Wasson: How long can Missouri's high-wire act continue to last?
We wrote here in this space 3 weeks back that it might be time to start considering an all-in move on the Missouri Tigers.
At that moment, Mizzou was 2-0 and ranked No. 6 in the country. Now, Mizzou is 4-0 and ranked No. 9. There aren’t many possible scenarios we can dream up that would involve an SEC program actually moving down 3 spots in the polls despite remaining undefeated, but then again …
This is Missouri we are talking about. And the Tigers’ past couple of outings have us asking not how an undefeated conference team moves down in the polls, but instead: How long will Mizzou’s high-wire act last?
The Tigers opened with great promise, if you recall, thumping Murray State and Buffalo by a combined 89-0. All-American wide receiver Luther Burden III was at the tips of pundits’ tongues as a difference maker, and quarterback Brady Cook was doing Brady Cook things to fuel a high-octane offense.
Defensive coordinator Corey Batoon’s unit was swarming all over the field to give the Tigers back-to-back shutouts for the first time since 1966 — and consecutive shutouts to start a season for the first time since 1935.
This is our year, Mizzou fans were starting to holler. Flocking to ol’ Faurot Field to watch the Tigers was no longer gauche and instead a great way to spend a Saturday. Eli Drinkwitz was starting to gain Coach of the Year traction, and Missouri was being spoken of in the same sentences as Georgia and Alabama.
Two weeks later? Yeah, the Tigers won twice … but there are times when victories almost feel like losses. First, Mizzou needed to rally past 24th-ranked Boston College at home in a game that should have been nowhere near as close.
Sure, you say, but Bill O’Brien has Boston College respectable again, and Missouri hadn’t really been tested by the early cupcakes. Drinkwitz would figure it out, correct the correctables, and they’d roll over Vanderbilt the next week at ol’ Faurot.
Except no one sent Vandy the memo.
Instead, the Commodores gave Mizzou all it could handle, forcing the Tigers into a ton of mistakes and dragging them deep into the double-overtime pool. Once there and looking shakily around for floaties, Mizzou needed a game-winning field goal from Blake Craig (who had already missed 3 attempts earlier in the game) to survive.
That is the key word in the SEC, right? Survive?
Problem is, you shouldn’t need to survive in double-OT against Vanderbilt if you want to be a serious contender in the nation’s deepest conference and for a spot in the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff.
Mizzou should be thriving against the Boston Colleges and Vanderbilts, before the other big boys in the conference come calling. Because coughing up red-zone trips and spreading kicked footballs into far corners of end zones is not a recipe for SEC success.
Not that all is dire in Columbia. Running back Nate Noel gashed Vandy for 199 rushing yards, and Cook has thrown just 1 interception all season. But Cook also has been maddingly middling so far (236.5 yards per game and just 4 touchdown passes), and can’t seem to buy a completion downfield (just 3-of-12 in passes thrown 20-plus yards). And, it’s worth mentioning: Burden is on his side.
Still, it gets no easier moving forward. Mizzou surely spent the entire idle week trying to tune up its offense heading into a trip Saturday to College Station to take on No. 25-ranked Texas A&M. After another confectionary treat in the form of Massachusetts on the road, the Tigers get Auburn at home and then play at top-ranked Alabama to close out October.
It’s no longer talking the talk time for Missouri, and high time to start walking the walk. The nation’s current 101st-easiest schedule is about to get precipitously harder, and without the ability to spark up big plays – the Tigers will be exposed faster than the George Santos for Congress campaign.
Want to be elite, Mizzou? It’s high time you ramp it up on both sides of the ball and play like the preseason top 10 the rest of the country thought you were. Because if not, the Tigers will quickly figure out how slippery the trip down the mountainside is compared to the long hike uphill.
Any more playing like they did against Vandy, Missouri will be looking at 3 losses.
The tigers havent quite played up to expectations so far but they also havent lost. it used to be a good sign when you struggle and still win…
Cook is the key to mizzou success IMO. he hasnt played as well as last year yet. With a bye week both cook and the team should show upward improvement. ATM is a good team but they arent the quality of team you lose too and maintain momentum or position in the playoff pecking order. Everything is in front of both those teams and one will emerge with a path to the playoff while the other most likely wont.
“It used to be a good sign when you struggle and still win…”
Not when you do it two weeks in a row, against lesser competition, with your performance dropping as your level of competition rises.
It’s more than Cook that needs to improve. I’ve looked at their OL, which gave up no sack or TFLs their first two games, one sack and one TFL to BC, then 3 sacks and 8 TFLs to Vandy. Definitely getting worse as their competition level gets better.
A&M is not Alabama, but I know they have a MUCH better DL than Vandy does. If Mizzou’s OL doesn’t step up on Saturday, Cook will get the same rude treatment Mertz got from A&M 3 weeks ago.
Gator fans should be hiding, not posting on other team’s stories .
I’m an SEC football fan. I comment on most SEC teams.
I noticed you didn’t challenge the veracity of my statement. I suppose you found nothing in it to disagree with.
He’s living the dream vicariously through your team elbow. It’s harmless.
How about those gators! Florida is the school where football coaches careers go to die
Don’t look now, but Drinkwitz may be next. He’s not at the top of our list, but he is on the list. And if the Gators get down to him, he’s a gone Tiger.
Count on it.
Oh man, don’t tease! That would be hilarious!
One of the sacks was supposed to be on a catch/release hitch right before half that Cook took a sack on. You are right definitely the offensive lines fault.
Arkansas QB Green got it way worse than Mertz. Green was running for his life all game, where Mertz was actually a bit effective that game while the run-game was stuffed, like Arkansas got stuffed too.
A&M is basically an offense away from being a playoff team at the moment. The defense is sufficient, even very good some would say. The new offense isn’t clicking yet.
All this sweet talk from this legacy-loving rag will get you nowhere (eye-roll).
A&M hasn’t set the world on fire either. This game might eliminate the losing team.
Your statement is true for a great majority of the SEC in the next few weeks.
Agree . I can see a few SEC teams that may be a bit over-rated and will face reality soon. Probably us, probably Tennessee , now that I think about it , there are glaring weaknesses in every team this year. OSU is the only team that hasn’t been tested , so we won’t know about them until Oregon , but them aside (for now) , I can’t see any for sure undefeated teams at the end of the year.
A&M’s defense has been fairly solid. The offense has been not good, especially the passing game. It’d be hard to bet against Missouri because the better offense, but A&M’s pass-offense could eventually click. The OL isn’t bad.
@David Wasson, I would think that a sportswriter would understand this modern dynamic? NIL allows all programs to buy players, so 500 colleges get a shot at EVERY position they want to fill. You should be noticing odd performance uplifts everywhere you look. Instead you are noticing that certain game matchups are different than what “you” expected. It’s only going to get more confusing for YOU. Missouri is not underperforming as much as their opponents have slightly better starting 11’s. To a lesser extent a few programs are deeper.
Now don’t get your hopes up too high about the possibility that Missouri might not go undefeated. Because every week they win, even by a single point is a week their present day roster is at the very least having more fun every day! And close games have a way of building confidence and momentum also. Finally you are not casing every position on the field. And some of those have different game winning margin potential than others but they all win games.
Yeah, they beat mighty Vandy by the skin of their teeth! Vandy with all their one, two, and three star players with an occasional 4 star mixed in. THAT’S a game you want to hang your hat on? Your team has a problem defending mobile QBs, and were extremely fortunate the Vandy kicker shanked that kick…or I truly believe they would have won the 3rd OT.
And the OL had trouble protecting the QB. Not a good matchup against A&M’s DL.
Do you read what you write and ask, ?what grade does this read like?
I thought it was rather direct and pithy.
Learn to recognize what’s happening on a football field before you promise yourself and others you will spend hours writing notes on another program’s comment board. 4th grade level writing and about as far away from facts as can be wandered
Your post reminds us of a delicate question. Including everyone is important. How do you keep Missouri fans engaged after they realize what the rest of the SEC already knows? How do you/should you keep Missouri even though they don’t belong in the SEC geographically or culturally? You are the State of Michael Brown, BLM and St. Louis for heaven’s sake.
Voltralin is the Tennessee version of our Wolfman, except some people like wolf.
You don’t even know how little you know! So nobody else watching SEC football thinks you make any sense!
Still funny you care so much about Missouri’s geographic location. Btw, Tennessee has Memphis. It’s like St. Louis, but smaller and with worse BBQ.
Football conferences aren’t geographically or culturally aligned anymore. Get over it. And stop riding the coattails of real country and blue collar folks that define southern culture. Take a trip to anywhere in rural MO and you’ll see what I mean.
Everything you mentioned is a STL problem. Even Missouri would like to separate its self from that sh#t hole
What does NIL have to do with Cook missing open receivers downfield?!? Or committing so many offensive penalties, or cornerbacks blowing assignments leading to easy TDs, or poor red zone execution? This author is spot on. Mizzou has dramatically underperformed to-date against so-so opponents. If this continues, 9-3 or 8-4 is possible. Good news is Mizzou still controls its own destiny. If they can clean up mistakes and Cook suddenly returns to 2023 form, they could go 11-1 (not beating Bama on the road) and make the playoff. We’ll know soon enough…
Yes and no. All programs are different quality due to NIL. So you are seeing Missouri and many other programs in dogfights that seem out of place to fans who have almost zero knowledge about who each program bought.
Missouri supposedly spent a lot of money on NIL this last offseason. That’s been pretty widely reported.
lol, not bad David.. the average Mizzou fan has their hands clamped on the sides of their heads shouting “I’M NOT LISTENING.. I’M NOT LISTENING”
Well, I hope their eyes are wide open on Saturday because A&M > Vandy and Kyle is NOT Faurot.
Yea to win this one, Mizzou will have to start well, finish well, and play well in between.
Drink has had an extra week to get ready, lets see what he can do with it.
Will the A&M offense have a pulse is my question.
It’s a valid concern because Mizzou has a good D and defense travels. Their achilles heel was exposed by Pavia, but they’ve had two weeks to shore that up.
Author kind of moving the goalposts lol! Now it’s not good enough to be 4-0 with the longest active winning streak in college football…now we have to dominate teams that we are supposed beat…or else it should count as a loss??? Hmm.
I am not going to argue, we have not played our best football and if we lose to Texas A&M we should drop in the polls…but quit overreacting.
Drink has a good quote things are never as good or bad as they seem.
Fact is we have a good football team. Fact is we are playing another good football team on the road. It’s just another data point in a long season.
What does the longest active streak have anything to do with the 2024 season? Exactly…nothing at all!
Yes, your team should have dominated Vanderbilt, but the fact is, y’all got outplayed and outcoached and were extremely lucky to win on a missed kick or you may have lost in the 3rd OT to a team that lost the previous week to…Georgia State.
If you want to play that game; we missed three fg in regulation = 9 pts. But that’s not how things are measured. Games are measured in Wins or Losses. We are 4-0.
Last year doesn’t matter in terms of this year, but it does give someone some indication of potential, especially when a team has so much returning production coming back.
This early in the year with limited meaningful games; I imagine looking at how a team did the previous year with the same QB, same WRs, most of same line, and filling holes in off-season is valuable information (especially since that is now our team’s biggest question mark).
No one is arguing that we know how the rest of the season is going to go…Just that if we are ranking teams, I feel our ranking to this point is justified.
Missouri fans still don’t get it. Yes, it matters that you barely beat Vanderbilt. In college football, the way you win DOES matter. If you go 10-2 with losses to Alabama and A&M, you will not get into the playoffs when they see it took you two overtimes to beat Vanderbilt and struggled with BC. Do you really feel good about a road game at A&M and South Carolina right now based on how Missouri has looked? Man, you let Missouri have one decent year and this fan base thinks they are some blue blood program or something.
Let me just say my A&M’s offense has sucked so far. Missouri could easily win this. A&M’s offense could also suddenly click though. Defense is plenty good.
It is amazing to me that a school can do nothing , I mean nothing in over a decade and they think they have some room to talk down to another school. How you think about Florida this season is how EVERYONE thinks of Tenn every season. You guys need to stop thinking you know something no one else knows. Alabama in all reality is the only school who has earned the right to feel superior
ddstan…
nice read on seeing what you saw when you watched Vanderbilt nearly beat Missouri…
you called it right when you said Vanderbilt would play Alabama tough… well done.
Reverse your statement to see just how simple mindedly erroneous it is. Let’s look at a program that has the same losing streak going as Missouri’s winning streak? LOL we can all see which team you would be on!!! Lol
Mizzou, alongside countless other programs, hasn’t come close to playing their best game yet. Not sure why this “scolding” of an article was needed to call out the obvious, but so be it. Personally, I was very happy with how the Mizzou D completely shut down the BC running game (came in averaging 282 YPG but gained just 49) so that’s a positive building block. They also didn’t need to “rally” in that game, unless we’re talking about being down in the first quarter. Against Vanderbilt, Mizzou got the defensive stops and made the offensive plays when needed to win the game. Those types of games happen, as everyone knows.
I didn’t have the upcoming road games at A&M or at Alabama as wins in the pre-season, and still don’t now. 10-2 is still very achievable.
Aggie has not been impressive this year, why would you count this game as a loss?
If Mizzou actually plays well on both sides for 4 quarters there is no reason to think this game can’t be won.
Weird that you criticize the article while you don’t even expect to win.
It’s not weird at all. Before the season, I didn’t see a win in College Station because A&M is absolutely loaded with talent, and I expected Elko to pretty quickly have them in better shape than Jimbo ever did. Plus, it’s one of the more difficult places to play. Today, I don’t see a win because Mizzou hasn’t shown its A-game yet, and the Vanderbilt win didn’t instill confidence that it was imminent. Plus, it’s one of the more difficult places to play.
You stated in a post above what you think it will take for Mizzou to win, and I agree. We just haven’t seen that kind of game yet against stiffer competition. I’ll be thrilled to be wrong.
So you think aTm is riding a multiple year undefeated wave right now! Where do you come up with this ? It asinine to do this but it would be far more accurate if you were telling everyone how bab aTm was going to look this Sat.
A&M’s new offense has been bad so far. It could click sometime though. Have a great defense. This game could go either way or all Missouri if A&M’s offense can’t pass the ball.
This is nothing but a word salad from wolfman. It makes absolutely no sense. Missouri is not very good and is extremely overrated. Good luck at A&M. I have a feeling this game is not going to go the way you think it is.
Like voltrainconductor actually brings anything to the conversation.
Very good point. Both are buffoons
Lov98, How did UGA do against Kentucky? But they are still ranked in the top 5.
They shouldn’t have been
Where did lots of Missouri fans say it was going? You are NOT reading Missouri fans who have to comfort themselves with sunshine here. Just the opposite illiteracy from the afraid of-Mizzou-heads that follow Tiger stories. Are you missing the trembling of these children’s crayons writing.
“Mizzou is not very good”??
Last time I checked we kicked the Vols ass last time we played with mostly the same players coming back. 36-7 sound about right? We also beat Ohio State…I think they are in high regard.
TN fans just can’t stand Mizzou being good. They are kinda like Arkansas fans in that regard. I don’t get it.
Mizzou fans are realistic; unlike some fanbases in our conference. I have no idea how the game is going to go on Saturday. But I know if Cook can get going and connect on some deep shots, I think we have a good shot at extending the win streak.
My point is until someone beats us maybe hold off on the disrespect (fair?)
We “stand on businesss”…..Lol. Correct, Mizzou is not very good…..sorry. And if we are going to talk about the past, Tennessee hung over 60 points and routed Missouri in both 2021 and 2022….did you forget about those games? Last year was a slight down year for the Vols, we are over it friend. Kinda focusing on 2024 now. I’m proud of you guys for beating a highschool team dressed up in Ohio State uniforms in that meaningless bolw game last year though. Nice job!
“Brady Cook was doing Brady Cook things to fuel a high-octane offense.” If you had watched the games, you would know he was missing a lot of passes – short and deep – and making bad decisions just like the last two games. Mizzou fans saw the writing on the wall through our two cupcakes and Cook needs to figure it out before Saturday to leave with a win.
Batoon’s defense has still been very good, but not great. Our secondary has been exposed a few times, leading to two TDs by BC and another by Vandy. He’s not responsible for 3 of the regulation points Vandy put up due to Drink/Moore’s horrible decision before the half to go for it on 4th down in front of the 50 with 13 seconds to go. Holding Vandy to 17 in regulation isn’t bad. It’s not great, but it’s not bad. Their offense is better than before.
Truth is, Mizzou was a handful of mistakes away from dominating the last 8 quarters of football. Big mistakes, yes. Not as far from being a top 5 team as most would be led to believe.
We weren’t preseason top 10
I think I might have an answer to the question in this headline