11/26/2022 football Edit

Mizzou Report Card: Week 13 vs. Arkansas

Jarod Hamilton • PowerMizzou

Staff Writer

Every week PowerMizzou.com will hand out a position-by-position report card from Missouri’s most recent game. Here are the grades for Missouri from Friday’s 29-27 win over Arkansas.

Quarterbacks: Game after game it seems like Brady Cook is having a career day. Cook had really come into his own in the last two games and it was no different in week 13.

He completed 16 of 26 passes for 242 yards and a touchdown. He also led Mizzou in rushing for the third straight game by adding a career-high 138 yards on the ground on 18 carries. Cook had 114 of them in the first half and also orchestrated scoring drives on Mizzou's first six of seven drives, including the first four.

His game isn't without fault. A constant theme for Cook has been missing open wide receivers for big gains. For example, in the fourth quarter on Mizzou's penultimate possession with the ball inside Arkansas' 35-yard line Cook missed wide receivers Tauskie Dove and Dominic Lovett, who would've been open for touchdowns. Instead, Cook was sacked outside of field goal range. He threw an interception on a two-point conversion and he threw a pass or two up that could've also been intercepted which is something he does weekly. GRADE: A-

Running backs: Cody Schrader had 18 rushes for 87 yards and a touchdown, his eighth of the season. He also was able to break a run for 29 yards, the longest run by a running back since week six against Florida. Nathaniel Peat was the only other running back to get any carries and he had three for one yard. GRADE: B

Wide Receivers: Barrett Banister had been the best wide receiver for the Tigers in the previous two games, but he was out with an injury. So, for the second time this season we saw a collective effort being put up by the wide receivers. Mookie Cooper hadn't had a catch since week eight, he had three of them for 45 yards. Dominic Lovett had six receptions for 130 yards. Luther Burden had a couple of catches for 30 yards and a touchdown. Burden's fellow true freshman, Mekhi Miller, probably had the biggest play of the game with a 22-yard catch on third and four to effectively seal the game. He finished the game with two receptions for 28 yards.

What stops this from being an A is Cooper having a drop. The pass was high, but he had both hands on the ball and Burden had an illegal shift and an illegal formation penalty. GRADE: A-

Tight Ends: It was another quiet week for this group which saw no tight end make a reception. Tyler Stephens committed a false start penalty but overall it wasn't too big of a day for tight ends positively or negatively. GRADE: C

Offensive line: The offensive line has strung together a few good games in a row and that has led to increased offensive production across the board, but Friday was inconsistent at best. Mizzou entered the game allowing two sacks and seven tackles for loss and allowed a sack and six tackles for loss. Cook was actually sacked twice, but on that aforementioned play when he had Lovett and Dove open he had more than enough time to throw the ball away and didn't. So, that sack is on him. The line also had a false start on Connor Wood and an ineligible man downfield penalty called on Xavier Delgado. GRADE: C+

Defensive line: The defensive line played almost as good as you could've hoped for. It recorded six of the team's seven sacks with defensive tackles Darius Robinson and Kristian Williams each getting one, defensive end Johnny Walker getting one and Isaiah McGuire getting two. Williams finished the game with three tackles, two tackles for loss and a sack. Robinson had five tackles, one sack and one tackle for loss. Walker finished with a tackle, a sack and a tackle for loss. DJ Coleman finished the game with four tackles and a forced fumble (Arkansas retained possession after the ball rolled out of bounds).

McGuire undoubtedly had the best game of anyone on defense simply because he was playing with a separated shoulder. He finished the game with five tackles, two sacks and two tackles for loss.

The only reason the grade isn't an A is because Williams had an offsides penalty, Coleman had a personal foul penalty and the line failed to bring Arkansas quarterback KJ Jefferson down for a number of sacks on at least three different occasions. Some of which led to first downs. GRADE: A-

Linebackers: Ty'Ron Hopper had only recorded six tackles in the prior two games, but he bounced back with a season-high 11 tackles and two tackles for loss. Chad Bailey added five tackles. Along with the defensive line, the pair helped limit Raheim Sanders to 10 carries for 47 yards on the ground. Sanders had entered the game averaging 6.6 yards per carry and had the second most rushing yards in the Southeastern Conference with over 1,300 to go along with 10 touchdowns. The reason this isn't an A is because of some missed tackles and Sanders caught an eight-yard pass for a touchdown in the flat because of Bailey was late rotating over to him. GRADE: A-

Secondary: This group had a fairly decent game. Safety Jaylon Carlies led defensive backs in tackles with eight. Safety Martez Manuel had four tackles, two tackles for loss and two sacks. Ennis Rakestraw had three tackles and a pass deflection and safety Daylan Carnell had three tackles and an interception, his second in as many games.

The reason the group didn't receive a higher grade is because Arkansas wide receiver Jadon Haselwood had seven receptions on eight targets for 74 yards while Matt Landers had four receptions on seven targets for 79 yards and a touchdown that he caught while cornerback Kris-Abrams Draine was draped all over him. The pair combined for 54 of Arkansas wide receivers' 114 yards after the catch. GRADE: B

Special teams: Miller didn't just have a clutch reception, but he had a partial block on a punt where Arkansas was already punting from its own goalline. Miller's block helped the Tigers get possession at the Razorbacks' 31-yard line.

Kicker Harrison Mevis made 3 of 4 (40, 27, 29) field goals with his lone miss being from 55 yards out. He also made both of his PATs.

Punter Jack Stonehouse had four punts for an average of 43 yards with a long of 50 and two punts landing inside of the 20-yard line. GRADE: A-

Coaching: This was a well-coached game on both sides of the ball for the Tigers for the most part. The game script for the first 15 offensive plays resulted in a field goal and a touchdown which is pretty good. After that, Mizzou was able to adjust to what Arkansas was doing, which was to blitz relentlessly to mask its poor secondary and that ultimately led to four more scoring drives.

Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz did a good job of scheming up plays for Lovett and Cooper and even got a touchdown on a possession in which the offense converted a fourth and short on a quick slant which was nice to see because he is typically conservative on fourth and short.

The worst decision of the day was the two-point conversion on that same drive. Up 26-21 with 10 minutes left in the third quarter, Cook threw an interception on the two-point try.

He also made a smart play by wasting the clock at the end of the first half by not going for it. If he sends out the punt unit soon as the third down play ends on that final possession then Arkansas likely uses one of its two timeouts and possibly has a 28-20 or 24-20 lead going into halftime instead of a 21-20 lead.

The defense played better than the score indicates. A lot of Arkansas' better plays came on broken ones with Jefferson breaking a number of tackles and keeping the drive alive. Mizzou's worst defensive drive was probably its first. That drive was schemed up nicely by Arkansas. Overall, this game came down to execution and the coaches put the players into spots to execute when it mattered. GRADE: B