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. 7 Missouri's 30-27 win over Vanderbilt.
Quarterbacks: If you look at the box score, Brady Cook had a solid game. He completed 23-of-36 passes for 226 yards, two touchdowns and the win. However, his stat line looks way better than how he played.
He seemed hesitant and looked slow running the ball. If Cook can rely on anything in a bad game, it's his legs and he didn't have it today on the ground. He had 11 carries for seven yards. Also, some of his throws missed the mark by quite a bit. He had his moments like that touchdown pass in overtime to wide receiver Luther Burden III, but overall there was a lot left to be desired. GRADE: C-
Running backs: If there was one player on Missouri who has almost no blame, if any, in Mizzou's lackluster performance it's Nate Noel. For the second week in a row, he topped 100 rushing yards. This time, going for a career-high 199 yards on 24 carries. He also had three receptions for eight yards. Marcus Carroll had five carries for 10 yards and a touchdown. GRADE: A
Wide receivers: Burden paced all Mizzou receivers with six receptions for 71 yards and two touchdowns. He's not credited with any drops in the box score but he had two passes that hit him square in the hands. Those were drops no matter what the box score says - or doesn't say.
Theo Wease had five receptions for 55 yards.
Marquis "Speedy" Johnson had two receptions for 19 yards. He did leave the game due to an ankle injury, but head coach Eli Drinkwitz said the injury is minor and alluded to Johnson being okay after the bye week.
Mookie Cooper had one reception for 18 yards and Mekhi Miller also had one reception for 11 yards. GRADE: B-
Tight end: Brett Norfleet had three receptions for 13 yards. Norfleet isn't 100%. He's still overcoming the shoulder injury from earlier in the season, but he hasn't really been a factor in the offense this year. He helped the offense rush for 216 yards on Saturday, but he was a non-factor for the most part. GRADE: C-
Offensive line: The struggles continue for this group. Just one penalty, a hold by right guard Cam'Ron Johnson, was all this group was flagged for. However, the group allowed eight tackles for loss and three sacks. Pass protection has been a problem all year. In the run game, the unit does well as Noel can probably attest to the last couple of weeks, but it's not like that on pass plays. GRADE: D
Defensive line: Five of the team's six tackles for loss came from this group. It contained the run well, but the contains on some of Vandy quarterback Diego Pavia's runs were poor at times. Pavia ran 17 times for 84 yards for 4.9 yards per carry.
Chris McClellan led this unit with seven tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss, a bat down and a quarterback hit. This was his best game as a Tiger.
Zion Young had seven tackles and a tackle for loss.
Eddie Kelly had three tackles and a tackle for loss.
Johnny Walker had three tackles and a bat down.
Marquis Gracial had two tackles and 0.5 tackles for loss.
Kristian Williams had a tackle and a bat down.
Sterling Webb had a tackle.
Joe Moore had a quarterback hit that almost led to an interception. GRADE: B-
Linebackers: This group missed more tackles than Drinkwitz would've liked. It wasn't a terrible game but it was the group's worst tackling game of the year.
Corey Flagg led the group with five tackles.
Triston Newson had three tackles.
Chuck Hicks had five tackles, a tackle for loss and a sack.
Khalil Jacobs had two tackles and two quarterback hits. GRADE: C+
Secondary: This group played well outside of one big play earlier in the game. It helped limit Vandy to 4-of-14 on third-down conversions.
Marvin Burks led the team in tackles with 12.
Daylan Carnell had five tackles and a pass deflection.
Sidney Williams had four tackles and a pass deflection.
Drey Norwood had three tackles.
Joe Charleston had a pair of tackles.
Tre'Vez Johnson had a pass deflection.
Phillip Roche was flagged for blocking in the back on a punt return that wiped out a 16-yard return.
Toriano Pride gave up a 65-yard touchdown in the first quarter. GRADE: B-
Special teams: Blake Craig went 3-of-6 on field goals with misses from 24, 40 and 46 yards away. Craig has a massive leg and coming off an SEC Special Teams Player of the Week performance it was a major letdown for him to miss three kicks inside 50 yards. However, he made kicks from 23, 54 and 37 yards. He has made three field goals from 50 or more yards this season.
His 37-yarder was the one that put Mizzou ahead late in double overtime, and it was after he made two straight missed kicks in the fourth quarter. That's still impressive in itself for the redshirt freshman.
Burks let a dribbler go behind him on a kickoff and then picked up the ball near the end zone and instead of running forward he ran backward laterally and almost got tackled for a safety.
Punter Luke Bauer had a solid day with three punts for an average of 38.3 yards per punt with two landing inside the 20-yard line. GRADE: D
Coaching: Drinkwitz's handling of the game and clock was one of his worst performances. Whether it was running plays before the two-minute timeout, which led to Vandy being able to save timeouts and score points, poor playcalling, burning timeouts at the wrong time or any one of several other mistakes he made, he had a big hand in the Tigers' underwhelming performance.
The Tigers didn't seem like a team ready to play and should feel fortunate that Vandy couldn't take advantage of all their mistakes. Missouri did have to make the plays to emerge victorious and that's most important, but you can't help but feel like Vandy lost this game just as much, if not more, than Missouri won it. GRADE: D+
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