Missouri (6-6) takes on Wake Forest (7-5) in the Gasparilla Bowl on Dec. 23 in this first-time-ever matchup between the schools as Mizzou looks to get above .500 for the first time since 2018.
Wake Forest’s offense is undoubtedly the strength of the team, but it also has weaknesses.
We will go over those strengths and weaknesses here.
Strengths
1.) Sam Hartman
The team’s best player and probably toughest player is quarterback Sam Hartman. The redshirt junior quarterback had a rib removed earlier in the year and missed the team’s season opener with blood clot issues. It didn’t stop him from earning All-Atlantic Coast Conference third-team honors.
In 11 games, Hartman completed 247 of 392 passes (63%) for 3,421 yards, 35 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. He added 114 yards and a touchdown on the ground.
The Demon Deacons got off to a hot start this season going 6-1 in their first seven games and a lot of that had to do with Hartman sans his aforementioned absence in week one.
From games two through seven, Hartman completed 65% of his passes for 1,755 yards, 21 touchdowns and three interceptions. This included a six-touchdown, 337-yard game in a 51-45 double overtime loss to Clemson. Wake Forest was averaging 41 points per game during that six-game span.
"The quarterback is a really good player," Missouri defensive tackle Darius Robinson said. "From what I've seen on tape, he could be one of the best players we've played this season in my opinion."
Hartman isn’t as dynamic in the run game as some of the other quarterbacks Mizzou faced this season like Arkansas’ KJ Jefferson and Florida’s Anthony Richardson, but he’s an accurate passer who specializes in throwing tight spirals and throwing his receivers open at times on shorter routes, although he can throw a relatively nice deep ball.
He helped Wake Forest finish the regular season as the nation’s 10th-best passing offense at 314.6 yards per game and 16th-best scoring offense at 36.8 points per game.
2.) Deep receiving corps
In Mizzou’s last game versus Arkansas, Mizzou’s secondary had to worry about Arkansas’ size when it came to their starting position players who were all 6-2 or taller and that included Jefferson. When the Tigers see the Demon Deacons in Tampa, they’ll have to contend with similar size and a more balanced receiving corps.
Wake Forest has five players with 500 or more receiving yards this season.
Wide receiver A.T. Perry was named to the All-ACC first-team honors after leading the Demon Deacons with 70 receptions for 980 yards, and 11 touchdowns.
Perry stands at 6-5 and weighs 205 pounds and uses his size to his advantage. He has decent hands, does well when it comes to making catches in traffic and has good vertical speed. Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson employs the spread offense which is designed to get wide receivers in space and while Perry is capable of that he only had 134 of his 980 yards come after the catch. That’s a decent indicator of how much of Perry's production is coming in tight quarters in coverage or along the sideline.
Donovan Greene, the team’s second-leading wideout stands at 6-2 and weighs 210 pounds. He recorded 36 receptions for 615 yards and six touchdowns.
Wake Forest’s third-leading wide receiver Jahmal Banks is also 6-4 and weighs 208 pounds. Banks was named an All-ACC honorable mention after recording 39 receptions for 564 yards and eight touchdowns.
Taylor Morin and Ke’Shawn Williams are smaller receivers at 5-10, but they’re not easy covers by any means. Morin recorded 44 receptions (second on the team), 545 yards and seven touchdowns while Williams racked up 39 receptions for 553 yards and a touchdown.
3.) Good at the details
The Demon Deacons are 14th in first downs with 308 and they’re tied for 19th in third-down percentage at 46.5. They’re tied for 39th in red zone offense converting 54 of 62 (87%) opportunities with 42 of the team’s 54 red zone scores being touchdowns. They're also tied for 16th in penalties averaging just 4.67 per game with 56 on the season.
The reason these stats matter is how they affect the Tigers and their defense. Mizzou’s defense is the strength of its team, but the defense has struggled to a degree over its last three games of the season.
It had an historically bad day versus Tennessee and gave up 66 points. It gave up only 14 points to New Mexico State, but Mizzou head coach Eli Drinkwitz and defensive coordinator Blake Baker were less than satisfied with the play that looked sloppy at times. The defense played better versus a top-20 offense in the Razorbacks and limited them to 27 points, but that win can mostly be chalked up to Missouri's offense playing its best game of the season versus a Power 5 opponent.
Conversely, The Tigers also rank 27th in scoring defense allowing 25 points per game and are 28th in total defense at 337.1 yards allowed per game. They're 27th in first-down defense and 28th in third-down defense at 33% which is good, but they're also 122nd in red zone defense allowing opponents to convert 32 of 35 (91%) red zone attempts with 23 of those scores being touchdowns.
All of these statistics were when Mizzou had starters in safety Martez Manuel and starting defensive ends Isaiah McGuire and DJ Coleman playing. The team will not have any of those three since they’ve declared for the NFL Draft and opted out of playing in the bowl game.
McGuire was a second-team All-SEC selection and led the team with 7.5 sacks to go with 39 tackles, 13 tackles for loss and a pair of fumbles. Coleman recorded the second-most sacks with 4.5 to go with 37 tackles, 8.5 tackles for loss and three forced fumbles in three starts and 12 games played. Manuel was third in sacks with four to go with 49 tackles, 10 tackles for loss, one pass deflection and a forced fumble.
Weaknesses
1.) Departure at running back
The Demon Deacons will have All-ACC third-team running back Justice Ellison playing at their disposal. He had 149 rushes for 635 yards (4.3 yards per game) and five touchdowns. However, they won’t have running back Christian Turner, who decided to enter the transfer portal. He was a part of the team’s 1-2 punch at running back with Ellison and in 12 games played he led the team in rushing touchdowns with seven and had 128 carries for 516 yards. He also added five receptions for 39 yards and a touchdown.
Wake Forest was already ranked as the 92nd-best rushing attack in the nation at 132.5 yards per game and Turner averaged 43 of those yards per game. This makes the team more one-dimensional than it already was. The Demon Deacons want to pass the ball and with one of its two leading rushers out it becomes more apparent that the honus will likely be to pass the ball even more than it was before.
2.) Demon Deacons on the reel
It was previously mentioned that Wake Forest won six of its first seven and averaged 41 points per game during that stretch. It would go on to lose four of its next five which included a three-game losing streak, the first three-game losing streak for the program since 2020. The team averaged 30.4 points per game during that span which would still be good for the 56th-best scoring offense. The caveat would be that the Demon Deacons are tied for 93rd in scoring defense allowing 29.25 points per game.
During the second half of the season skid, they lost two one-possession games which dropped their record to 1-3 in one-possession games with that lone win being a 37-36 win over Liberty in week three.
This game is a tale of two different tales for the teams that will play in it. Mizzou started the season 2-4 and finished 4-2 while Wake Forest started the season 5-1 and was ranked as high as No. 10 before rapidly descending from the rankings after going 2-4 in the back portion of its season.
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