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Once again, by the skin of their teeth, Mizzou punches its ticket to bowl season.
It’s fair to be unhappy by how the Tigers had landed into the position they landed in Friday; a 5-6 record with their best win over South Carolina, featuring several chances to put feathers in the cap of Eli Drinkwitz’s tenure in Columbia, and falling short, sometimes in unimaginable fashion. It’s felt a lot like a redux of 2021, with the Tigers scrapping and clawing to get that sixth victory.
But ultimately, they did it. Mizzou hung on against its rival Arkansas 29-27 at Faurot Field to guarantee a spot in a bowl game. For games like this, it typically doesn’t matter how it happens. As the late Al Davis said, “just win, baby.” That’s the type of game it felt like for Mizzou. Whatever the situation, just get what you need to stay in front toward the very end. And after a good start for the Tigers’ offense, they leaned on the defense to close out the contest. That yielded a two-point victory, but a victory that looks exactly the same as the others in the record book.
With that, let’s dive into the Knee-Jerk Reactions:
Brady Cook was a net positive
You can go over his game time and again and find things to be unhappy with. And you’d be right. But what you can’t deny is that the redshirt sophomore quarterback has improved over the last three-to-five Mizzou games and he was the main driver of the Tigers’ offense in this victory. Cook was 16-of-26 for 242 yards and a touchdown, and ran it 18 times for 138 yards and another score. His running ability blossoming over the last few weeks has kept Mizzou’s offense on schedule. But those looking closely enough have noticed that he’s improved his pass-throwing abilities, too. A lot of that is due to the group around him, but he’s still the one that has to deliver the football. And on Friday, he put both elements together to lead Mizzou to one of its better offensive performances of the season.
And yes, like most games he’s played, he had some mistakes. One big one was the sack he took on a late third down play making it a tougher field goal try for Harrison Mevis, which he missed. While the passing has improved, a few misfires that prevented big gains still popped up. Most of his total yardage was racked up in the first half, and in the second half that production leveled off. Maybe the hits he took on the increased running plays took a toll late in the game? Hard to say what caused it, but the regression was certainly there.
It’s okay to wonder if he should still be *the* guy. Yet, even factoring in all of the bad, Cook was good enough to make up for those mistakes. Drinkwitz trusted him to throw on third down late to get a first down to win the game, and he delivered. That means something. You can’t ask for a lot more than what Cook gave you Friday.
Mizzou has the receiving corps to compete with anyone
There’s no major need for Cook to play out of this world, because he has the talent around him to take this offensive unit to the next level. Dominic Lovett returned to prominence with six catches for 130 yards. Mookie Cooper stepped up with three catches for 45 yards. Luther Burden caught a touchdown pass in his usual fashion, breaking a tackle that led to a long run after the catch into the end zone. Perhaps the biggest catch of the game came from Mehki Miller, on a third down play late in the game with Mizzou trying to run out the clock up by two. There was a worry that this group might miss Barrett Banister’s reliable play-making abilities in similar situations like that. But the available receivers picked up that slack.
It’s a really intriguing group heading into 2023. Lovett could continue to be an SEC star. Burden could make a Lovett-like jump between his freshman and sophomore years. Cooper and Miller could turn into reliable secondary options down the road. Mizzou’s got the pieces to have a great receiving corps. It just needs to keep those guys around. We have absolutely no idea what transfer portal season can bring. That’s not to say that I’m expecting any of those guys mentioned to transfer out. I’m saying that in this age of college football, it’s impossible to ignore the aspect of the free transfer, and you have to be ready for anything. Here’s hoping that those guys can stay banded together and keep turning Mizzou’s offense into a dangerous unit in the future.
Once again, the defense stepped up when it needed to
There was reason to be worried if this group was still the same one we saw through the first ten weeks. They got burned against Tennessee, and a cruising victory against New Mexico State in the immediate aftermath probably wasn’t satisfying enough. But on Friday, it was another vintage performance from Blake Baker’s defense. The Tigers needed to neutralize Arkansas’ rushing attack to have success. They held the Razorbacks to three yards per carry as a team. Rocket Sanders had 10 carries for 47 yards. KJ Jefferson had 19 carries for 38. Mizzou bet on Jefferson to beat them through the air, and despite some breakdowns in coverage, the plan ultimately worked.
Then they added the big plays. Jefferson isn’t the easiest quarterback to get to the ground, but the Tigers sacked him seven times in the game. Four of those seven came from Martez Manuel, the Columbia native playing his final game in his hometown, and Isaiah McGuire, who revealed postgame that he separated his shoulder last week against New Mexico State but got well enough to play Friday. Daylen Carnell grabbed an interception in the third quarter, setting up a Mizzou field goal. Ty’Ron Hopper was once again all over the field, with 11 total tackles and two for loss. This unit has been unfairly called upon too many times to bail out the offense for its struggles. Yet again, they come up big. They’ve put together a special season under a new coordinator.
Too. Many. Penalties.
In a game like this that hangs in the balance for the full 60 minutes, a few mistakes can swing it one way or the other. Mizzou should feel a little lucky that their 10 penalties for 61 yards didn’t come back to bite them. That yardage is around their per-game average for the season of 62, which is good for fourth-highest in the SEC. One particular holding penalty from freshman center Connor Tollison took a touchdown from Cody Schrader off the board, and Mizzou needed to settle for the field goal. A couple of offensive line penalties derailed a fourth quarter drive that the Tigers could’ve used to extend the two-point lead. On defense, DJ Coleman got called for a late hit out of bounds, giving Arkansas an automatic first down and later a field goal.
It’s a little nit-picky. Mizzou’s had worse games this year from the penalty perspective. But in rivalry games, at the end of the season, when bowl eligibility is on the line, mistakes get magnified. This team still needs to work on limiting those mental miscues. We already know penalties played a big part in the Tigers failing to finish the job against Georgia and Auburn. They could have delivered a same fate for Mizzou on Friday. Luckily, there were some questionable decisions on Arkansas’ side – most notably a decision to kick a field goal on 4th and goal from the 2 in the second half – that allowed the Tigers to not get snake-bitten.
After an up-and-down season, Mizzou is going bowling
Gotta say, 6-6 was hard to dream up after Mizzou fell at Florida to fall to 2-4 heading into the bye week. But for the second straight year, Mizzou found a way to claim a couple of slight upsets on the second half of the schedule and break through the six-win threshold. Eli Drinkwitz deserves credit for that. Not a truckload of undying praise, but credit nonetheless. They found a clear formula for victory relying upon their defense, and they found some subtle was to make their offense more workable to keep pace with their opponents.
In the end, you can classify this as treading water. The Tigers avoided a losing regular season record, which would’ve signaled a clear step back. They also failed to pull off several upsets that could’ve shown clear signs of growth for the program. There’s no reason to be overly impressed or overly discouraged. It’s another year of just holding serve. Now, it sets up a 2023 season where that type of growth will be an absolute requirement. Who’s to say what this team will look like come next fall, but Drinkwitz will need to turn it into a winner, or else there will be questions as to whether he deserves to lead this program.
That said, Friday was a good moment. One that Drinkwitz definitely needed. Now we wait to see how Mizzou can cap 2022 during bowl season.
