MANHATTAN, KS—For a little less than an hour on Saturday afternoon at Bill Snyder Family Stadium, it appeared maybe Missouri would have a chance to settle in and make a run at Kansas State. Then the lightning delay ended and the Tigers and Wildcats started playing football again.
Missouri came out of the weather delay trailing Kansas State 14-3 with 7:44 remaining in the second quarter. The Tigers ran a quarterback draw for six yards—it was one of their more aggressive and effective offensive plays of the day to that point—and then punted. Wildcat wide receiver Phillip Brooks returned that punt 76 yards for a touchdown. Even a blocked extra point that kept the score at 20-3 for the time being couldn’t mask the fact that the game was over. It eventually ended 40-12, looking only that good because of a desperation garbage-time touchdown that took five plays, a timeout and a defensive penalty inside the five-yard line in the final seconds.
To be fair, Missouri wasn’t alone in failing to efficiently use the rain delay. I made the decision not to start writing this column during the break, instead chatting with various colleagues in the press box, because there was still a lot of time left and, hey, sports are crazy and anything can happen. Man, I wish I had that 55 minutes back now.
Self-deprecating humor aside, nobody involved with Missouri should be smiling on this Saturday. That in year three of the Eli Drinkwitz era, the Tigers came to Manhattan as an eight-point underdog to a Kansas State team predicted to finish fifth in the Big XII Conference is a problem. It’s a bigger problem that the line should have been much, much higher.
Mizzou’s representatives at the postgame press conference repeated at least ten times that “one game doesn’t define a season.” They’re right, obviously. Losing today—even in the way they did—doesn’t make it impossible for Missouri to reach whatever goalposts you set for it before the start of the year, unless of course those goalposts were an undefeated season. But the result on Saturday sure makes it look a lot less likely.
This game was the measuring stick, or at least the first measuring stick. All offseason fans talked about it. Kansas State may be undervalued by the national pundits. It may be a pretty damn good football team. It is not Georgia or the Buffalo Bills. It is not a team that should dismantle Missouri the way it did, dominating the Tigers on both lines of scrimmage, rendering them completely ineffective on offense, doing enough on offense to score against a defense that’s quite a bit better than last year, but not nearly good enough to carry an offense as bad as Missouri’s was on Saturday and just for good measure applying the dagger via special teams.
Missouri didn’t have to win this game, although, you know, that would have been allowed. It did have to compete.
“Yeah, I'm surprised,” Drinkwitz said after the game. “I'm surprised. I thought we were better prepared than that. Obviously I was wrong.”
It wasn’t just that the Tigers looked completely overmatched physically. It’s that they looked about as prepared for the game as I was for the weather when I didn’t pack any rain gear.
Missouri called a timeout after two consecutive television timeouts. It took a delay of game when punting. It threw short in the field of play and ran when trying to execute a two-minute drive without a timeout at the end of the first half. Briefly in position to make something of a game out of it, Missouri threw an interception out of its own end zone and extended the ensuing Kansas State drive with a facemask. It followed that up with three more picks on three consecutive passes. Yes, Missouri played poorly. Missouri was also prepared poorly.
Kansas State may have better players than Missouri. It probably does. It at least has better experienced players. But the Cats are not more athletic than Missouri. They are not so overwhelmingly talented that they should embarrass Missouri. But that’s what happened.
All offseason, Eli Drinkwitz was self-critical. He said he had to open up the offense and come out of his shell. Missouri barely threw a pass more than ten yards beyond the line of scrimmage before the last drive of the first half.
All offseason, Drinkwitz told us this was the best he had felt about a team at Missouri. They had talent and they had depth and they were ready to compete. They didn’t. He spent all offseason searching for any quarterback he could find to transfer in and then tried to convince us the one he wanted all along had been right in front of him.
In his first two years, if you’re willing to give Drinkwitz every pass available, you can argue he didn’t have the talent. Losing to Army was understandable and getting run off the field by the likes of Tennessee and Mississippi State was just part of the growing pains.
But in year three? When you’ve brought in nearly a third of the roster via the transfer portal? When you’ve told everyone all summer how good you felt about this team, going so far as to say you liked the team because everyone actually wants to be here now and everyone gets together and sings Kumbaya and happily ushers those who wanted to leave out the door?
In this year, this day can’t happen. Especially against this team.
“I’m responsible for this team,” Drinkwitz said. “Everything that happens underneath this football team is my fault. We're not getting it done on offense, my fault. Special teams doesn’t cover, it’s my fault. Defense doesn't get a stop on fourth down, my fault.
“Just blame me. Come see me and I’ll take the blame for it.”
Consider it done, coach. This was the one everybody was pointing to. This was the chance to show tangible progress. To put that pesky little team from the Big 12 back in its place. To show you may not have arrived, but you were certainly on your way. To offer some hope to a fanbase that has been down for going on eight years now.
None of that happened. Instead, Missouri showed it has every bit as far to go as it has for the last three years. And we’re left to wonder, how much longer will it take?
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