Missouri's 2020 football season started with a complete schedule overhaul and ended with a bowl game canceled, all due to COVID-19. In between, the Tigers put together a solid 5-5 record in Eli Drinkwitz's first year as head coach. Yesterday, we assigned season grades for every position. Now, on this first day of 2021, we're taking a look back at 2020 using data from Pro Football Focus. A refresher on how PFF calculates its grades can be found here.

Pro Football Focus grades offenses based on five categories: passing, rushing, receiving, pass blocking and run blocking. It grades defenses based on four: run defense, tackling, pass rush and coverage. Here's how Missouri fared in each category.

Takeaways: It's a bit strange to me that Missouri's rushing score was the one negative outlier on its offense considering the tailback duo of Larry Rountree III and Tyler Badie finished first and second on the team in scrimmage yards. I'm also a bit surprised the offensive line graded out quite so well, especially in run blocking. Overall, though, to finish in the top 50 in overall offense (after finishing tied for 101st last year) in Drinkwitz's first season is impressive.

Takeaways: Missouri's defense regressed quite a bit from 2019, when the Tigers' overall defensive score finished tied for 11th best nationally. The bulk of that regression, at least according to PFF, came on the ground. Missouri finished last season with a run defense score of 91.6, ninth-best in the country. A year later, they're nearly 100 spots lower. That can't all be explained by a rash of injuries and playing a tougher schedule. The Tigers were particularly bad against the run across the final three games of the season, when they allowed an average of 6.17 yards per carry. Correcting that will be a key focus during the offseason.

The 10 players from each unit with the highest overall season grade. Players must have played at least 150 snaps to be eligible for inclusion.

Takeaways: If you say you saw this season coming from Larry Borom, you're lying. Borom had a rough first year as a starter in 2019 but played really well as long as he was healthy this season, and that's why he's opted to forego his final season and declare for the NFL Draft. Aside from him and Michael Maietti, it's interesting that Missouri's top-graded linemen were backups in Luke Griffin and Bobby Lawrence. In Griffin's case, he was really the third-string left guard but wound up playing a fair amount due to Xavier Delgado's injury and Dylan Spencer transferring. Meanwhile, the starters at those two positions earned two of the four worst grades on the offense. Delgado graded out at 51.3 for the season, while starting left tackle Zeke Powell earned a 51.7. It is worth remembering, however, that PFF grades tend to favor small sample sizes.

One of the few things I would question Drinkwitz about from his first season is not using Tyler Badie more. It's true that Larry Rountree III was really good, as the grades indicate, but probably not good enough that he needed to play 491 snaps this season to Badie's 217, especially in an offense where Badie was one of the few big-play threats.

One glaring absence from the top performers' list: tight ends. Of the three tight ends who played more than 100 snaps for Missouri this year, none earned a grade higher than 57.5. Daniel Parker Jr. scored a 54.9 and Niko Hea took home the second-lowest offensive score on the team (ahead of only Shawn Robinson) with a 51.0. The Tigers could use a playmaker there.

Lastly, let's take a look inside Connor Bazelak's season. The redshirt freshman undoubtedly exceeded expectations, although he came back to earth a bit at the tail end of the schedule. His season passing grade of 77.4 ranked 31st nationally among all quarterbacks with at least 200 dropbacks this season. A look at his passing chart (pictured below) shows that Bazelak feasted on short throws and completions over the middle. He converted just 14 of 40 passes that traveled more than 20 yards in the air, throwing four touchdowns and three interceptions on such passes. Like most quarterbacks, he performed much better with a clean pocket than when he was under pressure. According to PFF, when facing no pressure, Bazelak completed 72 percent of his passes and threw five touchdowns and two interceptions. When hurried, his completion percentage dropped to 50 and he threw just two touchdowns and four picks.

Takeaways: The initial reaction is that these grades are low across the board. Last season, Missouri had three players (Nick Bolton, Jordan Elliott and Cale Garrett) finish with grades of 89.0 or higher. This year, not only are no Tigers over 80, the defense had just one player grade out above 70 in Bolton. Ten players achieved that in 2019.

The other obvious takeaway is that at least three of the Tigers' top four highest-graded defenders won't be back next season, and possibly all four (Markell Utsey has not indicated whether he plans to return in 2021). Add in the fact that the Tigers will lose Joshuah Bledsoe, who gets the Iron Man award for playing 667 of a possible 692 defensive snaps this season, and the outlook for next season isn't particularly rosy.

On the defensive line, Missouri had just two players grade out above a 63.0, which is about the threshold for average, and one of those left the team mid-season (although Trajan Jeffcoat's grade of 59.9 should probably be quite a bit higher). The Tigers had to battle through a lot of injuries and absences on the defensive front, but these numbers suggest that a lack of depth wasn't the only issue. Akial Byers scored a 56.1 on the year, Darius Robinson a 54.6, Cannon York a 50.7, Jatorian Hansford a 46.5. Those aren't pretty numbers.

In the secondary, Missouri had to rely on a lot of young players, with mixed results. Martez Manuel was probably the second-best player on the defense, aside from Bolton, and should see lots of playing time at safety the next few seasons. Ennis Rakestraw, who started every game at cornerback as a true freshman, had some ups and downs, but on the whole he graded out pretty well. It wasn't so pretty for his fellow freshman corners, however. Jaylon Carlies earned a grade of 56.4. That's not terrible for a true freshman who made the switch from wide receiver during the offseason and started three games, but there's certainly room for improvement. Redshirt freshman Ishmael Burdine, on the other hand earned the lowest grade on the defense with a paltry 38.2.

Finally, the big question mark for Missouri's defense is how the Tigers replace Bolton. These grades suggest the current players on the roster will have to play a lot better in order to do so. Devin Nicholson, Chad Bailey and Jamal Brooks contributed three of the four worst grades on the defense, with Nicholson at 46.2, Bailey at 40.9 and Brooks at 39.0. The one ray of hope is that before his injury, junior Cameron Wilkins played well, grading out at 67.3 (albeit in just 57 snaps).

Total snap counts for every player who saw the field for at least 10 snaps on offense or defense this season.