In some ways, junior wide receiver J’Mon Moore sums up Missouri’s 2016 season perhaps better than any other Tiger. There have been flashes of brilliance…and not just against the lighter pockets of Missouri’s schedule. Against Georgia, Moore had eight catches for 196 yards and two touchdowns. But he also fumbled on the Tigers’ last-gasp drive, sealing a 28-27 loss.
This weekend, Moore had eight more catches for 138 yards and two touchdowns as Mizzou broke its 13-month long SEC losing streak and beat Vanderbilt 26-17.
"He can be great," senior cornerback Aarion Penton said. "Fast, good feet, elusive and he can open up."
"He can be very good," quarterback Drew Lock said. "He is physically superb. He can do a lot of things with the ball that a lot of guys can't."
ALSO SEE: VIDEO FROM MEDIA DAY | BARRY ODOM'S COMMENTS
But, like his team, Moore has been unable to sustain that level of performance. In between the win over Delaware State and the loss to South Carolina, Moore caught a total of seven passes for 117 yards in losses to LSU, Florida, Middle Tennessee and Kentucky. His longest reception—40 yards against the Blue Raiders—was immediately fumbled away.
"I think it's just kind of a mental mindset," Penton said. "Just locking in every play. It's hard. It takes time and practice just thinking right and living right and just being positive. I think he can get there. I've seen him make plays and do great things."
"Earlier in the year he said he wanted to be more of a leader," Lock said. "I told him it was going to start in practice. He's taken that to heart. He's been practicing his butt off lately."
Perhaps the biggest step for Moore is the self-awareness to diagnose these problems.
MOORE
Even in the standout performance against Vanderbilt, Moore had multiple drops. He may have been eyeing a 200-yard day had he held on to everything Lock put in his catch radius.
"I'm kind of still frustrated," Moore said after the game. "I had a drop or two. I'm trying to get rid of them drops, man. I know it's on me."
As it is, the mercurial wideout—who has become a bit of a lightning rod for Missouri fans—stands to be the Tigers’ leading receiver for a second season in a row. He has more than doubled his production from last year when he was the top target on an historically meager offense. But there is so much more there.
"You saw him take off against Vandy last week," Lock said. "He definitely turned the jets on. Saw it against Georgia as well. He just broke free from everybody."
The tools, the physical ability aren’t question marks. They haven’t been for four years now. Moore has flashed in practices since he was a true freshman out of Missouri City, TX in 2013. It’s the other side of the game that has held him up.
"Things don't always go the way you want it to go," Moore said. "I've just been having to control my emotions. Just get ready to come out and work. When things aren't going right all you can do is work.
"I might be so anxious, so emotionally stressed that it can kind of infect how I play. I'm so anxious, I'm so excited, I'm so caught into the moment that I'm not able to relax and just play the game and let the game come to me or even attack the game. I just feel like in those big games, I've learned, don't be so anxious. Just play the game like any other game and it will happen."
For inspiration there, Moore looks to his quarterback, who has dealt with his fair share of adversity and criticism in just half the time Moore has spent in Columbia.
"I was just talking about Drew and all the adversity he goes through and how playing quarterback is a pretty hard position," Moore said. "He gets critiqued a lot. I'm just proud of him. He's able to just tune out a lot of the things that are thrown at him and he still just walks around here with joy and how he goes out there and competes."
FRAZIER FINDS HIS ROLE
Like many spots on the field, Missouri has struggled to establish a starter at defensive end opposite Charles Harris. The Tigers have tried Jordan Harold, Marcell Frazier and Spencer Williams at that spot.
Frazier, a redshirt junior who came to Columbia via the College of the Siskiyous, had started to establish himself mid-season. Then he was ejected in the second half of the Middle Tennessee loss for targeting and had to sit the first half of the game agains Kentucky as well.
But in the last two weeks, Frazier has re-established himself as a weapon opposite Harris. He had a tackle and a hurry in a 31-21 loss to South Carolina and broke through with 2.5 of Missouri’s season-high six sacks against Vandy. Frazier cites a move back to last year’s defensive scheme as a big contributor to his productivity.
"When they just kind of went with more stuff we knew and we could just play fast and really pin our ears back," Frazier said of his personal turning point. "When you're going a hundred miles an hour, it's hard for people to react to us. It's just been way better going back to the old stuff for us."
And while he is happy to be helping now, Frazier can’t help but wonder what might have been.
"I could hope it would have been earlier, but just some things as far as playing time didn't go my way," Frazier said. "I felt I could have been doing this all year, but I just kind of had to roll with the punches. Of course I wish I could have started day one against West Virginia. Who knows how many sacks I could have had or Charles could have had as far as not getting so many double-teams.
"I felt like I really took a lot of pressure off him the last couple games. It's really helped me and him and Jordan Harold and Nate (Howard). I think it's all playing out how we would have hoped."
"I feel like after the South Carolina game, a lot of attention kind of got drawn away from me," Harris said. "Vanderbilt game, I saw a lot of situations where I had one-on-ones."
As for Harris, he matched Frazier with 2.5 sacks against the Commodores. He now has eight for the season. Despite a season-long question of what has happened to his productivity, Harris has more sacks this season than he did at the same time last year and is just two behind SEC leader Derek Barnett of Tennessee.
"It's a great milestone anytime you do better than you have previously," Harris said. "But of course it's not anything where I want to be. I'm still gonna work hard to finish."
ALMOST A TIGER
Barnett, who is one of the frontrunners to be the SEC Defensive Player of the year, flirted with Missouri for a while during his recruitment. Current Tiger Paul Adams tried to get Barnett to follow him and fellow Nashville product Thomas Richard to Columbia.
“Yeah I did. Obviously that didn’t work out too well,” Adams said. “Tennessee got him. But he said he loved it here. It was definitely his second choice but home really got him.”
The Tigers’ starting right tackle will likely line up opposite Barnett quite a bit on Saturday in Knoxville. He knows the task that lies ahead of him.
“Freshman year of high school he was doing the things he’s doing now,” Adams said. “You just looked at him. His size and everything was just, he had the build for this game.”
CALLING ALL KICKERS
Missouri’s depth chart came out on Monday afternoon with a noticeable blank spot. There was no placekicker. The depth chart wasn’t missing a name; the entire position was absent.
It wasn’t an accident. Missouri has struggled to find a kicker all season long. Tucker McCann and Turner Adams were both inconsistent through the first half of the season. Against South Carolina, Adams got the start and Barry Odom indicated it wasn’t just performance-based, mentioning academics when asked why McCann was on the bench. Adams missed a field goal and put two kickoffs out of bounds. McCann entered in the second half and promptly missed a field goal of his own.
That was simply a prelude to Vanderbilt, where McCann missed two extra points and two more field goals. Missouri is now 11-19 on field goals and has missed five extra points.
"Tomorrow on practice and again on Wednesday and Thursday, we'll evaluate every kicker we have on the roster and see if we can get the right guy out there to kick an extra point or a field goal," Odom said. "I thought we kicked really well last week in practice. Our guys kicked really well in pre-game. I was surprised as anybody that we missed two extra points. For us, that will cost you a game."
So it’s an open competition this week in practice. Ben Tesson, a walk-on, kicked the final extra point against Vanderbilt.
"There's been a number of guys that have come in with that label that have had great careers," Odom said. "At the beginning of the year, at the beginning of the semester, that's part of what our recruiting department does. They keep a list of guys that maybe are interested in joining the program. We'll get a handful of guys in the program that maybe have some ability and try to develop them.
"I was glad he was able to knock it in the other night."
Odom said that McCann will continue to handle the kickoffs.
WATCHING THE TIGERS
This Saturday’s game will kick off at 2:30 Central time. It will be televised by CBS. The regular season finale against Arkansas will also be televised by CBS. That game kicks off at 1:30 on Friday, November 25th.
