LEXINGTON, KY—Nobody would flat out say it. J’Mon Moore made somebody else say it.
“Did you all see what happened?” Moore said, in the moments after a 40-34 loss to Kentucky.
When a reporter spoke up and said he had, Moore asked “What happened?”
“It looked like the ball was knocked out of your hand,” came the answer.
Moore: “Exactly.”
Watch the full sequence here. Here is the play in question:
"I didn't get any type of explanation," Moore said. "The ref acted like he didn't see it. So I don't got nothing much to say about that basically."
Did it cost Missouri the game? No way to know. But it likely cost them at least one play and maybe more.
Moore hit the ground with 21 seconds to go. From there, the ball appears to be slapped away by Kentucky linebacker Josh Allen. An official leisurely went to get the loose ball just past the Wildcats’ 20-yard line and tossed it to another official who set it at the Kentucky 27, picked it up and set it at the 28. By this time, only six seconds remained on the clock. Drew Lock spiked the ball, leaving three seconds and one last chance for the Tigers from the 28-yard line.
“We can’t put it on anyone else because we get in trouble,” Lock said. “We’ve just got to be better in that situation.”
So what could be done differently?
“You know, I don’t know,” Lock said. “I’m going to have to go and watch the full clip. When I got it to J’Mon, I pretty much immediately turned my eyes back to get our next play call, see what we were going to do. Looked up to see how much time we had, had a good amount of time. Then got the spike signal, went up to get the ball and what happened happened. I looked up, saw the ball on the ground, we had to scoot back a couple yards. It’s upsetting, but maybe we could have been a little better.”
“I know what I saw,” head coach Barry Odom said. “I know how the ball was placed or not placed. I’ll have to go back and make sure I saw what I saw. I don’t know. That’s a lot of time between two plays.”
Odom inferred that Missouri would send the final sequence to SEC Supervisor of Officials Steve Shaw for review. But that obviously won’t give the Tigers a win. They may not have gotten it anyway.
Mizzou did have one final shot. Lock was pressured and his pass toward redshirt freshman tight end Albert Okwuegbunam fell short at the three-yard line.
“I got actually hit on the arm a little bit, enough to make it come out a little bit,” Lock said. “Saw the inside guy, went to go throw it, came out a little bit to where maybe he could come back and fight for the ball. I think I saw him come back and try to fight for the ball and maybe get held up, but I’ve got to be able to make a better throw or maybe maneuver around in the pocket a little bit.”
“When you look back at the end of the year and you’re one or two plays short of this one, it’s gonna hurt,” Odom said.
The Tigers were better on Saturday night. Much better. But in the end, it wasn’t enough.
“You can’t obviously like what happened today,” Lock said.
In many regards.
Missouri fell to 1-and-4 on the season with their fourth consecutive loss and a road game at top-five Georgia looming next Saturday night. The Bulldogs have beaten Tennessee and Vanderbilt by a combined score of 86-14 the last two weeks.
