Offense better, not good enough
MORGANTOWN, WV--Defense may win championships, but offense puts butts in the seats and generates excitement. The focus following most football teams is on the offense. For Missouri--coming off an historically bad offensive year--that focus is more sharply on that side of the ball than most. The story for Mizzou--until it gives everyone a reason to prove it shouldn't be--is whether the offense is good enough to produce a decent season.
So let's start by saying Missouri's offense was better in Saturday's 26-11 loss to West Virginia than it was last year. By the most basic measure--Missouri gained 462 yards on Saturday--the offense was better on Saturday than it was at any point last year. The Tigers had a season-high 434 yards against BYU in 2015. The only other time the Tigers topped 400 was against SEMO.
It was better. It still wasn't good.
I came up with an analogy for this Tiger offense some time in the second half in Morgantown. They're like my golf game. I'll explain.
I'm not a good golfer. But I don't just flat out suck. I hit enough good shots in any given round to convince myself that if I just come back next time, I'll hit a few more good shots. And some more the next time. And eventually I'll hit a lot of good shots and I'm going to be good at golf. My problem is, I don't string enough of those good shots together in a row to play even half a round near par. I'll hit a good drive on two and a good iron on four and sink a 25-foot putt on five. But add it all up and I still come in around a bogey golfer.
Mizzou hit some good shots on Saturday. The second quarter may have been as well as Drew Lock has played in college. Take a look at the play below, a throw I called the best of his collegiate career.
Lock threw for 280 yards and didn't turn it over. He and Marvin Zanders combined for 76 of the Tigers' 180 rushing yards. They moved the ball decently against the Mountaineers.
"I feel like the most frustrating thing today was, we moved the ball," Lock said. "We've just got to punch it in at the end. It's like you're in a fight and you fought all the rounds and then the last round you get knocked out. We've got to finish drives."
"We're still young and new, new staff and everything," Zanders said. "It's really just us getting a feel for the game and the offense and how it's supposed to be played, really. I think we settled in a little bit more in the second quarter."
But one drive stalled with a fumble. They missed two field goals. During a late mad rush, they missed on four straight passes from the six yard-line, completely ending any chances at what would have been one of the most miraculous comebacks in the sport's history.
This probably reads like some high-powered spin. Like buying a new car and having the transmission drop out on the drive home and thinking "At least the tires aren't flat." I get it. But let's return to my golf game. The 2015 Tigers were like a guy who just picked up clubs for the first time in his life. They were playing the whole course from the woods, probably happy just to finish the round without seriously injuring anyone. On Saturday, there were some good shots sprinkled in with the sprayed drives, groundball irons and muffed chip shots.
I don't know if Missouri is close. But the Tigers are closer.
WATCH: BARRY ODOM PRESS CONFERENCE
"You bringing up they had more yards, then, yeah, that's always a start," Aarion Penton said. "It's just the first game. I guess they wanted to see what all worked and what didn't. Coach Odom, he's saying it's on him and he's going to do a better job of getting us prepared and calling better plays, making sure we get better plays for our offense."
"You never come out of a loss encouraged," Lock said. "But it just feels a little different than last year's losses as far as knowing that we left plays on the field. It wasn't that there wasn't any plays. We could have made a play and made the difference. That's the positive side of it. I mean, there's really no positives, but you know what I'm saying."
Now, look, I'm 40 years old. My golf game isn't going to get much better. So I can live with going out, hitting some good shots now and again and just enjoying the game. Missouri can't do that. They're playing at a level that you can't be satisfied with being below average.
"There's a winner and a loser in everything that we do in life and we ended up on the short end today. By no idea or means is that what we're going to accept," Barry Odom said. "I saw some things today that we'll build on.
The resolve of our team, we've got to play hard and smart and tough. We've got to stay tight together. We do that, we're going to make a lot of progress. I like that locker room."
Missouri's next round starts at 6:30 Saturday night in the home opener against Eastern Michigan. The Tigers will take another stab at stringing a few more good shots together then.
