Notebook: Seniors hope to buck adversity one last time

As Missouri’s seniors prepare to play their final game on Faurot Field when the Tigers host Tennessee on Saturday, their mood is naturally reflective. Quarterback Kelly Bryant said he feels old — Bryant was supposed to have this day last season, but he ultimately opted to redshirt and transfer from Clemson to Missouri after losing his starting spot at quarterback. Safety Ronnell Perkins described his time in Columbia as “a long journey” with both good times and bad. Punt returner Richaud Floyd reminisced about being a part of “gun club” during the 2015 season, a group of redshirting players that worked out together.

“I’m trying not to say I’m going to cry (Saturday),” Floyd said. “But I probably am.”

A common theme that all of the seniors, and especially those in their fifth year at Missouri, like Perkins and Floyd, have experienced plenty of has been adversity. In a sense, this season represents more of the same. As the Tigers look to snap a four-game losing streak that has harpooned once-high hopes for this year, the pair said the tough times they have already endured will come in handy.

“We done been through it all,” Perkins said. “Every time we kept working, and we’re going to get over the hump. We just gotta get over the hump. Get some momentum in the game, and everybody’s just gotta do a little more.”

Players often like to make light of current struggles as just another in a series of obstacles, but for those who were on the Missouri team during the 2015 season, this losing streak really might feel like a walk in the park. There are some similarities between the two seasons, yes. The Tiger offense struggled mightily in both, at one point going 47 consecutive drives without scoring a touchdown in 2015. The team’s current streak is at 30 possessions. Meanwhile, both defenses dominated; the unit finished sixth nationally in total defense in 2015 and is 10th this season.

But 2015 also featured the suspension of starting quarterback Maty Mauk, on-campus protests over racial inequality that spilled over to the football team and led to a brief boycott by players and the retirement of longtime head coach Gary Pinkel.

Neither Floyd nor Perkins have explicitly brought up the 2015 season this year, but both said they’ve drawn on the lessons they learned in trying to lead the Tigers out of their current funk.

“I’ve been through it, so I know how to handle it,” Perkins said. “I know what to say to the younger guys, how to work, how to just keep everybody level-headed, keep everybody focused on winning one week at a time.”

Even since Barry Odom took over as head coach and the majority of the senior class arrived on campus in 2016, things have been far from rosy. Missouri went 4-8 in Odom’s first season, at one point losing five games in a row. The following year, the Tigers started the season 1-5 before ultimately winning six straight and qualifying for the postseason. And before this highly-anticipated season began, Missouri faced adversity of a different kind when the NCAA banned the football team from the postseason, among other sanctions as a result of an academic scandal that predates nearly all of the current roster.

Floyd, who reportedly delivered an impassioned speech to his teammates following last week’s loss against Florida, said his primary message has been that Missouri has fought through tough times previously by sticking together and leaning on one another, and that is the only way they can turn around this season.

“We could leave (after 2015), and since nobody elected to leave, it was just like, we’re all in this together,” Floyd said. “... Even with the sanctions this year, nobody elected to leave. You gotta be true to your roots. We came here, so we’re going to finish it. So that’s what we talked about, and what we’ve been living since we’ve been here.”

Odom said he feels pressure every year to send the seniors out as winners in their final home contest, but especially so this season due to all the players have endured. Floyd expressed confidence that, like the team did by beating BYU late in the 2015 season and knocking off Arkansas to end 2016, Missouri will rally. Despite the disappointment of dropping four games in a row, he stressed that the team still has plenty to play for.

“I’m not going to give up,” Floyd said. “These are my last two games of college. So I just told everybody we’re not going to give up on each other. You just gotta follow through with the plan. Get to six (wins), then get to seven, then see what the NCAA says.”

Far and away the biggest key to ending Missouri’s losing streak will be finding some life offensively. After averaging more than 38 points per game during the first six games of the season, Missouri has mustered just 6.8 points per contest during the last four. The Tigers haven’t scored a touchdown since the third quarter against Kentucky, 24 days ago. Derek Dooley, the always eloquent second-year offensive coordinator, said the unit is “in football hell right now."

Odom and Dooley have repeatedly shouldered the blame for the offensive struggles, with Odom saying again Tuesday the team has enough playmakers, it’s up to the coaches to put them in position to succeed. Dooley, however, did point to at least one area of the offensive struggles that doesn’t solely boil down to coaching.

Asked about the team’s run-pass disparity against Florida — Bryant dropped back to pass 47 times on 68 snaps, according to Pro Football Focus — Dooley said he called a few runs, at least early in the game, that Bryant opted to turn into passing plays. Bryant confirmed that on some occasions against Florida, he “took what the defense gave me” and threw the ball instead of handing it off on run-pass options.

“Sometimes we have these RPO’s, and so I think I called, of the first 50 plays, 23 of them were runs. Something like that,” Dooley said. “And we kick it out there sometimes. And so, yeah, we need to establish the run better, and maybe I need to stick with it better, that’s a fair question. … But I certainly wasn’t just calling air raid, you know, chucking it around.”

Missouri’s running backs combined for 14 carries against Florida, with Larry Rountree III seeing just seven, his lowest in a game since midway through his freshman season. In fairness to Dooley, however, it wasn’t like the Tigers were tearing it up on the ground. Even when adjusting for sacks, Missouri averaged just 2.8 yards per carry. Plus, as Dooley pointed out, once Florida grabbed a two-score lead in the second half, the Tigers were forced to throw in an effort to make up ground.

“When we do run it, we need to make yards,” Dooley said. “... I try to be balanced, like I always do, and usually what happens in the run game is the runs get better over time, but you gotta be scoring touchdowns and it’s gotta be a close game so you can keep running it.”

Missouri’s four-game losing streak has brought the annual fan debate about Odom’s viability as head coach to perhaps its loudest volume since Odom was hired. Tuesday, Odom was asked about his job security for the first time. Odom said his weekly conversations with athletics director Jim Sterk haven’t changed lately, and he pointed to both the team’s on-field record (currently 24-24) and off-field stability during his tenure as signs of progress.

“I look at the body of work that we’ve done to this point, with two games left in year four, we've won more games in four years than any coach since I think Warren Powers in their first four years,” Odom said “The grade point average on what we produce, the graduation rate, all those things, I know the body of work and what we've done. Do I wish we would have won more up to this point? Absolutely. So does everybody else. But we know the foundation and the culture of the locker room that we have. I'm proud of that. I'm in a really good spot on knowing what we've got in the staff room, what we got in the locker room, and what we can do here over the next two weeks or 10 days and what that's going to do to springboard us into next year."

Like most teams 10 games into a season, Odom said Missouri is “banged up.” Several starters wore red no-contact pullovers over their uniforms during practice Tuesday.

However, Odom is confident Missouri will have its full compliment of playmakers available against Tennessee, including slot receiver Johnathon Johnson. Johnson has missed each of the past two games due to an illness and a strained shoulder. He returned to the practice field Tuesday.

"He was back out there today, looks really good,” Odom said of Johnson. “Good fresh legs… Anticipating him looking better tomorrow."

Safety Tyree Gillespie, who left last week’s loss in the second half due to a shoulder injury, also wore red during practice, as did cornerback DeMarkus Acy and tight end Albert Okwuegbunam. Odom said he anticipates all three players being available Saturday.