Missouri's greatest strength is finding a way to win

There are only two columns in sports. We’ve got the technology to review every play and the analytics to tell us how many points they were worth and EPA and WAR and FIP and enough abbreviations to make our heads spin. But in the end, there are two columns. One is marked with a W and one is marked with an L and each has a number below it.

This Missouri team won its ninth game in 11 tries on Saturday, 33-31 over Florida. It wasn’t a work of art. But it changed the number under the W and left the one under the L well enough alone.

“At the end of the day and the end of the season they’re just going to say whether it was a win or a loss,” head coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “And this one’s a win.”

Most of them have been wins. And that is this team’s greatest strength. In 12 months, the Missouri Tigers have gone from a team you expected to lose—a team that admittedly found ways to lose, some quite original—to one that just keeps finding ways to win.

"We’re tough and we refuse to lose,” Cody Schrader said after his fourth consecutive 100-yard rushing game. “I truly believe we won that game because of what we learned last year. Last year I truly believe we may have found a way to lose that game.”

Think about the ways Missouri has won games this season:

*A slog led by the defense over Middle Tennessee

*An SEC record 62-yard field goal on the final play of the game

*A comeback from 14 down spearheaded by a touchdown pass from the punter to a true freshman wide receiver

*A domination in every phase of the game against a top 15 opponent

And then there was Saturday.

Missouri’s defense—desperately missing star linebacker Ty’Ron Hopper—couldn’t stop a Florida offense led by a backup quarterback. The Gators had put up 24 second-half points, the final three coming with just 96 seconds left. The ball rested on Mizzou’s own 33-yard line with 38 seconds to go and Drinkwitz had to burn his final timeout to make sure his team ran the right play. They needed at least 22 yards to have a chance at a game-winning field goal, but more importantly than that, they needed 17 just to get another snap.

The Florida radio announcers were already celebrating, discussing the likelihood of a team converting on fourth and 17. Missouri did. The reason was simple according to quarterback Brady Cook: “Luther’s back, baby!”

Cook found star sophomore Luther Burden for 27 yards to the Gators’ 40. For Burden, who became the first Mizzou receiver to top 1,100 yards in a season since Danario Alexander in 2009, the catch was his 9th and gave him 158 yards on the night. But more telling than that? He didn’t touch the ball again on Missouri’s game-winning drive.

After an incompletion intended for Theo Wease, who had scored on a 77-yard touchdown earlier in the game, Cook hit Mekhi Miller for 11 yards. Then he hit Mookie Cooper for 18 more and Cooper stepped out of bounds at the Florida 12-yard line. Harrison Mevis took it from there, booting a 30-yard field goal that gave Missouri the win after a kickoff, an incomplete pass, a premature ending and one last Gator play that fell short.

So what was Missouri thinking as it faced that fourth and 17? The emotions were wide-ranging.

“I was heartbroken,” senior defensive end Darius Robinson said, elaborating that he thought his poor play on the previous drive had cost the Tigers the game and would ruin his senior night.

“I was pretty calm,” Drinkwitz countered. “I just had a feeling we’re gonna be fine.”

The coach was right. With age comes wisdom. Or maybe more accurately, success breeds success.

“It grows with results,” Drinkwitz said. “You can say you believe but when you don’t see results it’s hard.”

Last year was hard for Missouri. The missed kick and the fumble at Auburn. The penalty that is no longer a penalty against Kentucky. The offensive no-shows in game after game. The bowl game it didn’t seem anyone was all that interested in playing. Through three years under Drinkwitz, Missouri was 17-19. The Tigers said they believed, but the results hadn’t been there.

That all seems so long ago now. The 2023 Tigers believe they’re going to win because far more often than not, they’ve won. The expect to make the play because they’ve made so many plays. From Mevis’ first-game winner to Luke Bauer’s pass to Cook to Burden on fourth and 17.

It all adds up to 9-2. There were a lot of questions about last-minute heroics and senior day legacies on Saturday night. Robinson wasn’t ready for that.

“We’re not done yet,” Robinson said.

There’s one more to go in the regular season. Missouri has found so many ways to win this year. If it can find one more, the Tigers will have the seventh ten-win season in school history. They’ll take a week off and await the location of their 13th game of the year. It will almost certainly be a New Year’s Six bowl.

“We were at the bottom,” Cook said. “We know what it feels like. We don’t want to go back. This team will do anything we can to walk away with a win.”

They need to do it one more time.

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