Another Northern Nightmare
To the site of so many Missouri nightmares, add one more.
At the North end of Faurot Field, Andrew Baggett's 23-yard field goal clanked off the left upright and fluttered to the turf. South Carolina 27, Missouri 24 in double overtime.
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"I feel like I could have made a couple plays out there to help the team win. Everybody should be feeling like that," Markus Golden said. "Of course, he's upset. He's a competitor. Andrew Baggett works hard, man. That's one of the hard workers on our team. Without him, we wouldn't be here. If anybody should win this game for us, it should have been him. He's a hard worker."
"It happens. It's life. It's just a busted play," Kony Ealy said. "Hes pretty upset. He missed a field goal. But, I mean, it isn't just on him. It's on the whole team. Shouldn't have ever been in that situation. Shouldn't have got to that point."
It was not one play. There were many others that could have won this game which Missouri led 17-0 with twelve-and-a-half minutes remaining. But it is the one that everyone will remember. It happened in the same end zone as the Fifth Down, the same one as the kick and catch. It is the latest Northern nightmare that put a significant dent in Missouri's dream 2013 season.
"This loss will not define them," Gary Pinkel said. "What will define this football team is how we deal with it. There is an awful lot out there."
Pinkel, of course, is right. Missouri still leads the SEC East, a game clear of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida in the loss column halfway through the conference schedule. The players, because there was no other choice, chose to focus on that.
"This game right here could have said a lot for us, but we let it get away," Golden said. "This ain't gonna define our season, though, man. We've just got to pick the players up and be a leader out there."
"We're not looking ahead at anything," Shane Ray said. "We look at this as another step. Whether it be a good step or a bad step, this is another step in our program. Basically we're gonna start preparing for Tennessee next week and get ready to go. We're not looking to anything else in the future."
That the Tigers lost left a sellout Homecoming crowd of 67,024 stunned and silent. That the final blow was struck in the North end zone should have surprised no one.