Every week through the end of Missouri's football season, PowerMizzou.com will hand out a position-by-position report card from the Tigers' most recent game.
Here are the grades for No. 6 Missouri's 27-21 win over No. 24 Boston College.
Quarterbacks: Brady Cook had a decent game. He missed a couple of throws but for the most part, he did what needed to be done. He completed 21-of-30 passes for 264 yards and a touchdown. He also had six carries for six yards and a touchdown. The team went 4-of-4 in the red zone with two touchdowns and was 11-of-19 on third down. It's not the craziest stat line but he was efficient. GRADE: B+
Running backs: Nate Noel had a season-high in carries (22) and rushing yards (121) on Saturday. Missouri had 12 explosive plays (gains of 10 or more yards) and Noel had four by himself for gains of 13, 13, 16 and 24 yards, respectively. He also had one reception for nine yards.
Marcus Carroll had 12 carries for 57 yards to go with one reception for six yards.
Both backs were helping the team get down the field when the offense struggled to move the ball via the passing game early in the game. GRADE: A
Wide receivers: Luther Burden had his best game of the season, going for six receptions, 117 yards and a touchdown. He had three plays explosive plays himself that went for 19, 38 and 44 yards, respectively. He did have two 15-yard penalties within three plays in the third quarter that halted some momentum the offense had going. However, he bounced back by getting the 11-yard third-down reception to basically seal the game.
Theo Wease dropped the first pass thrown his way to start the game, but after that he had five receptions for 53 yards.
Mookie Cooper had his best game of the season with three receptions for 55 yards. All three of his receptions were explosive plays. One went for 17 yards, another for 22 yards and one for 16 yards.
Joshua Manning had a reception for nine yards and Marquis "Speedy" Johnson had one for five yards. GRADE: B
Tight end: After missing last week's game, Brett Norfleet caught three of his five targets for 11 yards. Other than that, it was a relatively quiet day for the tight end group, but they helped pave the way for 176 rushing yards. GRADE: C+
Offensive line: The offensive line committed just one penalty, an ineligible man downfield, by Cam'Ron Johnson that wiped off a 23-yard reception by Manning. Cook was under the most pressure he's been under all season long and was sacked once. While the pass blocking left something to be desired, the run blocking was pretty good. Noel averaged 5.5 yards per rush while Carroll averaged 4.8 yards per carry. The box score doesn't show it but Boston College was peppering Cook throughout the day and there were plays where Eagle defender were breaking through the line untouched. GRADE: C
Defensive line: This unit got burned a little bit early on by Boston College quarterback Thomas Castellanos but after that, the unit did a great job of containing him. Castellanos finished the game with 13 carries for 25 yards, and he was forced to pass because of how the group contained him.
Chris McClellan had three tackles and a hands-to-the-face penalty on a third and 15 that the Eagles didn't pick up to give them a new set of downs.
Kristian Williams and Johnny Walker each had two tackles and 0.5 tackles for loss.
Zion Young had two tackles and a pass deflection.
Jahkai Lang had a pair of tackles.
Marquis Gracial, Sam Williams, Eddie Kelly and Sterling Webb each had a tackle. GRADE: B+
Linebackers: This group had both of the team's sacks and three of the five tackles for loss. The unit was a big reason why Boston College neglected the run game and finished with 46 rushing yards, averaging 1.8 yards per carry.
Triston Newson tied for the team lead in tackles with five.
Corey Flagg had four tackles, a tackle for loss and a sack. Triston Newson had five tackles.
Chuck Hicks had his best game of the season with four tackles, a tackle for loss and a pass deflection.
Khalil Jacobs had three tackles and a tackle for loss. He also had a lot of the quarterback spy duties and he did well. GRADE: A
Secondary: This unit had two takeaways but all three passing touchdowns that Boston College got were because of blown coverage in the secondary.
Marvin Burks tied with Newson for a team-high five tackles. He also had the blown coverage on a 67-yard touchdown pass.
Daylan Carnell had four tackles and a team-high two pass deflections.
Joe Charleston had three tackles, but he also had an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and also had blown coverage on the 67-yard touchdown.
Drey Norwood had two tackles, a tackle for loss and an interception.
Sidney Williams had two tackles.
Tre'Vez Johnson had an interception and a tackle, and Nic DeLoach had a tackle. The latter seemed to be part of the blown coverage on Boston College's 38-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter.
Toriano Pride had blown coverage on the fourth and four 12-yard touchdown on the opening possession and he was flagged for a pass interference. GRADE: C
Special teams: Kicker Blake Craig went 1-of-3 last week with a make from 51 yards, and two misses from 49 and 52 yards, respectively. Well, he bounced back by going 4-of-4 with makes from 38, 38, 56 and 31 yards, respectively.
Punter Luke Bauer averaged 34 yards per punt on three punts, which isn't great but he did have two of them land inside the 20-yard line. GRADE: A-
Coaching: Missouri had eight penalties which is down from 11 last week. However, four of the eight penalties were unsportsmanlike conduct penalties which Drinkwitz took complete blame for after the game. That can't happen. But Missouri did a good job of overcoming adversity after being down 14-3 in the first half.
Mizzou would score on four straight drives after that and the defense would force two interceptions and three punts during the same stretch to steal the momentum back.
It wasn't a perfect game, but when the team faced adversity for the first time this season, offensive coordinator Kirby Moore and defensive coordinator Corey Batoon came through and led their sides of the ball to great success to win the game. GRADE: B
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