Every week through the end of Missouri's season, PowerMizzou.com will hand out a position-by-position report card from the Tigers' most recent game.
Here are the grades for Missouri's 23-19 Week 2 win over Middle Tennessee State.
Quarterbacks: This grade truly hovers around C- to C territory, but the position gets a C because Brady Cook accounted for all three of the Tigers' touchdowns. He completed 14-of-19 passes for 204 yards for two touchdowns. He also added a rushing touchdown on a quarterback sneak.
Cook's stat line is nice but the eye test said something different.
He was underthrowing deep throws that could've gone for huge gains or even touchdowns. He almost threw an interception that would've likely been returned for a touchdown, and the safety he took in the fourth quarter to bring MTSU within four points was brutal.
Cook has to get props for getting the points on the board in spite of some of his underwhelming play and the very poor play of the offensive line. GRADE: C
Running backs: Cody Schrader didn't have a great game. He racked up 21 rushes for 84 yards (3.7 yards per carry), but he did eclipse over 4,000 yards in his career. He now ranks third among active players in rushing yards.
However, the real star of the show was Nathaniel Peat, who rushed the ball eight times for 51 yards. He also had one reception for a 49-yard touchdown. Peat played well and head coach Eli Drinkwitz admits he should've got more touches.
It was an alright game for the running backs but the duo combined for 34 rushes for 107 yards (3.14 yards per carry). If the Tigers are running the ball that much with them, they've got to have a little more production than that.
GRADE: C+
Wide receivers: There are a few ways to look at this grade.
The first way is to acknowledge that Luther Burden III put the group on his back, as he caught eight of 10 targets for a career-high 117 yards while Theo Wease chipped in with a reception for a five-yard touchdown. Mekhi Miller also caught both his targets for 10 yards.
You could look at it and wonder why this receiving room that has been lauded as so deep this whole offseason only has three receivers make a catch with only one doing all of the damage.
Or you could say MTSU's very aggressive scheme forced a lot of quick and short passes and Burden was the hot hand so that's why he got the ball so much.
Regardless, the grade truthfully is probably a combination of all three.
Burden had the game of his career, but he also had an offensive pass interference that wiped away a 33-yard gain by Wease.
Also, again, there's too much talent at this position for one player to have almost eight times the number of yards as the team's second and third leading receiver for the game.
Burden himself would get an A-, but the lack of true help elsewhere knocks the grade down some.
GRADE: C
Tight ends: The tight ends were out there, but like most Mizzou games, they weren't really noticeable. Brett Norfleet had one catch for 10 yards. At the end of that reception, he actually took a helmet-to-helmet hit but he was fine. He did have another pass go straight through his hands later in the game though.
Jordon Harris and Tyler Stephens were in the game too a lot primarily as run blockers, but there was nothing to brag about out there.
Harris was doing some fullback work on a few power plays, but there was at least one where he went in and he didn't really attempt to block no one. He just kind of ran forward and let the running back get eaten up in the backfield. GRADE: D+
Offensive line: What's really stopping this from being an F is that Missouri won.
Now, MTSU sent a good amount of pressure on most plays. Sometimes it sent five players and sometimes six. But there's no way the Blue Raiders should've been able to get seven tackles for loss and four sacks, including a strip sack for a safety.
On top of that, there were some plays when Mizzou players were just getting beaten badly.
Javon Foster and Armand Membou both struggled at times and both gave up sacks, and they're supposed to be the strengths of the offensive line.
Cam'Ron Johnson got obliterated on the play which ended up being a safety.
Drinkwitz said to expect some personnel changes in the coming days, but this was a performance that looked a lot like the 2022 offensive line, and that's no good. GRADE: D-
Defensive line: The questions about whether the Tigers have a solid enough EDGE group are starting to fade away more and more each week.
Johnny Walker proved last week he had some juice to him by getting a team-high six tackles, a sack and a tackle for loss. In Week 2, he recorded three tackles and 0.5 tackles for loss. Darius Robinson had a career-high seven tackles and 1.5 tackles for loss while Nyles Gaddy had a couple of sacks.
Josh Landry and Realus George each had two tackles and 0.5 tackles for loss while Jay Jernigan led defensive tackles with four tackles, a tackle for loss and a quarterback hit.
The defensive line helped hold MTSU to just 71 rushing yards. What stops them, and any defensive position from getting an A is allowing MTSU to go 9-of-18 on third down and 2-of-3 on fourth down. The Blue Raiders also scored both of their touchdowns on a third and fourth down. GRADE: A-
Linebackers: Chad Bailey was active, but he didn't play. Instead, Chuck Hicks got the start and he made the most of it. He recorded five tackles and 1.5 tackles for loss.
This is back-to-back good games from Hicks. So, even when Bailey assumes his starting MIKE position expect Hicks to get a little more playing time.
Ty'Ron Hopper had an underrated game. He finished the contest with only two tackles but he had a team-high three quarterback hits and a pass deflection.
Triston Newson also got in on the action with a tackle for loss. GRADE: A-
Secondary: Entering Week 2 Drinkwitz said they need to worry about MTSU's wide receivers particularly the fast ones like DJ England-Chisolm. However, it was 6-foot-5, 260-pound Jeremy Tate and Justin Olson making plays for MTSU.
Olson had four receptions for 51 yards and a touchdown while Tate added four receptions for 43 yards.
However, Elijah Metcalf led the way with five receptions for 71 yards.
Overall, Blue Raiders quarterback Nick Vattiato completed 22-of-36 (61%) passes for 214 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
Safety Daylan Carnell, perhaps had the best game of any Mizzou defender with his eight tackles, two tackles for loss, a sack and a pass deflection.
Cornerback Kris Abrams-Draine led Mizzou cornerbacks with four tackles and a couple of pass deflections. However, he did have a facemasking penalty which means he's had one in each game this season.
Safety Sidney Williams had two tackles, a sack and a tackle for loss.
There were a few missed tackles out there by some players that must get cleaned up. It felt like the group had a bend-don't-break type of performance, which was okay since the rest of the defense played lights out.
GRADE: B-
Special Teams: Burden had a 15-yard punt return that was solid, but outside of that there was a lot of bad.
Marvin Burks made a critical mistake by taking a kickoff from out of the end zone and not even getting it to the 20. Drinkwitz called it a freshman mistake and it proved to be a big one because a couple of plays later the safety happened.
Harrison Mevis missed his first-ever PAT after going 107-of-107 prior to this game. The field goal unit has problems from the way it lines up to the snap, hold and kick.
It's a mess and it's to the point where Drinkwitz is concerned about it. Remember, Mevis missed a PAT in Week 1, but it was called back because of an offsides penalty that didn't affect his kick. It hasn't happened yet this season, but at this rate this unit will cost the team a game. GRADE: D
Coaching: In the first four offensive possessions, Missouri punted three times, and in the last three possessions Missouri tried to give the game away.
Punting for it on fourth and two near midfield up 13 versus MTSU is pretty bad. The slang for that would be, "That's nasty work."
Sure, Mizzou was up 13 in the fourth quarter and forced MTSU to go 80+ yards to score, but if you don't have the confidence to go for it up two possessions versus an inferior opponent when will you? That was the third to last possession.
On the second to last possession, Cook had the safety, and on the last possession, Missouri had a third and one that turned into a third and 21 after consecutive penalties. Then what appeared to be a faux pass interference on MTSU essentially bailed the Tigers out. Even Wease who was the receiver getting "interfered" with didn't seem to think he was interfered with.
The only reason this grade isn't any lower is because Missouri still won and Blake Baker's defense is still solid as ever. Getting bailed out by a flag versus a Group of 5 team at home is rough and not a good look for the Tigers going into the biggest game of the season (so far) in Week 3 versus Kansas State. GRADE: D
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