to be expected. But I think after the LSU game too many people thought “Holy cow he was this good in his third start, imagine how good he is going to be in year three and four and five!” Progression isn’t linear. There are steps forward and back. Today was a step back without question. Beyond the three picks, there were just some really bad throws. Even a couple of the completions had to be saved by the receiver. It happens. Players have bad days, especially young ones. But I think today is a good reminder not to start building anyone’s statue just yet. I think two major things need to be the focus for Bazelak: His accuracy on the deep ball and his ability to use his legs. He doesn’t run much. He doesn’t really move around much. I assume he’s capable, but I haven’t seen a lot of it. Lastly, I don’t want to make too big a deal out of it because you don’t want your QB hurt trying to make a tackle in a game that’s already decided, but I’m betting something will be mentioned about his ole on the goal line when they watch the game on film.
3) While Bazelak was struggling, the guy we thought was going to be Missouri’s quarterback this year gave everyone a silver lining. Shawn Robinson moved to safety and was Missouri’s best defensive player on Saturday. He had five tackles (fifth on the team), two pass breakups (tied for the most) and an interception all in about three drives. He was all over the place. He was playing like it was the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl, not a game between two mediocre teams that probably wasn’t watched by three dozen people outside Missouri and Mississippi. Pretty impressive. When you listen to Drinkwitz and his teammates talk about Robinson, you can tell it’s not an act. It would have been easy for him to walk away. I don’t think anyone would even have blamed him. He didn’t. He got rewarded on Saturday. No matter what else happens, I guarantee you he’s gonna tell his kids about the time he switched from quarterback to defense and got an interception in an SEC game.
4) The other positive on Saturday was Larry Rountree. He ran for 121 yards, his fifth 100-yard effort of the season. It gives him 972 on the year, which is a career-best 97.2 per game. If he can run for 128 in a bowl game, he’ll average 100 yards per game as a senior, against entirely Power Five competition. He now has 40 touchdown runs, which puts him tied with Zack Abron for second on Mizzou’s all-time list. He has 14 this year alone. He is really the poster child for just showing up to work every day. He had 19 carries at halftime and probably would have doubled it if the score hadn’t gotten out of hand. I think because Rountree is so good and actually seems to get stronger the more he touches the ball, it inadvertently tends to take Tyler Badie out of the game plan. Badie had four touches for 22 yards, including just one carry. Drinkwitz has talked about needing to get Badie more involved, but it hasn’t really happened. I think it will next year when Rountree is gone, but Rountree demands so many carries that sometimes I think Badie kind of gets lost.
5) That’s enough silver linings because to be honest, there wasn’t much to like about that game. The defense was bad. But the offense was probably worse. And the most critical error of the game came on special teams. It was a complete team loss. The players, the coaches, the bus driver. Missouri made enough mistakes in that game to spread them around to absolutely everyone who was involved in any way, shape or form. Very little went well. And once the ball started rolling down hill, Missouri just didn’t have enough to try to stop it. I’m not questioning the effort. I think you just saw a team that went in severely undermanned and exhausted and once a couple breaks went against them, they just didn’t have enough fight to turn it around.
1) Eli Drinkwitz has been Missouri’s coach for about 375 days. Saturday was the first day I saw him appear to be worn out. If you ask anyone about Drinkwitz, the first word that comes to mind is energy. He looked and sounded like his had been sapped after the game Saturday. Sure, part of it is a disappointing loss. But these coaches and players have been on campus for six months to play ten games. They’ve been tested three times a week and had games moved and cancelled and postponed and rescheduled. They find out every Monday who they’re going to play then every Friday if they’re going to play then every Saturday who is actually available to play. They’ve done it all to entertain us and to make the schools money. I think they deserve a lot of credit and probably thanks for it. It was a weird season. A lot of it wasn’t really all that enjoyable. But I’m glad they had it. It took a lot to pull it off and I think they’re exhausted. I think the best thing to do would probably be to opt out of a bowl game or simply to cancel all the non-playoff bowl games. But that’s not going to happen. They’ll play and they’ll try to win and we’ll cover it.
2) Saturday was Connor Bazelak’s worst game. He’s been up and down this season. There’s been a lot of good, but it there have been some bumps in the road too. That’s to be expected. But I think after the LSU game too many people thought “Holy cow he was this good in his third start, imagine how good he is going to be in year three and four and five!” Progression isn’t linear. There are steps forward and back. Today was a step back without question. Beyond the three picks, there were just some really bad throws. Even a couple of the completions had to be saved by the receiver. It happens. Players have bad days, especially young ones. But I think today is a good reminder not to start building anyone’s statue just yet. I think two major things need to be the focus for Bazelak: His accuracy on the deep ball and his ability to use his legs. He doesn’t run much. He doesn’t really move around much. I assume he’s capable, but I haven’t seen a lot of it. Lastly, I don’t want to make too big a deal out of it because you don’t want your QB hurt trying to make a tackle in a game that’s already decided, but I’m betting something will be mentioned about his ole on the goal line when they watch the game on film.
3) While Bazelak was struggling, the guy we thought was going to be Missouri’s quarterback this year gave everyone a silver lining. Shawn Robinson moved to safety and was Missouri’s best defensive player on Saturday. He had five tackles (fifth on the team), two pass breakups (tied for the most) and an interception all in about three drives. He was all over the place. He was playing like it was the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl, not a game between two mediocre teams that probably wasn’t watched by three dozen people outside Missouri and Mississippi. Pretty impressive. When you listen to Drinkwitz and his teammates talk about Robinson, you can tell it’s not an act. It would have been easy for him to walk away. I don’t think anyone would even have blamed him. He didn’t. He got rewarded on Saturday. No matter what else happens, I guarantee you he’s gonna tell his kids about the time he switched from quarterback to defense and got an interception in an SEC game.
4) The other positive on Saturday was Larry Rountree. He ran for 121 yards, his fifth 100-yard effort of the season. It gives him 972 on the year, which is a career-best 97.2 per game. If he can run for 128 in a bowl game, he’ll average 100 yards per game as a senior, against entirely Power Five competition. He now has 40 touchdown runs, which puts him tied with Zack Abron for second on Mizzou’s all-time list. He has 14 this year alone. He is really the poster child for just showing up to work every day. He had 19 carries at halftime and probably would have doubled it if the score hadn’t gotten out of hand. I think because Rountree is so good and actually seems to get stronger the more he touches the ball, it inadvertently tends to take Tyler Badie out of the game plan. Badie had four touches for 22 yards, including just one carry. Drinkwitz has talked about needing to get Badie more involved, but it hasn’t really happened. I think it will next year when Rountree is gone, but Rountree demands so many carries that sometimes I think Badie kind of gets lost.
5) That’s enough silver linings because to be honest, there wasn’t much to like about that game. The defense was bad. But the offense was probably worse. And the most critical error of the game came on special teams. It was a complete team loss. The players, the coaches, the bus driver. Missouri made enough mistakes in that game to spread them around to absolutely everyone who was involved in any way, shape or form. Very little went well. And once the ball started rolling down hill, Missouri just didn’t have enough to try to stop it. I’m not questioning the effort. I think you just saw a team that went in severely undermanned and exhausted and once a couple breaks went against them, they just didn’t have enough fight to turn it around.
Last edited:
