What does Mizzou’s offense look like without Emanuel Hall at 100 percent? We found out on Saturday against Georgia and it wasn’t pretty.

The star receiver is dealing with a groin injury, which he suffered earlier in the year, and it was evident against the Bulldogs in a 43-29 loss.

Yes, Hall also had to deal with playing against Georgia CB Deandre Baker, who is a likely first-round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, but it was clear he wasn’t his usual explosive self. In fact, he didn’t make an impact at all, recording zero catches on Saturday. (Baker eventually was moved over to cover Albert Okwuegbunam.)

That affected QB Drew Lock and the rest of the offense. When Hall is right, even when he’s not catching passes, defenses must respect him and keep a safety over the top. Even that’s not enough sometimes, as Hall has developed a reputation for torching secondaries.

On Saturday, though, Baker was able to contain him basically by himself, and that put Lock and the rest of the offense in a jam, as there was less space to work with. Lock still made some incredible throws, including this beauty to Okwuegbunam for a two-point conversion:

However, not having Hall meant the Bulldogs could keep more defenders close to the line of scrimmage, which clogged throwing lanes all afternoon long.

Not connecting with Hall for a couple of big plays led to Lock averaging only 4.6 yards per pass attempt against the Dawgs. For reference, he averaged 8.7 yards per throw against Purdue.

The Tigers didn’t really even target Hall on Saturday, so he wasn’t an effective decoy, either. You have to respect the senior leader wanting to be on the field for the big game, but he probably would have been better off sitting out and giving himself three weeks to get healthy.

Now, as the Tigers enter their bye this weekend, Hall has two weeks to return to full strength, and that will be the biggest key to the rest of the season.

If Mizzou’s defense had come out and performed like it did against Purdue, that would be the huge storyline this week. However, the Tigers showed up on that side of the ball against Georgia, as a fumble-return touchdown and a punt block accounted for 14 of Georgia’s points. Turnovers by the offense also put the Mizzou defense in some bad situations, but they managed to hold the Bulldogs to field goals on a couple of occasions.

That should give fans hope that the defense can keep the Tigers in games against South Carolina next weekend, Kentucky in Week 9 and Florida in Week 10. Therefore, we can shift our attention to Hall’s health.

You have to think that Lock will be better against some of these other SEC East teams, but he does certainly miss what Hall brings to the table. Guys like Albert O (even though he had a big day against Georgia), Johnathon Johnson, Nate Brown and others also miss the space that having Hall on the field provides them.

The Tigers will need to come up with a backup plan in case Hall can’t get back to 100 percent, but with a couple of weeks to let his body heal, he’ll hopefully be ready to go against South Carolina in Week 6.

The Gamecocks don’t have the strongest secondary, so if Hall is back, he can go yard-for-yard with South Carolina star WR Deebo Samuel. The Tigers will need that, and will hope Hall is ready to make some more plays like this following the bye: