After a nice start to the season, the Missouri Tigers have fallen apart. Mizzou has gone from two-time defending SEC East champs ranked in the AP Top 25, to 4-4 and 1-3 in the SEC after a three-game losing streak. Now Missouri gets a weekend off before taking on a tough Mississippi State team next week. Here’s a look at five things the Tigers hope they have fixed during the bye week:

1. Quarterback Play — Maty Mauk is returning from suspension and may get an opportunity to take back over the offense struggling mightily with freshman Drew Lock running the show. But it’s not like Mauk was lighting it up before his suspension. Mauk has completed 51.8 percent of his passes with 6 touchdowns and 4 interceptions. Lock has completed 50.7 percent of his passes with 3 touchdowns and 3 interceptions. Mizzou has to figure out how it’s going to balance the snaps going forward and also see if there’s anything it can change about the scheme or approach to help the quarterbacks find more success.

2. Big Plays on Defense — It’s hard to knock the Tigers defense at this point. They’ve only allowed 100 points in eight games and are limiting opponents to 282 yards of total offense a contest. But the big difference between Missouri and other dominant defenses such as Alabama’s is the lack of big plays to change the momentum. Missouri has gained 11 turnovers to Alabama’s 17. As difficult as it is for the Missouri offense to get the ball in the end zone, the Tigers are going to have to rely on the defense to help them put points on the board.

3. Find Somebody to Carry the Ball — With Russell Hansbrough battling injuries pretty much since the very start of the season, the Mizzou running game has pretty much been a joke. Ish Witter has taken over as the primary back, but he’s averaging just 3.8 yards per carry with 1 rushing touchdown. Neither quarterback is particularly mobile with the ability to help with the running game, but it is Lock who has the Tigers’ longest run this season, a 33-yard scramble. It’s the only rush of more than 30 yards by the Tigers all season. Witter has broken off one 27-yard run. After that, Missouri’s longest running play was a 26-yard fake punt by Corey Fatony.

4. Get Better on First Down — One thing that might help the Tigers offense is to come up with plays designed to simply get a little yardage early in the drives. Thanks to its quarterbacks barely completing half their passes, the Tigers are finding themselves in third-and-long situations way more than is ideal, leading to a third-down conversion rate of 28.95 percent, which ranks 125th in the FBS. Less than 4 yards per carry out of their running backs is nothing to be happy about, but if that’s what you are getting with runs on first and second downs, at least it puts you in a manageable position on third down. Perhaps the Tigers need to get big back Tyler Hunt more involved and go more toward the old 3 yards and a cloud of dust philosophy.

5. Get Healthy — No matter how the team is doing, that’s the one thing a coach wants to get out of any bye week. Mizzou has had key players banged up all season, including Hansbrough and star linebacker Kentrell Brothers. Brothers has played quite well, but Hansbrough has been severely limited. Some rest would do both a lot of good, along with just about everybody else who has gone through the physical grind of eight college football games.