There’s been a lot of talk of Missouri’s inconsistency this season. But that’s the wrong word. Missouri has been very consistent. This team is just good enough to lose, pretty much every week.
For most of the year, that’s meant a defense that has done everything you could possibly ask of it only to see it not be enough because the Missouri offense has failed to score more than 23 points in a game against a Power Five opponent. On Saturday at Tennessee, the script was the opposite. Brady Cook and the Tiger offense put up 24 points, 389 yards and actually gave the Tigers a shot, at least for about two-and-a-half quarters. And the defense was knocked down, turned around and generally embarrassed by Josh Heupel, Hendon Hooker and a talented receiving corps. By the end of the day the damage was 724 yards, 66 points and 9.7 yards per play (yes, that’s nearly a first down on each one of the Vols’ 75 snaps on the day).
It’s tough to heap too much blame on the Missouri defense. Don’t get me wrong, it was dreadful today, but without that defense, we’re talking about 2-10. All season long, it’s been put in terrible positions and asked to bail the team out. It has mostly done so. That it broke on Saturday was more a case of the inevitable finally occurring than anything. The only surprise to me was that it hadn’t happened sooner in a season highlighted by its offensive futility.
Tennessee, of course, is no average offense. The Vols came into the game leading the country in total offense and second in scoring offense. Only No. 1 Georgia had held the Vols to fewer than 34 points. You always knew you were going to need to score more than normal to have a chance to win this game. You also know it is unrealistic to ask this offense to score in the forties.
Missouri was close into the second half. There was briefly some hope. But it wasn’t good enough. And it hasn’t been good enough all year.
Your ultimate evaluation of this season comes down to this: How steep is the curve on which you grade this program in Eli Drinkwitz’s third season?
Do you give Brady Cook credit for playing his best game of the season or do you acknowledge that even his best game of the season was still by far the subpar quarterback game and probably isn’t good enough to be much more than a middling SEC team?
Do the Tigers get credit for pushing Georgia more than anybody has and making Florida sweat in the Swamp and hanging around with Tennessee for a while and being a bad break away from beating Kentucky and Auburn? Or do you ding them for not playing well enough to avoid the Auburn and Kentucky games coming down to a play and failing to do enough to win any of the other three? The Tigers have played eight games against Power Five competition. They’ve won just two of them despite having been outscored by just two points in league play coming into Saturday.
You can see what you want to see. And that’s the frustrating part.
Missouri might be close. They’ve probably made progress. But it’s not resulting in wins and so just how much stock do you put in it?
I’ll be honest, I don’t have answers. I’m not sure how close Missouri is. Because if you keep coming pretty close, but you almost never cash it in, I just don’t know how much it matters.
Through 33 games, Eli Drinkwitz is 15-18 overall. Through 33 games, Barry Odom was 15-18 overall. Through 25 SEC games, Eli Drinkwitz is 10-15. Through 25 SEC games, Barry Odom was 11-14.
I watch games and part of me thinks Missouri is getting better and might be pretty close to a breakthrough. But the record doesn’t show it and the longer you go without that breakthrough actually occurring, the more you start to wonder if it’s actually close after all.
Missouri’s administration seemingly stated its position last week when it gave Drinkwitz a two-year contract extension that comes with an immediate $2 million a year raise that only increases from the initial investment. The contract offers perceived long-term security to Drinkwitz, but in reality is more favorable toward the school than most contracts if it finds itself needing to make a coaching change in the next couple of years. Again, any sort of a new contract was an expression of some confidence in the future, but it wasn’t exactly the strongest statement I’ve ever seen.
The point is this: Here we sit in another November not being able to say for sure if Missouri is moving in the right direction. The Tigers have had one season with more than seven wins since 2014 and just two with more than six. Over that time period, they are now 45-50, including 24-41 in SEC play. They don’t have a single winning record in conference play. They have, at best, treaded water for eight consecutive years.
In those eight years, Missouri has been passed as a program by Kentucky and lapped by Tennessee. It has been relatively even with Florida, but the Gators’ highs have been higher than Missouri’s. Oklahoma and Texas are coming at some point and the path is hardly getting easier.
Is Drinkwitz the guy to finally make forward progress? Is year four when it happens? Maybe. Who knows? I'm not even sure which direction they're moving right now. Hopefully the answer comes next year. But as for now, Tiger fans sit and wonder: is Mizzou getting closer to turning the corner or simply pounding the pavement on a never-ending straightaway?
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