Missouri has plenty to play for in the Citrus Bowl against Minnesota.

The Tigers get a chance to show off on a national stage for the second straight year. They get a chance to let their dynamic defensive end combination end their careers (presumably) on a high note, and they get to position themselves well for another SEC run in 2015.

They’re also playing for SEC pride, whether they like it or not.

The SEC East was down this year. The West dominated the inter-divisional games, ran away with the conference title game and had a host of teams dominate the top of the polls, while the East puttered along, its leader not even ranked for much of the season. Fairly or not, Missouri’s second straight divisional crown is one of the talking points critics use when discussing the state of the East.

You see, Mizzou lost to Indiana. The Hoosiers, a 4-8 team from the Big Ten, the conference the SEC made its bones beating up on for the better part of a decade. Indiana had one of the best backs in the country, Doak Walker finalist Tevin Coleman, but they were a losing team in a conference that’s been down the last few years. Not just any down conference, mind you, but the B1G that SEC fans have taken to ridiculing.

There was another bad loss on Missouri’s slate, a 34-0 drubbing at home at the hands of Georgia, but at least that was a conference loss. The Indiana defeat was the major blemish on Mizzou’s record, the one that kept them out of the polls for much of the season despite leading the East most of the way.

While a Tigers win on New Year’s over a B1G team won’t diminish the down years at Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, it would help restore a little bit of luster lost with the Indiana game.

The game keeps up a string of fairly prominent Big Ten-SEC showdowns. In 2011, 2012 and 2013, Alabama, South Carolina and Georgia, respectively headed to the game after falling just short of their SEC aspirations. Missouri falls into that category, having made it to the cusp of SEC gloary the past two years.

Minnesota, while barely in the top 25, provides a strong opponent for the Tigers to prove themselves against. They have the type of offense that will challenge Missouri’s defense and a play-making defense that will make life difficult for Maty Mauk.

While a win would be a nice feather in the cap of another strong season, a loss would be more damaging. No, it wouldn’t take the SEC off the pedestal as the best conference in the country — that responsibility falls on Alabama to uphold in the College Football Playoff — but it would be another line of attack for conference critics that say the SEC is just one of the guys in the Power Five.

Mizzou has taken over the SEC East in just three seasons. The division, in the name of national respect, can’t have its champion dropping games to a conference it is supposed to own, regular season or bowl.

The Tigers have demanded respect with their back-to-back SEC East crowns. It’s been slow to come nationally, but they can grab another piece of it with a win on New Year’s Day.