Mizzou Memories: 2005 Independence Bowl
Setting the stage: Missouri had finally broken through in 2003, winning eight games and making the postseason for the first time under head coach Gary Pinkel. After a disappointing 2004 campaign that saw the Tigers go 5-6, 2005 had taken a similar downturn midway through the year. Missouri reached bowl eligibility, but lost three of its final four regular-season games. While Pinkel may not have quite been on the hot seat as the season drew to a close, his job wasn’t perfectly secure, either. Missouri finished the 2005 season with a matchup against a South Carolina team moving in the opposite direction, having won five of its final six games to earn bowl eligibility under first-year head coach Steve Spurrier. The two programs met in the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, Louisiana on Dec. 30, 2005.
The ESPN broadcast of this game began with a sentence I never thought I’d hear uttered, especially during bowl season. “It’s a spectacular day in Shreveport,” ESPN play-by-play commentator Sean McDonough said. And he was right. Not only was it 70 degrees and sunny, but this matchup seemed to carry more juice than your average Independence Bowl. Maybe it’s because I’ve heard so many different sportswriters complain about the travel to Shreveport or the inconsistent weather or lack of things to do there, but I always considered it a bottom-of-the-barrel bowl game for high-major schools. Neither Missouri or South Carolina exactly lit the world on fire in 2005, but they made for a much more compelling game than, say, Miami-Louisiana Tech or Florida State-Southern Miss, to name a couple recent examples.
The matchup was important for Missouri for two reasons. One, the program needed a shot of momentum. The 2003 season, which featured the first win over Nebraska in 25 years and the second eight-win season since 1981, had been a dream, but Pinkel had come under a bit of fire in the two years since. I was 10 years old at the time, so I can’t exactly remember the specific criticisms or how close Pinkel might have been to getting fired, but the Tigers certainly could have used a positive result to send them into the offseason.
The second reason: It would be the final college game for program-changing quarterback Brad Smith. By that point, the four-year starter had set program records for career passing yardage, passing touchdowns, rushing yardage and rushing touchdowns. He ranked fifth all-time nationally in total yardage, and would move to fourth by the game’s conclusion. Missouri wanted to send Smith out a winner.
The Tigers didn’t get off to a hot start. In fact, they couldn’t have started much worse.
South Carolina received the opening kickoff and promptly gashed Missouri both on the ground and through the air. Tailback Mike Davis gained 28 yards on two carries, then quarterback Blake Mitchell hit all-star freshman Sidney Rice for 17 yards. After Missouri failed to stop an obvious run from backup quarterback Antonio Heffner, who came in to relieve a banged-up Mitchell on third down and short, Mitchell hit Rice for a 23-yard score to put South Carolina up 7-0.
That wasn’t nearly the worst of it. On Missouri’s first play from scrimmage, running back Tony Temple got hit hard at the line of scrimmage and fumbled. South Carolina recovered. The Gamecocks then converted a third down and 15 with a 19-yard reception by Rice. Davis scored from five yards out the following play. Less than six minutes into the game, with Missouri having run just one offensive play, South Carolina held a two touchdown lead.
Due to an intentional grounding penalty that cost 12 yards, Missouri went three-and-out on its next possession. South Carolina quickly resumed carving up the Tiger defense, as Davis ran for 24 yards on the first play of the drive. Mitchell hit — you guessed it — Rice for 17 yards, and then completed a pass to rarely-used tight end Carson Askins on a play-action pass. Askins ran untouched for a 20-yard touchdown.
Missouri responded with another three-and-out. Ten minutes into the game, the Tigers had gained zero yards and trailed 21-0. I can only imagine the mob calling for Pinkel’s head on the PowerMizzou message boards at that point. And that’s not to say they didn’t have good reason to be upset, because Missouri had come out looking completely flat and unprepared.
Missouri finally got a stop on South Carolina’s next possession, then drove into Gamecock territory for the first time, but on a fourth down, Smith had his desperation pass intercepted. Missouri would then punt on each of its next two possessions, as well.
Midway through the second quarter, the Gamecocks looked like they might deliver the death blow. Rice once again beat single-coverage for a 19-yard gain to put South Carolina back in the red zone. But a couple plays later, Mitchell got hit as he threw, and his pass came up short of its intended receiver, making for an easy interception for Marcus King. King caught the ball at his own one-yard line and found a convoy of blockers in front of him. He sprinted up the sideline, cut back, broke one tackle and went into the end zone for a 99-yard return touchdown. Color commentator Craig James called the play “a game-changer.”
Finally, it seemed Missouri had some momentum. But it wouldn’t last. Mitchell found Rice for completions of 17 and 26 yards — Rice finished the first half with an insane nine catches for 169 yards — and Davis capped off the drive with a two-yard touchdown run. Less than two minutes after Missouri had cracked the scoreboard, South Carolina had regained a three-touchdown lead.
In a common Pinkel move, Missouri tried putting freshman backup Chase Daniel (you may have heard of him) in at quarterback the following series. Once again, the Tigers went three-and-out. But the defense finally came up with a big stop on the ground to get the ball back with Derrick Ming stuffed Bobby Wallace for no gain on third down and one, forcing South Carolina to punt the ball back to Missouri with 1:53 left in the second quarter.
Forced into some urgency in the two-minute drill, Missouri’s offense finally found a pulse. Smith hit tight end Martin Rucker for 23 yards, then completed a quick out to Tommy Saunders for 10 yards and a first down. Will Franklin took a short pass over the middle for a 31-yard gain, breaking a key tackle that allowed him to get out of bounds and putting Missouri at the South Carolina five-yard line. Then Smith lobbed a fade for his other tight end, freshman Chase Coffman, in the corner of the end zone. As he so often did, Coffman went up and over the defensive back and secured the grab to make the score 28-14 with 20 seconds remaining in the first half. As he walked off the field at halftime, Pinkel told the sideline reporter “we’re back in this thing.”
Missouri would get the ball again after the break, an opportunity to put its first real pressure on South Carolina. Smith hit Rucker for a 20-yard gain to start the drive, but a couple plays later, a defender fell on his right ankle, and Smith hobbled to the sidelines. Daniel, sporting sideburns and a goofy, pencil-thin goatee that ran from his bottom lip to his chin, coolly completed a pass Coffman and ran for a first down on fourth and one. Smith returned to the game, but not before the commentators, impressed by Daniel’s poise and accuracy, wondered aloud whether he should play the rest of the game behind center.
On the 15th play of the drive, Missouri lined up for a field goal. Holder Brad Ekwerekwu got the snap, but instead of placing the ball on the turf, he flipped it forward to Rucker, who had looped around from his end blocking position. South Carolina’s Johnathan Joseph nearly intercepted the shovel pass, but it found its way into Rucker’s hands, and he plowed forward for 13 yards to the South Carolina two-yard line. On the sidelines, Spurrier looked like he was about to explode. The tide felt like it was turning ... for all of three plays. A handoff to Temple lost four yards on third down, and placekicker Adam Crossett returned to the field for another field goal attempt. He actually kicked this one, but the ball hooked wide right. After a 19-play, eight-minute drive, Missouri had come up empty-handed. Gut punch.
Fortunately, Missouri’s defense looked like an entirely different unit in the second half and forced a South Carolina punt. The Tigers found another spark when, on third down and one, Smith sprinted right like he was going to run the option, then pulled up and threw to a wide open Coffman. The completion gained 30 yards. A few plays later, Smith took off up the middle of the field on a quarterback draw. As usual, he seemed to effortlessly glide down the field, even as he broke a tackle and crossed the goal line. Missouri had cut the lead to 28-21 with 2:41 left in the third quarter.
Ming came up with another huge play on the ensuing possession when he picked off Mitchell, and suddenly, Missouri had a short field and a chance to tie the game. Smith appeared to do so when he kept the ball and ran right for what would have been a touchdown, but the play got called back due to a suspect tripping penalty on Tyler Luellen. The 15-yarder put Missouri well behind the chains, but on third and 21, Rucker broke a couple tackles and turned a short pass into a 19-yard gain. That allowed Pinkel to keep the offense on the field on fourth and two from the four-yard line. Smith ran right up the middle for a touchdown. Tie game.
South Carolina’s next possession got derailed by two penalties, and after a poor punt, Missouri once again took over inside the Gamecock 40-yard line. Smith picked up a first down with a quarterback sneak on fourth and one, but a holding penalty a couple plays later put the Tigers behind the chains. Missouri ended up sending Crossett out for a 45-yard field goal — a pretty significant show of faith in the junior after he had missed a 21-yarder earlier. A false start penalty then made the kick even harder, a 50-yarder. But Pinkel didn’t waver, and Crossett delivered. The field goal gave Missouri its first lead at 31-28, which a couple hours earlier would have seemed improbable.
South Carolina responded with its first decent drive of the second half, the key play coming when Rice made an impressive grab in traffic on fourth and seven. Missouri forced a field goal, and Josh Brown made the 30-yard kick. With 4:16 remaining the game was tied at 31 apiece.
At that point, a Missouri offense that had looked completely futile for the first 25 minutes had scored points on four of five possessions, with the only missed opportunity coming at the end of a 19-play drive. The Tigers kept it rolling. Smith made perhaps the second-most memorable play of the game, behind the 99-yard pick six, when he tried to run right, hesitated, waited for a cut-back lane to materialize and burst free for a 58-yard run. After Temple ran for 10 more yards, Smith took a quarterback draw to the one. The following play, Smith carried again and was met at the line of scrimmage, but he pushed the pile into the end zone. The touchdown was his fourth of the day and third on the ground. Missouri led 38-31 with 2:13 remaining.
South Carolina had one last chance. Mitchell started the drive with a nine-yard completion to Williams. The following play, he had Davis wide open for a checkdown. It wouldn’t have been a huge gain, but it would have gotten a first down and stopped the clock. Instead, Mitchell tried to force a pass to his go-to receiver, Rice. This time, Missouri covered him. Darnell Terrell intercepted the pass to seal an incredible comeback victory.
Smith finished his brilliant career with a fitting performance: 282 yards through the air, 150 on the ground and four total touchdowns. His passing records would be eclipsed by Daniel in short order, but his rushing yardage and touchdown records, and the mark he left on the program, remain intact today.
Pinkel would, of course, keep his job. And a corps of underclassmen who showed flashes in the Independence Bowl — Rucker, Coffman, Temple, Franklin, William Moore and, of course, Daniel — would emerge as stars and lead Missouri to eight wins in 2006, then one of the most memorable seasons in program history in 2007. Would it all have been possible if Missouri hadn’t turned the tide and gotten blown out by South Carolina? Thanks to Smith and company, Tiger fans don’t have to wonder.