FAYETTEVILLE, AR—For five straight weeks, Missouri played the second half on cruise control. Finally, in the season’s final week, the Tigers were tested until the end. A back and forth affair with Arkansas ended with Missouri winning 48-45 on a 19-yard Tucker McCann field goal with nine seconds to go.
The Tigers had won five straight games by at least 28 points. In the first six weeks, only one game was decided by fewer than 18. But in a mistake-filled see-saw contest on Friday, neither team could sustain success for long. Missouri never led by more than a field goal. Arkansas led 28-14 at one point, but then gave up 17 consecutive points. It was a one-score game the rest of the day.
“They care about each other. To get a game like that, a win like that, huge for our program,” head coach Barry Odom said. “They’ve got tremendous resolve and they wanted to go win a football game.
“We’ve got a little bit of toughness to us. It’s taken a little while to get there.”
“Bottom line is that we every single game have gotten tougher,” quarterback Drew Lock said. “It was time for us to come out on top. It was time for us to be the better team. It was for us to be the tougher team.”
“Just resiliency,” defensive end Marcell Frazier said. “Says a lot about Coach Odom. Just resilient, hard-nosed guy, blue collar. Nothing flashy. There’s no secret ingredients. It’s just waking up every day and working hard.”
The first half of Missouri’s season was a spiral. One bad play begot another. One loss led to the next. But suddenly, somewhere, the Tigers turned tough. They took punches and punched back.
On Friday, the lead changed hands once in the third quarter and then five more in the fourth. Arkansas tied it at 45 with exactly five minutes to play. Missouri got the ball back on its own 24-yard line.
“Definitely thinking we need to score,” J’Mon Moore said. “We weren’t worried about how much time was left.
“Need to come off the field with points.”
“It’s a tie game,” Ish Witter said, fresh off 170 yards for his third straight 100-yard day. “We just need to run the clock down as much as we can and try to get a field goal or a touchdown.”
A 24-yard completion to Johnathon Johnson on third and seven kickstarted the drive, moving Mizzou to midfield. Witter ran for 22 yards on the next play to the Razorback 28 and Missouri was in potential field goal range. Following a completion from Lock to Nate Brown, Witter ran twice more. Lock appeared to give Missouri the lead with a 13-yard touchdown run, but it was called back on a hold against Moore.
“I just had to blow it off,” Moore said. “I didn’t think I was holding. I haven’t seen the play yet.”
Witter then carried the ball five consecutive times, giving him a career-high 39 on the day.
“I don’t even think I carried it that much in high school to be honest,” Witter said. “I definitely had more in me. This is definitely a win I wanted.”
That set the Tigers up at the one-yard line. The snap was good, the hold was good, the kick was good and Missouri was a winner.
“That’s more excited than I’ve been after any college football game,” Lock said. “You dream about that as a quarterback. Tie ballgame, X amount of minutes on the clock to try to go win the football game for your school, your state, your University, especially against your rivalry team. It’s hard to put into words right now. I’m a little speechless.”
THE UPS AND DOWNS OF J'MON MOORE
Perhaps no Tiger more encompasses the seesaw nature of this game than Moore. He had ten catches for 160 yards and a touchdown. He moved into fourth on Missouri’s all-time receiving list.
At the same time, he dropped four passes. He had a holding penalty that temporarily nullified the go ahead touchdown.
“Would not have won it without him,” Odom said. “He made some plays. Made some huge plays.”
Was he good or was he bad? Honestly, he was both.
“Just got to move forward. I wanted that ball so bad tonight I was a little bit too anxious,” he said. “J’Mon last year would have been a little bit upset. Probably wouldn’t have been able to let it go as quickly. Got to move forward. That’s part of being a receiver. You’re not going to be able to catch everything. The goal is to catch everything, but catch the next one when you drop one.”
And that’s really the key. To get the good, sometimes you have to take the bad. Even Moore’s good plays are sometimes wrought with the potential to go wrong. Did he push off on the 24-yard touchdown pass that put the Tigers up 45-42 with 8:14 to play?
“Yeah. Part of the game,” Moore said. “I feel like he was trying to bump against me. I’m gonna get the best of him. So that’s how it is.”
LOCK GETS TWO RECORDS
Drew Lock’s second touchdown pass of the day covered 56 yards to Emanuel Hall. It gave him the Mizzou school record all alone with 40 on the season. That one tied him with Kentucky's Andre Woodson for the SEC single-season record. His 10-yarder to Albert Okwuegbunam just three minutes and 38 seconds later gave him the conference record by himself. He would add two more, bringing the season total to 43 with a game yet to play.
“I know this, he made some unbelievable throws throughout the course of the night,” Odom said. “He’s thrown more touchdown passes than anybody in the history of the SEC. That’s kind of a big deal. I’m glad he’s our quarterback.”
On the pass that tied the record, Hall injured his right hamstring and would not return.
“Right before I caught the pass I felt a pop in the back of my leg. I just looked it in and finished the play,” Hall said. “It’s hurting me pretty bad right now. But I’m going to get in with Rex (Sharp) and get right for the bowl game.”
He ended the day with two catches for 111 yards and two touchdowns, a nice bounceback from back to back weeks where he was plagued by the drops.
“I played a very bad game last game and the game before that I played an all right game,” Hall said. “But it felt very good to get my swag back a little bit, come out and make two big catches.”
With Hall out, Nate Brown and Dominic Collins filled in. Brown had five catches for 49 yards and Collins had two for 41, including an acrobatic 30-yarder down the sideline.
“Next man up,” Moore said. “That’s what we preach all the time. Next man up when it’s your time. It was their time and they made the best of their opportunities.”
“Everybody knows they can play ball. We’re here for a reason,” Witter said. “Dom and Nate Brown came and made plays.”
DEFENSE ON ITS HEELS
During a five-game win streak, Missouri hadn’t given up more than 17 points in a game. The Razorbacks had blown by that with half of the second quarter remaining. Arkansas’ 45 points were the third most Missouri has given up this season. Only Auburn and Georgia scored more.
“It was kind of a shock them running it up like that, especially 28, 21 in the first quarter,” Terry Beckner Jr. said. “It’s like ‘We got to start back playing.’ Arkansas’ a great team and they played a great game, but there was some things we did, I mean, stuff happens.”
“They came out swinging,” said Marcell Frazier, who led the defense with 3.5 tackles for a loss and three pass breakups. “They played their absolute best game. I expected it personally. I don’t know if the younger guys did, but I knew they were going to come out like we did against them last year.”
The Tigers were particularly susceptible to the deep ball from Austin Allen. He threw for 313 yards—the Razorbacks’ first 300-yard passing day since a loss to Missouri last year. Jordan Jones had two catches for 122 yards.
“They had a lot of route combinations,” cornerback Adam Sparks said. “When we were watching film, we were anticipating one thing and they were doing the other. They kept doing it and they kept setting up their routes.”
But in the end, the defense held Arkansas to a tying field goal, allowing Lock and the offense to deliver the game-winning points.
“We were watching it,” Beckner said. “We got faith in our offense and they got faith in us. We just knew they were going to punch it in and if we had to go out there and do another stand on the defensive side, we were ready for it.”
TALKING BOWL BIDS
Missouri is 7-and-5 and one of nine bowl eligible teams in the SEC. Where the Tigers go could depend heavily on the result of Saturday’s Iron Bowl.
If Auburn beats Alabama, it is likely the SEC will get three teams into the playoff bowls. If that happens, the six bowls that select following the Citrus Bowl will have only five teams from which to choose. The Liberty Bowl, which has the lowest payout among SEC-contracted bowls, is the likely one not to feature an SEC team.
So if Auburn wins, Mizzou is likely headed to the Texas Bowl with the Taxslayer, Belk and Music City bowls at least in the discussion. But if Alabama were to beat Auburn, the Tigers likely slide down to the Citrus Bowl which then leaves six SEC teams for the other six bowls and brings the Liberty Bowl back in the picture. The Tigers are a natural fit for that game if there are enough teams.
Final bowl destinations will be announced next Sunday, December 3rd, following conference championship games and the College Football Playoff selections.
