FORT WORTH, TX—Sometimes, it just doesn’t take many words.
“It sucks,” Missouri kicker Harrison Mevis said. “We thought we had it there. It just sucks.”
After kicking three field goal of his own and watching a quarterback starting his first career game lead a go-ahead drive with 1:11 left to play, Mevis could only stand on the sideline and watch Army’s Cole Talley drill a 41-yard field goal to give the Black Knights a 24-22 win over the Tigers in the Armed Forces Bowl.
Yeah, sometimes it just sucks (ignoring the fact that Missouri was penalized for having two players wearing the same number on the field during Talley's field goal and even if it had missed, he'd have gotten another chance from five yards closer).
Brady Cook looked good at most times and great at some in replacing Connor Bazelak for the Tigers. He completed 27-of-34 passes for 238 yards and a touchdown while running for 53 yards and another score. Elijah Young looked like Tyler Badie Lite, replacing the Doak Walker Award finalist with 107 yards of total offense on 18 carries. A Missouri defense held together with duct tape and bailing wire and guys most fans had never heard of before Wednesday night held the Black Knights to 75 yards below their season rushing average and gave the Tigers a chance.
And it wasn’t enough.
"Just a difficult way to lose the game. Proud of the way we fought. Had a lot of adversity, lot of people out, lot of injuries," head coach Eli Drinkwitz said. "Our guys gave it everything they had, gave us a chance and just came up one play short."
COOK TAKES FULL ADVANTAGE OF HIS OPPORTUNITY
Drinkwitz announced on Tuesday morning that Cook would be his starting quarterback. Connor Bazelak had started 11 games this season and Tyler Macon got the nod in the only game Bazelak didn't play. But it was the redshirt freshman from Chaminade who got the call after three weeks of bowl prep. He didn't disappoint. If anything, he made everyone wonder if he should have started weeks ago.
On Missouri's very first drive, Cook ran an option left, a bit reminiscent of the bread and butter of Missouri's opponent. He had Keke Chism as the pitch man and faked in that direction, but held on to the ball. As Army's Cedrick Cunningham grasped at air, Cook bolted 30 yards for a touchdown, showing off both speed and agility Missouri fans hadn't seen at the position.
He led the Tigers on four first half scoring drives, though three of them ended in field goals.
"I played fine, made some good plays, but didn't put the ball in the end zone enough," Cook said. "You can't win a game doing that. You've got to put the ball in the end zone.
After being shut out for the first 27 minutes of the second half, Cook and the offense got the ball back at its own 17-yard line with 2:44 to play. He went 7-for-9 for 72 yards, capping the scoring drive with a six-yard strike to Chism in the back of the end zone for a 22-21 lead.
"I thought he played really well," Drinkwitz said. "Very calm, collected, had great composure. Did a really nice job on that last drive to give us a chance to win the game. We needed to do a better job protecting him."
The Tigers went for two to extend the lead to three points, but Cook overshot an open Dawson Downing in the right flat. Downing may have mistimed his jump on the ball as well, but the brand new starter showed off poise beyond his years in the postgame press conference. He already knows the quarterback always takes the blame.
"I missed the throw when it mattered most," Cook said. "I just misjudged it. It was a bad throw."
DEFENSE CAPS AN IMPRESSIVE TURNAROUND
The Tiger offense only had a chance to win the game late because the Mizzou defense had done an admirable job against the Black Knights triple option attack. Sure, Army ran for 211 yards, but they were averaging 287 a game coming in, second in the country.
For most of the season, Missouri had the worst defense in Power Five football and the worst period against the run. In the final four weeks, the Tigers gave up 524 rushing yards on 161 attempts. That's just 3.25 yards per carry for South Carolina, Florida, Arkansas and Army. Jeff Monken's attack was averaging 4.9 yards per carry this season, but managed just 3.8 per attempt against the Tigers.
"I thought they played, really, as well as I could have hoped," Drinkwitz said. "Obviously wish we could have had a different result on that last drive, but I thought they played their butt off on that last drive."
The one failure of the Missouri defense was on fourth down. The Knights were 5/5 in such opportunities, including a 14-yard touchdown pass on fourth and 2 that gave Army its first lead at 21-16.
"It's what they do best, they're some of the best in the country at it," linebacker Blaze Alldredge said. "They've got some big boys, but we come from the SEC, we're used to big boys. We were shorthanded, we had some guys coming back from injury that hadn't played in a while, guys that haven't played period, but a lot of it, I think, just came down to some one on ones that we lost."
(LACK OF) PARTICIPATION REPORT
Missouri played a whole bunch of new faces on Wednesday out of necessity. With Badie and Akayleb Evans opting out of the game (whether by their choice or coach's decision), Mizzou also listed Martez Manuel, Akial Byers, Bobby Lawrence, Niko Hea and Zeke Powell as out on Tuesday.
In addition, Kobie Whiteside and Arden Walker did not play on Wednesday night for reasons that were not specified. Daylan Carnell was not dressed in order to retain his redshirt. Jaylon Carlies, Jalani Williams, Allie Green IV and Shawn Robinson were hurt during the game and only Robinson returned.
Adding Chris Turner, Ennis Rakestraw and Case Cook, who had both suffered season-ending injuries earlier in the year, and Daniel Parker Jr., who transferred, the Tigers were without 12 players who had been starters at some point during the season.
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