Mizzou makes its statement
GAINESVILLE, FL--Last Saturday night, Damarea Crockett did not duck the questions and did not hide behind generic statements. He admitted it was going to be incredibly difficult for the Tigers to bounce back from a soul-crushing 15-14 loss to Kentucky.
"I will not stand up here and lie to you. It’s gonna be rough," Crockett said a week ago. "We just got to bring it together and we just got to make sure that this brings us closer instead of pulling us apart. Because from here, we’re either going up or we’re going down. We’ve got to make sure that’s going up.”
Seven days later, the Missouri junior was surrounded by the same throng of reporters outside the visiting locker room at Ben Hill-Griffin Stadium. The question this time was simple: How did they do it?
"Keep the team from spreading apart and make them come together," Crockett said. "Everybody was ready. Everybody was fired up. I could just see it in everybody's face. We're not letting this defeat us. We're still a good team and we're going to go show everybody that."
Crockett said he saw the beginnings of the comeback in practice on Tuesday. Drew Lock said it was Thursday for him. But by the time they took the field on Saturday, the Tigers felt like they knew what was coming.
"You kind of just have that feeling there's just no way you lose a football game," Lock said. "It sounds weird. People were talking about how do you bounce back after a loss like Kentucky. After a loss like that, there's no way that you can go and lose a game. That just will amplify how you felt that Saturday. There's no way that I could feel any worse than I did last Saturday so there was no way I was going to let that happen and none of these guys were going to let that happen."
Missouri put together not just its most complete effort of the season, but its most complete in at least four seasons. The Tigers dismantled the No 11 Gators 38-17 in a win that doesn't seem adequately described as simply being a statement.
"Not only should you look at this as (just) a W," Crockett said. "We just beat the crap out of those guys."
For the first ten minutes of his press conference, Barry Odom wasn't asked a question about his junior running back who paced the Tigers with 114 yards on 21 carries and an emphatic Gator chomp after his five-yard first half touchdown run. So the coach went out of his way to praise Crockett.
"We had some long talks earlier in the week," Odom said. "He asked 'What do you need me to do?' I said, 'Lead. And go to work.' And he did exactly that."
"He's been a leader even from the first time I got on campus and I met him," Larry Rountree III said. "Damarea is the speaker of the group. I don't really like talking a lot, but Damarea is really a guy that we've got to go out here and grind and it starts with us. That's what he says every time."
While Crockett may have led the way, there were two Tigers for whom this game had to have meant more: Odom and Lock. Nobody writes about the running back's record or the fact that the defensive tackle has never beaten a ranked team. But for the last three seasons, Odom and Lock have worn the numbers like an albatross around their necks: 0-7 against ranked teams and just a single win--two years ago--against a Power Five team that finished the season with a winning record. Not anymore.
"For Drew, it's pretty big," offensive tackle Yasir Durant said. "Everybody has stuff to say about Drew, no matter if he does good or bad. For him to go out there and ball like that, I was really proud of him just to show everybody that he could do it. Because nobody believed that he could."
"Really big," Odom said. "The play that I'm going to have ingrained in my mind for a long time is the third down scramble for the first down. He willed his way to go get the first down and that was huge.
"I was really proud of his effort and the way he led our football team."
Odom was restrained. There was no finger-wagging, no I-told-you-so, nothing like that. This victory almost certainly assured he will be back on the Missouri sideline for a fourth season next fall, but there are three games left to play and if any team knows the ups and downs of a season, it's these Tigers.
But the players knew how big it was. They hear the rumblings and they feel the heat. And to be able to relieve their coach of that just a little bit, even for a week, was important.
"It's what he deserves," Lock said. "He's worked his butt off. He's trying to make the University and this football team the absolute best that he can."
Lock had been known as the quarterback who piled up stats against the weak sisters of the schedule and wilted in the spotlight. Odom was the coach who was in over his head, who got the job only because he went to school at Missouri and nobody else would take it. And while there is a quarter of a season left, the immense amount of pressure lifted off both of their shoulders on Saturday evening cannot be ignored.
"These situations, a lot of times in sport, mirror how your life can go," Odom said. "You're going to be faced with adversity. You're going to be faced with hard times."
Finally the team that had been close broke through. And it didn't step meekly through the door. It busted through kicking and screaming, pushing the Gators around on both lines of scrimmage, dominating on third down on both sides of the ball, mocking the Gator Chomp as it put together its most complete game of the season.
"I guess I have a lot of weight on my back. Whatever. It comes with the territory," Odom said. "We lost to No. 1, we lost to No. 2 and then two drives in two games. I still think we're a pretty good team. I've been telling our football team we've got to go do it."
Missouri has weathered storms this season that sink many ships. The Tigers sailed on. There have been bumps behind them. There will be more ahead. But on Saturday night, Barry Odom got his biggest win and Drew Lock led the way, passing Peyton Manning to move into third on the SEC's all-time list with 90 career touchdown passes in the process.
Whatever comes next, they will forever be linked. The coach and the quarterback. Will they be the duo that took the first few steps of Missouri's journey back? The next three weeks determine that. But on this night, more than any other Tigers, they were validated.
"I respect him almost more than anybody besides my parents," Lock said of Odom. "I've gotten to know him on a real personal level and you want the world for that guy. If I can give it to him by winning these last games, it's what I'm going to try to do."
After a season full of almosts and heartbreaks--and make no mistake, there will still be quite a bit of what could have been when it's over--for one night, Missouri could rejoice.
"I know it doesn’t really mean anything to say that we played with the No. 2 team, the No. 12 team and gave Alabama pretty good competition," Crockett said. "(But) that’s definitely a program moving in the right direction."
"There's no feeling like it," Emanuel Hall said after his first game in more than a month. "There really isn't."
"“It’s a hell of a feeling," offensive lineman Kevin Pendleton said. "We should have done this a long time ago.”
Better late than never. Statement made.