Four Down Territory
Welcome to Four Down Territory which is a spin-off of Ten Thoughts.
So, I’ll give you three thoughts on Missouri football or college football in general. Then, the last thought will be whatever I want it to be.
1. In the words of the late Dennis Green, "They are who we thought they were."
Last week, I tried to tell everyone that Missouri gets in its own way too much.
I predicted the Tigers to beat Middle Tennessee State 20-17 and they won 23-19. Why? Well, first of all, the offensive line isn’t that much different from last season. It’s better than last season, but being better than last season wasn't going to be too hard because last year's group was just so bad.
In Week 1 versus South Dakota, while it was a promising sign that the line was better, their performance may have inaccurately depicted what the offensive line could be. Even Eli Drinkwitz was caught off guard by the four sacks and seven tackles for loss allowed and he’s the head coach.
“I didn't anticipate that going into the game. I knew they were a big pressure team. It didn't feel like we were going to struggle as bad as we did with it,” Drinkwitz said. “So I go back to the drawing board to get that corrected.”
That type of line play just can’t happen. And the way some of the offensive linemen were getting beat up on some plays was just rough.
Guard Cam’Ron Johnson getting sat down on the play that led to a sack isn't going to cut it. Consequently, Drinkwitz said there will likely be some changes on the offensive line and it's more than reasonable to understand that.
Secondly, Brady Cook is the quintessential game manager. Most game managers don’t have super strong arms and they keep the ball safe. Well, Cook showed on Saturday he in fact does not have a strong arm.
That doesn't mean he isn't starting quarterback material or that he's a bad player or anything. I'm specifically talking about arm strength.
He underthrew a couple of deep balls that probably would’ve resulted in touchdowns. He actually completed a 44-yard completion to Burden and even that was underthrown.
Now, if you look back I said a game manager keeps the ball safe. Cook took a safety, but it wasn't a conventional safety.
He snapped the ball, saw Johnson laid out and decided to roll to his right as he saw a MTSU defensive lineman trying to hawk him down like Seattle Seahawks receiver DK Metcalf hawked down Cardinals safety Budda Baker on an interception return a few years ago.
Cook got to the sideline and tried to throw it away and that's when the defensive lineman hit him. The ball rolled into the end zone and trickled out of bounds for the safety.
Technically, a safety isn’t a turnover, but it should be. He gave up two points and Missouri had to punt the ball away.
We've talked about this before. Game managers won't be able to win a team a game singlehandedly most of the time, but they won't lose a team a game either. Considering Cook accounted for all three touchdowns last week, he had a helping hand in the win, but he also played a big part in why the game was closer than it needed to be.
Game managers have limitations. We saw Cook's limitations when his offensive line and unforeseen things (more on this below) started to happen.
Lastly, the coaching, and by coaching I mean the offensive coaching, was bad to start the game and finish it.
Three punts and a field goal in the first four drives for the offense.
Three points are better than none, but even the field goal attempts are becoming questionable due to some issues among the snapper, holder and kicker Harrison Mevis, who missed his first career PAT on Saturday.
How is it that Missouri knew MTSU was a heavy blitzing team and took so long to adjust to it?
Every third down it felt like the Blue Raiders were sending pressure and the Tigers struggled early on to make adjustments.
Part of that is on Cook, who needs to make pass protection adjustments at the line of scrimmage, but a lot of that falls on Drinkwitz. I would say Kirby Moore, but Drinkwitz is the head coach with veto power.
Just because he isn't calling the plays doesn't mean he isn't listening to the plays being called and watching the game himself.
Then, the last three possessions. Everything that could go wrong went wrong.
It was everything that I told people to watch out for. Those unforeseen events that we know might happen but because we don't know when, how and exactly what these events are (i.e penalties, clutch giveaways, poor clock management, etc.) people (including myself) usually don't take them into consideration going into the game.
You can’t predict a team to have back-to-back penalties in the clutch which takes them from third and one to third and 21.
You can’t predict the coach deciding to punt on fourth and one from near midfield up 13 in the fourth quarter with a chance to seal the game or at least burn a lot more clock.
You can’t predict MTSU going 80+ yards to score a touchdown, stuff the kickoff return and then get a safety to cut a 13-point fourth-quarter lead to four.
With this team you can't predict specific crazy things to happen you just know it might happen.
All of that stuff is unexpected, but if we’ve learned anything about this team over the past 15 games, it’s to expect the unexpected.
The Tigers do not play complete games.
They do everything they can to scrape up 17-23 points a game and hope for the defense to bail them out. And the defense usually comes through for most of the game, but they’ll have a series or two when they don’t look so good and that’s okay, but they need help.
If a pitcher has a good game and allows maybe a run or two and they don’t get any run support. Then they’ll lose. That’s what happens to the defense and it’s not fair to them.
Wrap all of this up and you have a lot of one-score games. A lot of close wins by Missouri that should've been blowouts. Or in the simplest terms, you have last Saturday's game.
2. Here’s why Sam Horn didn’t see the field and likely won’t see the field:
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