Mizzou took the SEC East by storm with a surprise season in ’13, leveraging a trio of high-flying receivers and a balanced backfield to take down the division.

Last year, the Tigers fit more of the SEC stereotype, nearly producing two 1,000-yard rushers and grinding out wins with a dominant defensive front seven.

If the 2015 team is to win the East for a third consecutive year, it will be because it managed to become a carbon copy of last year’s bunch. It won’t be easy, as Georgia looks to field its best team since ’12, Tennessee is on the verge of re-emerging and Steve Spurrier has yet to retire from South Carolina.

Here are a few of the team’s most pronounced strengths and weaknesses following spring practice.

STRENGTHS

  • Interior defense: Mizzou may have the best collection of defensive tackles and linebackers in the SEC this year. I’ll decline to take that statement further at the risk of sounding bombastic, but it’s not impossible. Players like Harold Brantley, Kentrell Brothers, Michael Scherer, Rickey Hatley, Josh Augusta, Terry Beckner Jr., Clarence Green and Donavin Newsom give the team top-end talent as well as depth, pass rush as well as stuffing the run.
  • Running game: Russell Hansbrough could be the team’s offensive MVP in 2015 (if he wasn’t in ’14 as well). Exiting spring, the team’s offensive line is better adept at shoving people off the line of scrimmage than in pass protection, and with a passing game that looks inconsistent at best, offensive coordinator Josh Henson should rely on the ground game.
  • Talent development: We just witnessed four Mizzou players get drafted in the first two rounds, as impressive a collection of NFL talent as any team in the SEC. Granted, receiver Dorial Green-Beckham came to Columbia, Mo., as a five-star signee, never developed to his potential and lost his spot on the team due to off-field issues. But the three others — Shane Ray, Mitch Morse and Markus Golden — exceeded just about every outside expectation in the last calendar year, making millions for themselves in the process. They should thank coach Gary Pinkel and the team’s coaching staff, which develops talent as well as any group in the SEC. Mizzou will need that talent development at full force in fall practice.

WEAKNESSES

  • Inexperience at WR: There’s a legitimate possibility that Raymond Wingo, a cornerback that the coaches converted to receiver part-way through spring practice, enters the season as one of the team’s four or five best pass-catchers.
  • Uncertainty at OL: It’s great that the team has so many versatile, experienced pieces with which to work in ’15. C Evan Boehm and LT (currently) Connor McGovern make for cornerstone pieces. But continuity matters at offensive line, perhaps more than any other position. I can’t imagine playing musical chairs at the four positions other than center at least leading into fall camp in August will maximize this group’s solid talent.
  • Recruiting/facilities: Be careful taking umbrage with this one, Tigers fans. If we are to judge Mizzou as a bottom-half team in the SEC, this isn’t an issue. But the program deserves more respect than that at this point. If we’re to grade Mizzou as one of the best six or seven football teams in the conference right now, relative to its peers, the team’s recruiting and facilities fall short.