KTGR ESPN 100.5 FM & 1580 AM
By: Andy Humphrey
Sure, you probably turned the game off when Georgia got into their rhythm. But at least celebrate the fact that Mizzou won’t be going winless against the spread this year!
The Tigers fell short of making this a competitive game in the second half, but their early efforts to hang with No. 1 Georgia and put early points on the scoreboard has to be applauded considering where their program is right now. The Bulldogs eventually kicked into dominance mode in a 43-6 win on Saturday. But the Tigers didn’t seem to back down from the challenge, even without starting quarterback Connor Bazelak. I think everyone expected Georgia to have a multiple-possession lead by the time the first quarter ended. Instead, it was 7-3 Georgia after a last-second TD from the Dawgs. A team with an obvious talent deficit like Mizzou should feel good that they made them work harder for it than usual.
I really think the final score says more about Georgia than it does Mizzou. There’s a reason why no one was questioning their standing as the top-ranked team in the country when the first College Football Playoff poll came out earlier this week. They have a well-tuned offense and a crazy-good defense. They held Mizzou under 300 total yards of offense and basically made Tyler Badie a non-factor (9 carries for 41 yards, five catches for 10 yards). They have handled every team on their schedule with relative ease. They’re just flat-out better than everyone else, and they’ll likely win it all this year.
But we learned a little more about Mizzou than I thought we would. That’s all below in the Knee-Jerk Reactions:
Neither backup QB proved more worthy of being the starter
It was easy to predict that Eli Drinkwitz was going to let both Tyler Macon and Brady Cook get a fairly even share of the series in this game, and that basically held true. And I think both of them did about as well as we reasonably could expect. Macon started the game, and went 6-of-13 for 74 yards, and ran 11 times for 42 yards. Cook eventually got some series in the middle of the game, completing 14-of-19 passes for 78 yards, and running 10 times for 32 yards. Granted, a lot of this is due to the fact that Georgia’s defense is historically good. But let’s face it: I don’t think either of those stat lines prove that either quarterback is more ready at this moment to start future games over Connor Bazelak. If he was all the way healthy, I think Bazelak would’ve struggled too, but he also would’ve been slightly better than Macon or Cook.
As far as whether one of the two quarterbacks played better than the other, I also think that it was as close to a push as you could get. Both Cook and Macon looked to run when they could. They both made a few solid plays. They both had a few bad throws or missed reads. The play-calling sequences seemed fairly similar with either QB in the game, with the exception of a few more designed runs for Macon. All told, if Drinkwitz had these two guys on equal footing heading into Saturday, I don’t think anything from this game changed that outlook.
That said, both Cook and Macon should get more snaps before the season’s done
Bazelak, when healthy, should still get as many meaningful snaps as he can for the rest of the year. This game didn’t show any evidence to change that plan. But you also need to give Macon and Cook more of a chance whenever possible. Those two obviously got some good experience Saturday facing one of the toughest defenses we’ve ever seen, but that’s only one of 12 opponents on Mizzou’s schedule every year. I’d really like to see what a Cook- or Macon-led offense looks like against a team with comparable talent to the Tigers. You’ll get a little bit of that for these next three games against South Carolina, Florida and Arkansas.
The first goal for Drinkwitz, and the one that he will certainly make public, is to try and get to bowl eligibility. And that’s fair. However, there are other goals to be accomplished before the end of the season, too. One of them is to find out as much information about your current quarterback room as you can. *If* there’s a chance for Cook and/or Macon to get some run against teams that are not ranked No. 1 in the country, Drinkwitz needs to get them some more time to learn and develop. And if that happens, the results may be much better than the slightly-below-average numbers that we saw from both of them Saturday. It’s also possible that Macon and/or Cook could be required to work again, too, as Drinkwitz said postgame that he won’t know more about Bazelak’s status for next weekend “until Wednesday or Thursday.” We’ll see.
The run defense *finally* saw improvement
Look, it’s all relative, but I think all of us expected Mizzou to give up many more yards on the ground than they did to Georgia in this game. The Tigers came into this game having given up 6.2 yards per carry in its first eight contests. They allowed 5.1 yards per carry to Georgia on Saturday, and only 3.4 per carry in the first half. It’s not where you want it to be, but there’s no denying that Mizzou did much better against the run than in its previous games. Against the top-ranked Dawgs of all teams!
The one problem? The increased production in run defense was probably due to increased numbers in the box, and more of a focus on stopping that part of Georgia’s game. We saw clearly that Mizzou is not good enough to cover both the run *and* the pass against the Dawgs, and that allowed Stetson Bennett to connect on 13-of-19 passes for 255 yards and two touchdowns. So, in the end, while nearly impossible for a team in Mizzou’s position, the job wasn’t done. The Tigers are still depleted in the secondary (CB Ish Burdine and S Shawn Robinson were both out with injury Saturday), but the next step for them is to hold their own in the passing game while still having a focus of stopping the run. For their sake, and Steve Wilks’ for that matter, let’s hope the Tigers can make more baby steps in their defensive progress in the final three games.
Harrison Mevis is… human?
A very “I’m not sure what to do with my hands…” moment for all of us watching, right? We don’t really know how to traverse into this brave new world where Mizzou’s fantastic sophomore kicker is actually capable of missing a kick. But we must do so now, whether we like it or not, after Mevis knocked a 48-yard field goal try off the left upright for his first miss of the season. The Lou Groza Award Semifinalist is actually human. Godspeed to us all.
I know, I know, I might be spending a little too much time talking about a missed kick in a college football game. The fact is, Mevis is still one of the best kickers at this level, and there are plenty of college teams (and maybe even NFL teams!) that would love to have that guy kicking for them. We all know this. I just say of this as a reminder about how freaking difficult it is to do what Mevis does as consistently as he does it. Especially when the pressure and expectation mounts with every consecutive kick he makes. So just be appreciative of what Mizzou has, and realize that even the Thiccer is capable of a miscue here and there.
Overall, the performance wasn’t disappointing
Everyone was dreaming up worst-case scenarios for Mizzou going up against this monster of a team. From what I saw, the Tigers outperformed their expectations. They scored first. They limited big running plays. Right up until the end of the first-half, they were still within a couple of possessions of Georgia. That’s honestly pretty encouraging. The Bulldogs still earned exactly what they’ve been earning against other teams on their schedule, but Mizzou didn’t let them rest at all. For the most part, Drinkwitz coached this game with a mentality of trying to win it, instead of just trying to not get blown out. Mizzou ran four fourth-down plays, tried an onside-kick at the start of the second half, and did all they could to score a touchdown while trailing 43-6 and just seconds remaining. They couldn’t execute well enough to stay in the game, but the effort seemed to be there.
It’s still hard to see Mizzou finding a sixth victory before the season’s up, but performances like this in the final three games of the season could change that outlook. This next one against South Carolina is obviously the most likely out of the three to be a win for the Tigers. It won’t be a guarantee by any means, but a performance similar to this one Saturday for Mizzou should give them a good shot at winning. After that, if you can force good rushing teams like Florida and Arkansas to switch to the pass game a little more often than they’d like, you could give yourself a fighting chance in those games, too. This team is still nowhere near fixed, but if they approach the final quarter of the regular season the same way they approached the nation’s top-ranked team, the gateway to bowl eligibility is still slightly open.
