Mizzou falls short after coming so far
MEMPHIS—Drew Lock lunged. He extended his right hand, stretching every last centimeter out of his 6-foot-4 inch frame. The ball hit the Liberty Bowl turf at the Oklahoma State nine-yard line. Missouri needed it to get to the eight-and-a-half.
The final play of the Tigers’ 38-33 loss to Oklahoma State—and the final play of Lock’s career in a Missouri uniform—came up just a few links of the chain short. The failed fourth down conversion left the Tigers a few inches short of a first down, a few yards short of a game-winning touchdown and a few plays short of a special season.
“I had the option to pull it or give it, whichever one I wanted,” Lock said. “I felt the guy that I knew was going to be on me take one or two steps over the top and I pulled it. I went for the corner, went for the first.”
“It’s a game of inches,” head coach Barry Odom said. “I wouldn’t want the ball in anybody else’s hands besides number three.”
Missouri finishes 8-and-5. It will almost certainly fall out of the top 25, just missing a ranked finish for the first time in five years. It is the most wins Missouri has had since 2014. The Tigers landed the prized free agent in college football to play quarterback next season, bring back a slew of young playmakers and have a lot to feel good about going into 2019.
But like the last play, it feels like the Tigers left us wanting just a little bit more out of 2018.
There was a mistake-riddled loss to Georgia on a day that the Bulldogs seemed beatable. There was the dreadful third quarter played in a monsoon at South Carolina. There was the defeat snatched from the jaws of victory against Kentucky. And there was Monday afternoon, a furious comeback falling short by a few inches and five points.
“Last two years, by the end of the second quarter, we were either going to win the game or we were going to lose the game. We were either up by 40 or down by 40,” Lock said. “Now we’re sitting here and if this team two years ago would have been in this situation I would have said there was no chance we would be able to come back and do what we did today.
“Our growth, it’s mind-boggling really. I wish I could give my brain to someone my freshman year and give it to them now and share all the information that I learned.”
And that was where most of the thoughts went on Monday evening. The Tigers who will no longer be a part of the team when it takes the field next August 31st in Laramie, Wyoming focused far more on how far they have come than on how close they came to going even further.
“When I stepped in, the things that they’ve done from that day until today, they’ve made me a better person,” Odom said. “And they’ve made our program a heck of a lot better.”
“This thing did a whole 180,” Terez Hall said. “Coach Odom helped flip it, the seniors helped flip it, all the other guys coming in. You look at it right now, a lot of times you’ll be critiquing Mizzou and stuff but you’ve got to look where we started from. We won five games my freshman year, we won four games my sophomore year.”
Kendall Blanton signed with a Missouri program coming off an SEC East championship and a No. 4 national finish. He redshirted as the Tigers won 11 more games and another division title in 2014. And then, well, everything fell apart.
“We went through a lot of rough patches,” Blanton said. “We ended 8-and-5 and I just feel like Mizzou’s headed in the right direction. They’re headed up. I told everybody in the locker room after the game this ain’t the end. It’s just the beginning.”
Missouri football became a national story for all the wrong reasons in November of 2015, Gary Pinkel retired in December and the Tigers won just five games in that season. The previous February, they had signed a recruiting class headlined by Lock, the rocket-armed four-star quarterback from Lee’s Summit who could have gone almost anywhere. Also in that class were Hall, a highly-regarded linebacker from Georgia, top-40 national prospect Terry Beckner Jr., safety Cam Hilton and wide receiver Johnathon Johnson, who redshirted and will return for his final season next year. That foursome made huge plays to give the Tigers a chance to overcome a 16-point fourth quarter deficit on Monday in Memphis.
But after the game, none of them thought too much about how painful the loss was or about how many plays could have changed the outcome. They thought about the program they walked into and the one they leave behind.
“There’s some cats you probably don’t want to be in the locker room with,” Hall said of his first year. “All the negativity, all the coaches ain’t playing me, all the blah, blah, blah, blah. And they wasn’t just embracing what they had the opportunity to do. You want to do this and that, drugs and all that different other stuff and not just taking advantage of what’s going on.
“It’s only up from here. I said this year I want to leave Mizzou on a winning foundation man. I have faith in God. I believe in that.”
“‘You all just see us playing,” Blanton said. “What goes on in that locker room and on campus, we’re family. This is a real family. This is probably the closest the locker room has been since I’ve been here. There’s no hate in that locker room. Everybody loves everybody and I’m gonna miss those guys.”
“The things that we do behind closed doors, all the work that’s put in for this right here and not having the end result that you wanted,” offensive tackle Paul Adams said. “I probably would have been emotional even if we won just because I still realized I wouldn’t be with them ever again.”
In the post-game press conference, Odom was asked about the legacy of Lock in Columbia. The quarterback leaned over to the coach and told him he didn’t have to give an answer.
“That maybe says who Drew Lock is,” Odom said. “Drew was THE guy. But also, he was another guy. And that’s a pretty big statement.”
Lock’s legacy—and that of his classmates—is out of their hands now. It ultimately will be judged by whether Mizzou can keep ascending from here. Kelly Bryant will be the first player other than Lock to start a game at quarterback since September 26, 2015, a span of 1,435 days. The schedule sets up kindly for the Tigers. They’ll bring back their three leading rushers, 11 of their top 14 receivers, three starting offensive linemen, and a host of promising young defensive players. And the departing seniors will be watching.
“It’s changed tremendously,” Beckner said. “It’s crazy how you can change something to good in a thin amount of time. But the thing is, you’ve got to stay patient throughout the process. With this team and with the group that I came in with, we stayed the course and we kept fighting. Now it’s time for the younger guys to step up.”
Brad Smith’s legacy became greater because of Chase Daniel. A relay only works if the guy that takes the baton keeps sprinting. It is now up to the current and future Tigers to determine how we will look back on those who we saw for the final time in the Liberty Bowl.
“No it wasn’t always the smoothest ride, but for those of you that stuck by us, thank you for sticking by us,” Lock said. “Keep pressing this team on. We have a really, really good team and it’s going to keep getting better because of this man (Odom) sitting next to me.”
Missouri came up short on this day. But it also has come so far.