Is this what rock bottom looks like for Barry Odom’s 2017 Missouri Tiger football team? Mizzou fans surely hope so.

With nine games left in the season though, it is fair to wonder where additional wins come from for this group.

Auburn at home? Despite what this intrepid reporter predicted last week that looks like a hard no now. The following week brings good news however. Bye week loses are impossible according to our crack research department.

At Kentucky? At Georgia? Versus Idaho? At Connecticut? Versus Florida? Versus Tennessee? At Vanderbilt? At Arkansas?

No. No. Likely. Probably. No. No. No. No.

Odom and his players continue to show a united front despite the team’s struggles. It’s tough to tell if they truly believe what they’re saying or if they just feel obligated to say it however.

“As a staff we had a really good week of preparation. We had a really good week of practice and then obviously performed very, very poorly,” said a visibly down Odom. “You know, we had great meetings at the hotel, but no one really wants to hear that. It’s time to produce some results and time to carry over what we’ve done and worked for for the last few months. We’ve got to find a way to get it done on the field.”

“I’m kind of at a loss for words, but we’ll be back in early tomorrow and get back to work,” added senior/team captain Eric Beisel. “We know we got a problem so the next step is just fixing it. We know what the problem is right now. Kind of figuring that out and moving forward from there. We got a good team. A good group of guys. We got great leadership and we kind of saw that come back this week. Guys were stepping up. Taking a little more accountability in this team. Taking some responsibility. Now we just got to put everything together next week.”

It’s hard to peg what there is for this team to build on. The offense looked good running up and down the field versus a very overmatched Missouri State. Since then, not so much. Against Purdue, Missouri flirted with gaining less than 200 yards of total offense for almost the entire game finishing with 203 yards. Oh, and they scored three points.

Junior offensive lineman and team captain Paul Adams is as surprised as anyone by the offensive struggles.

“We just thought coming of Missouri State game where we scored I don’t even know how many points…having two games like we’ve had back-to-back is unacceptable on our part,” said Adams.

On the defensive side of the ball, it looked like improvement had been made against South Carolina. Whether the Gamecocks offense is just that bad or matchups worked in Missouri’s favor, that uptick disappeared against the Boilermakers.

Special teams has been mostly bad all season outside of Corey Fatony. Tucker McCann has been okay, but his kickoff mistake and blocked field goal against South Carolina were big blows when they happened.

When breaking down film the coaches will find some positives. They always do. But it will likely take a lot of scrubbing to find.

The truth is the only way this season could have started any worse for Mizzou is if they had lost to Missouri State. Now, the team that seemingly has only a punter going for it needs to find a way to turn this season around.

“Lets come back tomorrow ready to work. Lets fight. We know who we are. We can do it. We got a choice to make. Either we can step backwards or we can step forward. What you going to do? Are we going to make it like last year or are we going to make it step forward?,” was how Damarea Crockett recapped the post-game talk in the Tigers’ locker room.

Do they truly believe what they’re saying or do they just feel obligated to say it? We’ll all find out soon enough.