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Knee-Jerk Reactions: Florida 24, Missouri 17

Chris Mitchell

Mizzou Football is still hunting for its first conference win in 2022 after falling to the Florida Gators 24-17. What went right, what went wrong, plenty of stuff to unpack here as we dive into some of my knee-jerk reactions to this ballgame.

 

Mizzou’s skill position room is growing into its own

First things first, a moment of zen from Nathaniel Peat:

While the touchdown run to make it a one score game was nice, and as much as I think Peat was far and away the offensive player of the game with 117 rushing yards to go along with that touchdown, I came away from this game very impressed with Mizzou’s pass catchers, especially down the stretch. You weren’t just getting action from Dominic Lovett, Mookie Cooper and Luther Burden (up to a point, we’ll get to that later), you were getting it from Tauskie Dove and Mekhi Miller:

All five of those wideouts ended up with at least 20 receiving yards, a lot of those yards ended up being for an impressive amount of long conversions for first downs. They were game to make plays all day long, exemplified by Cody Schrader converting on a 3rd and 22 on a desperation dump off pass from Brady Cook. 13 passing first downs in total, 9-for-17 on third down conversions in a hostile environment like The Swamp in Gainsville for Florida’s Homecoming makes me feel like there’s potential here for Mizzou’s skill position room to be one of the deadliest in the SEC East, and that speaks to the recruiting and the player development aspects of this Drinkwitz staff. You can see the vision and the vision is pretty decent.

 

By hook or by crook, you gotta keep Luther Burden healthy

I think Luther Burden’s got a nice future with Mizzou Football and a very promising college career ahead of him. Even if he doesn’t blow up the stat page this season, you look at the looks he got in this game and you can see why he was so highly touted in the first place.

And then he went down with an ankle injury, needed assistance to get to the sideline, and wasn’t seen for the rest of the game.

It’s in moments like these where you realize how razor thin the margins for error can be on any given snap of football. Sure, injuries happen and every team’s gotta be prepared for it, but when you got a player with the promise and gravitas as Luther Burden, you gotta be prepared to make some decisions that may sacrifice some gains on a micro scale in order to maximize your returns on a macro scale. I don’t claim to know more than a coaching and medical staff working in the Southeastern Conference, so instead of armchair quarterbacking I’ll hope and I’ll expect that this staff does what it takes to make sure Burden has as prosperous a career with Mizzou as possible. Even if it means giving him the bubble wrap treatment.

 

Mizzou’s run defense still needs some work

Having serious critiques for this Mizzou defense feels a little bit strange, given how many plays they made to keep Mizzou in this game. They played aggressive like last week against Georgia and the week before that against Auburn, and came away with a couple of turnovers to boot. Florida’s passing game wasn’t particularly potent either with just 66 yards total to its name, and that’s a credit to Mizzou’s pass coverage all throughout the ballgame. With all that being said, Florida had 297 net yards of offense in total, and those 231 extra yards had to come from somewhere, if not from the pass.

When the second half rolled around, Florida’s offense was able to flip Mizzou’s aggressive defensive posture against it, giving their running backs some wide open spaces for some big runs as the defense swarmed the wrong targets. It’s bound to happen at some point, no matter who you are, but the manner in which the Gators were able to get off those big chunk plays at the start of drives put the Tigers insanely behind schedule, which ended up biting them in the rear once they were able to get into the red zone. It’s coaching, it’s conditioning, and it’s something that ultimately can be improved. I am very interested to see what tweaks and adjustments they make in the week they have off to prepare for Vanderbilt, a team averaging 5 yards per carry and 176 rushing yards per game.

 

Anthony Richardson got that dawg in him

This one’s for all the Mizzou fans that are also fans of NFL teams in need of some QB help. It wasn’t a particularly pretty showing for Anthony Richardson, but he made himself out to be an X factor when his team needed it. If the play broke down, he was out there using his legs and size extending the play to try and make something out of nothing. And then there’s this pass:

This right here is why scouts and NFL draft nerds like this guy so much. The coverage is solid but the placement of the ball was just so for the wide receiver to grab it and make it six. It demanded perfection, which is really what you want from your QB game at the end of the day. Which brings us to…

 

Mizzou’s gotta level up their quarterback game (again)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Mizzou Football needs more out of their QB play. Sound familiar? It should, because I feel like that’s been the refrain of most observers of these Mizzou offenses ever since Drew Lock graduated (and even then there was definitely room for improvement). From Kelly Bryant, Shawn Robinson, Connor Bazelak, and now Brady Cook, this room’s been lacking in a conference that has shaped itself around elite quarterback play. It’s what’s separated the contenders from the teams that maaaaybe scrapes a bowl game.

To Cook’s credit, he did try his darndest to give Mizzou the chances it needed on offense to not just stay in the game, but deliver an upset on Florida and get some positive momentum going into the bye week and subsequently Vanderbilt at home. The problem is that the holes that Mizzou found themselves in were ones that Cook dug himself with rough throws, poor decision making, and limited awareness in the pocket. It’s gotten to the point where it may be worth giving that quarterback room another scan to see if there’s someone else who can elevate the ceiling of this offense, and by extension the team as a whole. The way things are now, if Cook continues to stumble like this in ways that manifest as literal difference makers in ballgames, it demands perfection from the offense, the defense, and the special teams, which is something that no team in college football or in the NFL can give you.

Quarterback play is how you increase your margin for error, as exemplified by Mr. Richardson in this exact game, and you either have to coach your QB1 up to get at that level or find someone in that room or outside this room who is already at that level. If you can’t do that, that may be the difference between having a job in the SEC and having a job…not in the SEC.

 

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