Rapid Reaction: Bazelak, Mizzou stun Brennan and LSU
LSU’s passing game is just fine.
The defense is another matter.
Missouri came up with a last-minute goal-line stand to shock defending national champion LSU 45-41 on Saturday in Columbia, Missouri.
Missouri went ahead 45-41 with 5:18 left in the game on Connor Bazelak’s 6-yard touchdown pass to tight end Niko Hea.
Myles Brennan passed for more than 300 yards for the third consecutive game and threw four touchdown passes for No. 17 LSU in a game that was scheduled for Saturday night in Tiger Stadium before being moved midweek because of the threat from Hurricane Delta.
Terrace Marshall Jr. caught 3 of the touchdown passes and Arik Gilbert caught the other. Marshall has caught seven of Brennan’s 14 touchdown passes.
LSU (1-2) just could not slow down Missouri (1-2).
Missouri used lots of misdirection and a few trick plays to take advantage of LSU’s lack of discipline and gain 586 yards. Bazelak threw for 406 yards and 4 touchdowns on 29-of-34 passing.
Missouri also had consistent success blocking and breaking tackles against the confused LSU defense.
LSU ran for just 1 yard in the first half and started the second half determined to run it more and better.
Tyrion Davis-Price ran for 24 yards on the first play of the third quarter, but LSU stalled and punted.
On Missouri’s first play of the quarter, Larry Rountree fumbled and Jabril Cox recovered for LSU at the Missouri 5.
Davis-Price ran 4 yards, then 1 yard for the tie-breaking touchdown.
Then the LSU defense reverted to its first-half form.
Missouri had pass completions of 15 and 10 yards, a 9-yard run, then a 41-yard touchdown pass from Connor Bazelak to Micah Wilson, who was uncovered.
On the first play after the kickoff Brennan found Marshall for a 75-yard touchdown and a 38-31 lead.
Missouri came right back with a 21-yard touchdown pass from Bazelak to Tyler Badie to tie the score.
Cade York kicked a 51-yard field goal as time expired to give LSU a 41-38 lead at the end of the third quarter.
LSU didn’t convert a third down during the first three quarters.
Missouri had a chance to tie early in the fourth quarter, but Harrison Mevis was short on a 56-yard field-goal attempt.
Bazelak threw a 69-yard completion to Chance Luper to set up the touchdown pass to Hea to give Missouri the lead for good.
LSU drove to the 1-yard line in the final seconds but Mizzou held firm and denied LSU on two final pass plays.
The LSU defense and special teams managed to take the ball way 3 times. LSU coach Ed Orgeron said during the week that he planned to get the ball to Gilbert more.
He wasn’t kidding.
Brennan found Gilbert, the most highly-touted tight end ever to arrive at LSU, five times for 84 yards and a touchdown in just the first half. But Gilbert appeared to injure a shoulder in the second quarter and saw limited action after that.
When Brennan wasn’t finding Gilbert he was generally finding Marshall, who had 2 touchdowns among his three first-half catches for 40 yards.
Missouri, which scored a total of just 31 points in its first two games, showed right away that this game was going to be much different than the last two.
It took a 7-0 lead on the first possession when Bazelak threw a 58-yard touchdown pass to Tauski Dove.
LSU responded on its first possession as Brennan threw a 6-yard score to Marshall.
After Missouri failed on a faked punt, Brennan drove LSU to a 2-yard touchdown pass to Marshall for a 14-7 lead.
Badie ran 29 yards for a Missouri touchdown that tied the score at the end of the first quarter.
LSU took advantage of two Missouri turnovers as Brennan and Gilbert teamed on a 25-yard touchdown and York kicked a 42-yard field goal for a 24-14 lead early in the second quarter.
Jalen Knox ran 16 yards for a touchdown and Mevis kicked a 52-yard field to pull Missouri even at halftime.
Congrats to Mizzou! I like your QB. I don’t like most of your uniforms, but those white helmets are awesome! Throw the black ones in the trash.
One of the best goal line stands in school history.
I told you so.
The Curse of Orgeron is long and strong and permeates all.
All of our fans who doubted it owe me an apology.
Let’s watch and observe the character of our fans.
I apologize that you’re an idiot Truvol, but you’re quite funny
MIZ!
Didn’t expect that outcome, especially with all the bad turnovers.
Yeah, Mizzou had some unforced errors that became turnovers and LSU got 17pts off those mistakes. At the very least the score was closer than it should have been, and at worst easily could have cost Mizzou the victory.
MIZ!!! What a fun game all around. We need every win we can get. Good game, gotta clean up some big mistakes, hope LSU can bounce back next week
The best team on the field won today. Been following LSU for over sixty years. Have never seen such a dismal defensive performance. Congrats to Mizzou for taking advantage – that’s what good teams do!
What a fun week so far! Hell of a game, Mizz.
Obviously there’s a learning curve with Pelini’s defense. Confusion while lining up, busted coverages, missed assignments, you name it, this defense doesn’t get it. Two things we can feel confident about in 2020: Vandy will go winless; Alabama will win the SEC.
Congrats to Mizzou.
As bad as Pelini is for you guys, he’ed still be an upgrade over what we have at DC.
I like our defensive coordinator. When really looking at this game we could not matchup with their receiver and tight end, but we kept everyone else in check. We’ll be fine.
Congrats to mizzu’s D, they played a great game in the first 10 yards. Tough front seven. Made the stop when they had to.
Would rather have Barry Odom as DC.
mike 5675, why are you such a troll? worry about msu and why they may not win another game this season.
I can tell you without hesitation Pellini is not your guy. Ask Nebraska?
Congrats to Mizzou. The week started with a classy move by Mizzou welcoming LSU so it’s good for them they got this win.
LSUs Def sucks! Whoever thought LSU would consistently be able to score 40pts and have 2 losses to non-elite tms? LSU fans have been craving an offense for a decade. Now we’ve got one we can’t play D!
I was all in on the Bo hire at DC. However, it’s clear the gm had passed him by. Bo needs to Go!
Yeah. Shame to waste a good offense on this defense.
Passing game is great downfield, need more “got da 1st down” action that’s play calling. Ofor8 is not good. Les Miles was stubborn over the run game, hope O isn’t over the 4-3, it’s antique. Other than Jabelle Cox, where are the other LBs? Love my Tigers, but if there isn’t some change on defense, it’s going to be a sad year.
Thanks, best wishes for everyone in Louisiana.
Even with LSU going through struggles, this is a monumental win for us.
Congrats man. Enjoy it fully. Your Offense played inspired all gm.
I was happy to get Bo P after losing Aranda, due to his history. But we can’t stop the run or the pass. They made a good young qb look lik Joe Burrow. It’s a combo of young players and bad coaching. Something is got to change, “scrap the 4-3”.
I always will respect LSU. Have not forgotten their full page ad welcoming us into the SEC. Classy move and appreciated. Hoping for all to stay safe during the hurricane in LA.
Agree LSU is a good program with good fans, they may have a rough patch or two but they always come back.
It was an honor to have the defending national champions at Faurot Field. Especially because this is a close all-time series.
At the end of the 2020 season everyone will recognize that LSU and Missouri both are among the top football teams in the nation, both athletes and coaches need practices and game repetitions to reach their best potential. This is why pre-season and early season predictions are just not good journalism. Goh Tiiguurs and Geaux Tigahs
hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahhaha
Ole miss 70 LSU 63 sounds about right
Wow, the SEC is a bloodbath!
UF and LSU losing? Crazy.
Mizzou is going to win some games this year. They didn’t roll over against Bama either. Bazelak can be really good. Roundtree has already shown that he can be consistently good
Keep in mind this was Baz first start. His core of no name receivers were catching the ball, maybe they will be starting receivers before long.
Absolutely exposed. What a finish!
Anyone looking forward to the big 12 game between Florida and LSU next week?
I see a 53 – 50 gm with whoever has the ball last winning. Shocking what’s happened to both tms Defs!
What’s with LSU and hurricane games? 0-2 both losses on goal line stands?
I know right. I felt queasy when it was announced a hurricane was affecting the gm. That’s not why we lost though. I expected a slow start with the late change of plans and early start. The D never got into the gm. Pelini isn’t making halftime adjustments. Aranda would change it up to stop offenses. I miss Aranda……
Good win for Missouri.. Is Coach O the new Chizik?
Best win since @Georgia in 2013. First win against a defending champ in…forever. I have only nice things to say to LSU players as they were dealing with a very difficult circumstance this week. But no way around it, this is a truly massive win for Eli Drinkwitz and Mizzou
Man… that was awesome! We coughed up the ball 3 freaking times and still won.
Bazelak is impressive, I can’t say enough about him. Our 3 starting receivers out with covid and somehow had a better day than the last weeks. I’m thinking our “starters” and keep the bench warm next week, it’s refreshing to see guys actually catch passes.
LSU looked lost on defense, Pelini should be fired.
It’s really bad when Oklahoma and Texas is a lower scoring game than both this game and Florida v. A&M. The SEC needs to look for some better defensive coordinators because this is just embarrassing to watch.
….and how’d’Bama’s Defense do exactly?
Yep
That includes Alabama. Our defense is horrifically bad and it falls directly onto Golding.
don’t judge the present by the past or the future by the present there are more surprises coming
Congrats Mizzou Tigers!
What a total team effort. Yes we gave LSU 3 turnovers along w 17 points, but we won every aspect of this game. Somewhere in the second quarter we stopped coaching and playing like helpless underdogs. Once we realized our personnel was as good as theirs, we gained confidence. What great start to the Drinkwitz era. Congratulations to Mizzou Nation!!!! LSU as played MSU, Vandy and now Mizzou and is 1-2, it doesn’t look good for LSU the rest of the season, but good luck.
Nice try bayou bengals, by my calculation you are 0-1 at Faurot Field and 1-2-1 vs Mizzou now. Time to hire our coach yet?
We need a DC, don’t want yours.
LOLOLOLOL!!!!
Big win! We made some big mistakes, but an awesome offensive performance. LSU has had a lot of distractions this week with the storm and hoping for minimal damage for the people of Louisiana. Coach O is going to get a lot of crap starting 1 and 2, but I hope people give him a break after last season. That said, Pelini gets no break from me, he has always been a bit of jerk. I hate to see what Alabama is going to do to that D if changes aren’t made soon.
Ugly ugly game. And if not for tree3 and Badie we should have lost. Oh! And Pellini! Lets give coach props for Mizzous victory.
Can’t agree with you – and I’m a loooongtime LSU fan. The best team on the field won today. Good teams overcome their mistakes. Seems the “lower” echelon is tired of that label. Couldn’t see Missouri, Tennessee. et al, accepting mediocrity for too long. Just makes the SEC that much more trying.
Yeah, UT is going to smack around some of the “better” teams this year. Don’t know how long it will last but they better make hay now. If they get two shots at Bama I would bet on UT to win one
The LSU D was so horrible, the offense got the ball back with 5 mins and tried to run out the clock before scoring! 1st and Goal at the 2 with a minute to go and they’re trying not to score too soon! Didn’t trust the D to stop Mizzou with less than a minute to go. With good reason. SMH.
yikes… congrats to Mizzou, yall played awesome! even with all going on around the team no excuses to what happened on defense. I really like Bazelek he is gonna be a really good player.
This D is so bad. I mean so bad. What a waste of Jabril Cox and Derek Stingley. Such a shame that our offense which has been quite good is wasted and negated by such a bad defense. numerous times on long Mizzou pass plays the nickel and outside corner would miscommunicate and both cover the underneath leaving the go route receiver wide open for Bazelek to pick out. ugh… knew there was a learning curve to Bo’s D but a couple more performances like that and he’s out of BR… Let’s play a pick ’em… with who LSU has coming up on the schedule, who will score more than 50 on this LSU D… For reference, this is their future schedule…
@Florida – a shootout in the Swamp given Florida’s D is also bad
SC – probably not but who knows at this point
@Auburn – see SC description
Alabama – Bama may score 60
@Arkansas – probably not but again who knows
@Texas A&M – 50/50 shot at A&M getting above 50 points
Ole Miss – probably at this point
And again I still think this can be a 7-3 team with the way the offense can play, but the defense is so suspect that LSU could be under .500 this year. It’s just that bad
We are not a 7-3 team. I’m hoping for a winning record at this point. That won’t happen if we don’t get better in all areas. Chances are good that we are 1-3 after next week. I don’t ever remember LSU being 1-3.
We may have won all the games we’re going to win this year. Not sure what’s wrong but there’s a major problem in the front office, these kids are talented but not well-coached. The D has absolutely no idea what’s going on. SMH
Your O is good enough and you’ve got quality players on D. The coaches have to dumb down the defense, “see ball-get ball” To much thinking going on on the defensive side.
Wow! Congrats Mizzou!
The second best part of this is Mizzou fans thinking they’re a good team because of that crap fest.
I know right! How stupid of us to celebrate a victory. I’ll get all the Mizzou fans together for an emergency meeting and let them know that a meth-addicted cousin humping bama fan thinks that we should be embarrassed when we defeat the reigning national champion. So glad you’re here to set us straight!
Enjoying an exciting win isn’t delusional. We have some work to do on defense for sure. For me, the best part of the game (outside the goal-line stand) was seeing Connor Bazelak step into the starting role and execute for 4 quarters.
No they don’t. Missouri is still the mediocre team they were in the Big 12. Now Missouri is just playing in the “way over-rated” SEC.
mike5675, you’re really dd2 the infamous uga troll. If your mom finds out you’re on the internet again you’ll be grounded.
This was embarrassing. I have liked Drink from the beginning and this QB is legit. The LSU defense is talented but terrible. Not playing together at all. Bo is off to a terrible start. The offense is better, but still not doing enough with all that talent. We need to work on 3rd down in a big way. How can we not be able to run when Missouri had a few DLineman out? How can we not cover when they had several receivers out. Orgeron made all the right coaching calls last season. This new group is failing so far. Gotta give Missouri credit and apologize to their fans. I thought this was a game for LSU to get right from an execution standpoint as I didn’t have the proper respect for this opponent. Instead, they basically blew us out. Not good.
Apology accepted. Defense is down everywhere in the SEC in 2020. The lack of reps in the spring and fall has hurt everybody except UGA so far. New scheme, terminology and DC doesn’t make it any easier. LSU will improve, but until then y’all need to lean hard on your offense until it happens. Not sure why the run plays were abandoned so early , but that has to be shored up as well. Best of luck moving forward.
LSU payed some football that shouldn’t be dismissed because the result wasn’t everything expected. Both these teams are improving at a good pace. Acknowledging LSU’s offense against a DC the media likes a lot is only fair.
Congrats to Mizzou!
Faux’s got to geaux!
Stuns?
I’m not stunned. Mizzou isn’t a bad team. Bazelak was having a nice game against us. I guess I am surprised that LSU can’t defend the forward pass. The hangover continues.
Great win mizzoura! I thought this one might be close and high scoring. LSU just has too many new parts and pieces. Lots of talent but need seasoning.
Congrats to Mizzou!
I’m sitting here scratching my head trying to figure out where in the world all the defense has gone!? I’m sick to my stomach, watching the SEC bash each other around, while Ohio St & Clemson are just licking their chops in anticipation. They don’t play anybody, so they’ll all be healthy and ready to go at the end. Gee, I hope Bama doesn’t come out playing flat or have an off game today. This is just strange times! Oh and I agree 100% that Bo needs to go! Something gotta give. Congrats to A & M and Mizzou on their wins today!
Bro, this is a Big 12 style of year. Offense only. Never in my life would I think that Bama has to score 60 to beat Ole Miss. That’s crazy, but that’s the reality of this year so far.
….and we didn’t play anyone..
wink