It was a combination of consistently poor field position and a struggling offense that doomed Missouri in the Texas Bowl on Wednesday night.

While Mizzou had its spurts on the offensive side of the ball, it didn’t do nearly enough to get past the Texas Longhorns in Houston’s NRG Stadium.

The Longhorns knocked off the Tigers 33-16.

Here are a few story lines from the game:

About that field position… 

Coaches talk about it all the time, yet its importance is still often undervalued. Texas punter Michael Dickson may have been the MVP of the game. Mizzou was backed up in its own end zone all night, thus its drives constantly resulted in short gains to get out of trouble — and then a punt. However, the field position battle finally bit the Tigers hard near the end of the third quarter when a botched snap rolled out of the back of the end zone and ended in a safety to put Texas up 23-16. That felt like a momentum swing in the game. Missouri also had nine penalties for 86 yards. Not good.

Josh Heupel’s absence was felt 

The same Mizzou offense that led the SEC in both scoring and total offense throughout the regular season looked totally inept against the ‘Horns. How much of that was because of former offensive coordinator Josh Heupel’s departure to take over as the head coach at UCF? It’s a question worth pondering when one considers the Tigers only put up 390 yards while also committing four turnovers. It’s nothing against tight ends coach Joe Jon Finley, but he had never called plays before the bowl game — and things just didn’t look right. For comparison, Mizzou was averaging 511.5 yards per game coming into this one.

What’s next for Drew Lock? 

Big surprise — Lock was able to devour the Longhorns’ defense at times through the air, at least occasionally when he had an open field to do so. This is the question on every Mizzou fan’s mind … Will Lock forego his senior year with the Tigers to head to the NFL? There isn’t much more he can do in Columbia from a passing standpoint to further his career, and he’ll soon have a new OC to deal with. There’s a good chance he could go pro early. Hopefully Tigers fans will have an answer soon.