Mizzou football: The Tigers' offense should have a big night at South Carolina
Missouri’s 34-14 win over South Carolina last season snapped a 3-game losing streak to the Gamecocks. The 2 teams are scheduled to meet Saturday at 6:30 p.m. CT at Williams-Brice Stadium but under much different circumstances.
Both of the head coaches in last year’s game — Mizzou’s Barry Odom and South Carolina’s Will Muschamp — are now gone. That became true this past Sunday after Muschamp was fired.
The Gamecocks (2-5) are in a bad place right now after 3 consecutive losses. Muschamp was hired because of his defensive prowess, but the last straw of his tenure was giving up 59 points to Lane Kiffin and the Ole Miss Rebels.
The Gamecocks rank 13th in scoring defense (36.7), 12th in passing D (288.3) and 11th in rushing D (176.1) in the SEC. On top of all that, things got worse on Tuesday when the team’s best defensive players, junior corners Jaycee Horn and Israel Mukuamu, decided to opt out of the remainder of the season to focus on the NFL Draft. Horn and Mukuamu both have 2 interceptions, while Horn has a team-best 6 pass breakups.
If a couple of team leaders like Horn and Mukuamu can call it quits, what are others thinking right now? Mizzou (2-3) is in a unique spot, playing a team without solid leadership that might not be all in. And considering that the Gamecocks have given up an average of 53 points in their past 3 games, Tigers head coach Eli Drinkwitz has the opportunity to have his best offensive showing at Mizzou.
Since beating LSU on Oct. 10, when the offense netted 586 total yards and 45 points, Mizzou hasn’t exactly lit up the scoreboard. The Tigers scored 20 against Kentucky and 17 against Florida. To be fair, the Wildcats are tough on defense and that Gators unit is playing better as of late. But Saturday’s game needs to be a good one for Connor Bazelak and co.
With Horn and Mukuamu out, the smart move for the Tigers is to attack the secondary, which just gave up 513 yards and 4 touchdowns to Matt Corral. Mizzou’s passing game needs to have a better outing than it had in the previous 2 games when it amassed just 201 yards against Kentucky and 208 against Florida.
Bazelak, who wasn’t his usual accurate self against Florida, is more than capable of hurting a defense through the air. But the drops from his wideouts can’t happen like they did against the Gators — I’m looking at you, Damon Hazelton.
According to secstatcat.com, Hazelton, Mizzou’s grad transfer from Virginia Tech, has a team-high 5 drops on 30 targets. You’d like that number to be much lower for the receiver who’s tied for the most targets on the team. The other wideout with 30 targets is Jalen Knox, who has 2 drops, 1 of which should have been a momentum-shifting long touchdown catch at Florida.
While the offense knows where to attack, Mizzou’s defense shouldn’t be confused about what it needs to do, either. Gamecocks sophomore running back Kevin Harris and senior wideout Shi Smith are studs — the Tigers need to limit their production and make someone else beat them.
Harris, a physical runner at 5-foot-10, 225 pounds, leads the SEC with 817 rushing yards. He’s 2nd in yards per carry (6.24) and rushing scores (13), and he just torched Ole Miss’ defense (doesn’t everyone?) to the tune of 243 rushing yards and 5 touchdowns.
With South Carolina quarterback Collin Hill not wowing anyone (196 passing yards per game with 6 touchdowns and 6 interceptions), Mizzou’s defense should trust corners Ennis Rakestraw, Jarvis Ware, Ishmael Burdine and Adam Sparks to hold their own against the Gamecocks’ receivers while the front 7 — especially Nick Bolton, Devin Nicholson, Martez Manuel, Trajan Jeffcoat and others — worry about that rushing attack with Harris.
Safeties Manuel, Tyree Gillespie and Joshuah Bledsoe will be key in both run support and coverage against Smith, who’s a handful in 1-on-1 coverage. Smith comes into the game with 596 receiving yards and 4 touchdowns.
Mizzou will have 3 players serving 1st-half suspensions against South Carolina for their roles during a halftime brawl at Florida, including D-tackle Markell Utsey, O-lineman Dylan Spencer and linebacker Chad Bailey. Utsey and Spencer hurt the most as they are starters.
Another thing to keep in mind: There’s plenty of time for things to go south on the COVID-19 front. In his media session on Tuesday, Drinkwitz said his team was at 56 scholarship players, with more rounds of testing coming up later in the week. It will be interesting to see who will actually be available on Saturday.
If Mizzou plays this game, this is certain: The Tigers need to get out of there with a win behind their best offensive showing of the season.
I get paid over $90 1 to 3 hours working from home with 2 kids at home. I never thought I’d be able to do it but my best friend earns over $27k a month doing this and she convinced me to try. The potential with this is endless.
Heres what I’ve been doing..———-> Goodday5.Cf
Good for you, Pam. You can take your solicitation somewhere else now.
Sounds like you’re on scholarship at LSU.
up yours
@PamThomas, what does this have to do with football? And btw, there are child labor laws that prevent children from working at home while you get paid. Just sayin’
For us, I hope the players go out and have fun and be safe. Mizzou always plays a tough game and with Drink at the helm, I think it will continue to get better.
The games between these two team don’t typically go as predicted.
Well if this was a regular game without 3 weeks off and barely enough scholarship players to even play I’d say Mizzou should roll. But that’s not the case so I’m not sure anyone knows what to expect offensively, defensively, or otherwise.
I’m hoping Mizzou gets the win because they stand to gain more in what bowl game they get with a win than USC does.
right, at 2-3 they can still finish in a bowl game against a high profile team from another conference, Missouri has a decent bowl record and once the roster begins to get healthier it will bring a good atmosphere to finishing up an 11 game season.
Missouri had one game this season where they had good offensive numbers and now each game, people are predicting Missouri is going to do the same thing. It doesn’t matter that they’ve done very little in the other games.
Same old Zou.
Same old bootheeltroll
Pam works on her knees.
We are going to find out Saturday if this is the “New Zou” or same old Zou.
We found out about you by your dumass prediction of the hogs beating UF.
What a “no $hit Sherlock article.
Pans best friend does it 24 -7. Pam is lazy
Lol
Honestly I still have no clue if Mizzou is any good or not.
But what you DO know, is that South Carolina’s defense is woeful and there are limited offensive players who can be counted on to perform. Add to that an interim coach who was only just thrust into the head coaching role and who is more offensive minded than defensive.
Those are all facts but as you know the games between the two Columbia teams don’t usually seem to follow what is expected.