O’Gara: Mizzou’s opener shows all you need to know about the year-to-year difference
Published:
Last year, all-time SEC leading passer Aaron Murray made a declaration on SEC Network in the final minutes of Mizzou’s season-opening victory against South Dakota. It wasn’t the boldest claim, but it was telling that it needed to be said.
Brady Cook, not Sam Horn, deserved to be Mizzou’s starting QB. End the “battle,” Murray said.
That was only a year ago. Stunning, I know.
A year later, Mizzou opened the season as the No. 11 team in America with one of the 10 best signal-callers in the sport. Cook didn’t look the part for chunks of Thursday night’s season opener against Murray State. He overthrew receivers on the deep ball he worked tirelessly on. He sailed an easy throw to tight end Brett Norfleet. He didn’t realize that the clock was running at the end of the first half. Cook looked … rusty. The Mizzou signal-caller looked visibly frustrated with himself at points in that first half.
Oh, and Mizzou still went into halftime up 35 points, which was the total it posted in last year’s “quarterback-battle deciding opener.” Welcome to the new age.
(Sorry. No more quoting Imagine Dragons. Ever.)
Expectations are fun. Mizzou’s offense is at the center of that fun, which it still can be even when it doesn’t click for a full 60 minutes as we saw on Thursday night in a 51-0 victory.
Mizzou left plenty of meat on the bone in that first half. If you stumbled into a packed Faurot Field a few minutes late, you quickly realized that it was already 21-0 thanks to a failed Murray State onside kick attempt to open the game, a failed Murray State 4th down attempt and a failed pass attempt that turned into a Mizzou pick-6.
flashin’ the HANDS ‍@MizzouFootball x @SECNetwork pic.twitter.com/EeY2pqHv65
— Southeastern Conference (@SEC) August 30, 2024
Credit Mizzou’s new-look defense — the Tigers lost 5 players to the NFL Draft and coordinator Blake Baker took edge-rushers coach Kevin Peoples with him to LSU — for providing short fields all night. It surrendered just 85 yards of offense to an overmatched Murray State offense. That group showed up with some bad intentions and didn’t have the lull that Mizzou’s first-team offense did. Tougher tests await, but Corey Batoon’s unit put any of those defensive turnover concerns on the back burner in Week 1.
In the midst of that up-and-down start was Luther Burden III reminding us that there might not be 5 players better than him in the sport. He took a pop pass for 10 yards on Mizzou’s first play from scrimmage, and then closed the first drive by making a defender miss in space (stop me if you’ve heard that before) and waltzing into the end zone. Burden could’ve had 3 touchdowns in the first quarter if not for a DPI on an end zone target and an overthrown deep ball by Cook when the junior wideout had a step and a clear path to the end zone.
Burden’s 49 scrimmage yards made for a relatively quiet night that won’t exactly have him winning any sort of August Heisman. Oh well. That’s a first-world problem for Mizzou to have.
Related: Looking to place a bet on the 2024 Heisman Trophy? SDS has you covered with all the latest odds!
Another first-world problem? Mizzou was tasked with replacing Cody Schrader, who was anything but a household name heading into last year’s opener, but he ran away with the SEC rushing title. All Eli Drinkwitz did was add a pair of former 1,000-yard rushers from the Group of 5 level in Marcus Carroll and Nate Noel. Those guys might be the first true timeshare backfield that Drinkwitz has had, especially if both have the burst that we saw on Thursday. The numbers weren’t stunning with 122 combined scrimmage yards, but both got into the end zone and looked effective with multiple catches out of the backfield.
Add it all up and you don’t need to watch Mizzou against Murray State to think it could be a top-10 offense in America. I can tell you that the Year 2 Kirby Moore offense will be worth the price of admission. Will that yield a Playoff berth? I couldn’t tell you. Let’s see how the defense progresses and if the offensive line can stay healthy before we have a clearer vision of that.
But I can also tell you that question is infinitely more fun to discuss than whether Mizzou can settle on a quarterback and have the first winning season of the Drinkwitz era.
Life has changed in a year. Significantly. Mizzou’s sell-out crowd for a Thursday night game against an FCS foe was a fitting indicator of that.
Still, Cook played well enough to get an early shower. He gave way to backup Drew Pyne in the middle of the third quarter. It was the second consecutive season-opening game in which Cook left after a blowout win, albeit under different circumstances. Last year, he had to be wondering if he could move past the notion that he’d lose his job as the incumbent starter. This year, I’ll make the declaration.
Cook’s best is yet to come.
Sleeper is one of our top apps like PrizePicks. When you sign up for an account today, remember to use promo code SOUTHXL and you’ll receive a first-time deposit match of up to $100:Â
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
