Each Sunday, PowerMizzou.com will hand out a position-by-position grade card for Missouri from Saturday's game. Here are the marks from the Tigers’ 48-35 win over North Texas.
Quarterback: Connor Bazelak didn't make many jaw-dropping plays, but he did enough to lead Missouri's offense to 41 points. Bazelak completed 21 of 32 passes, albeit for just 160 yards. He hit JJ Hester on a beautiful deep ball for a 41-yard touchdown and showed some mobility on his other score, scrambling away from pressure and finding Tyler Badie in the end zone. The bomb to Hester was his only completion that went for more than 15 yards (although he had another big gain called back due to penalty). Most important against a less-talented opponent, he didn't give the ball away and never had a throw that looked in danger of being intercepted. GRADE: C
Running backs: Tyler Badie had been held in check the past couple weeks. He broke out in a big way Saturday. Badie rushed for a career-high 217 yards and two touchdowns on just 17 carries. He had four different runs gain at least 39 yards and averaged 12.8 yards per carry. He also added a touchdown as a receiver when he dragged his toes in bounds along the sideline. Badie did all that damage without playing virtually every snap, as he's done the past few games. Dawson Downing broke free for a 60-yard touchdown late in the fourth quarter. True freshman BJ Harris looks like he's emerged as the No. 2 tailback, getting 14 carries and turning them into 39 yards. Elijah Young caught a pass as well. GRADE: A
Wide receivers: The Missouri coaching staff made a clear effort to get the ball in Mookie Cooper's hands after Cooper missed last week's game due to injury. Cooper's stat line of three catches for 19 yards doesn't jump off the page, but he did have a touchdown on a jet sweep get called back due to penalty and Bazelak barely missed him on a deep ball. Hester had the play of the day among the wideouts with his 41-yard score. Overall, you would like to see a bit more separation from this receiving corps against a Conference USA opponent, but the group also avoided drops and penalties. GRADE: C+
Tight Ends: The tight ends weren't overly Involved In the passing game. Daniel Parker Jr. caught two passes for six yards and Niko Hea caught one for eight, although he had a long completion negated by penalty. The duo did make a noticeable impact as blockers, though. On Badie's first touchdown, Parker and Hea lined up alongside one another on the left end of the offensive line and paved the way for Badie to reach the end zone without being touched. GRADE: B-
Offensive line: A unit that struggled against Tennessee looked better Saturday, although the performance wasn't perfect. The group certainly had a hand in Missouri topping 300 yards on the ground, but it also gave up 10 tackles for loss to North Texas. Bazelak got sacked once, and Hyrin White got flagged for holding. Interestingly, Missouri rotated a few different players at right guard in the second half, giving both Connor Wood and EJ Ndoma-Ogar snaps in relief of Case Cook. GRADE: B
Defensive line: Less than a week after its position coach, Jethro Franklin, got fired and replaced by Al Davis, the Missouri defensive line had its best game of the season (at least against FBS competition). Missouri totaled three sacks and 10 tackles for loss, and this time it didn't have to blitz nearly as often to get them. Three defensive ends (Trajan Jeffcoat, Isaiah McGuire and Johnny Walker) all got credited with sacks, while Mekhi Wingo, Kobie Whiteside and McGuire also had tackles for loss. Plus, the unit made the biggest play of the game when Jeffcoat tipped an Austin Aune pass and Wingo picked it off and returned it for a touchdown. The performance was far from perfect for the defensive front, but compared to last week, it was a massive step forward. GRADE: B+
Linebackers: The coaching staff shook up the linebacker rotation a bit, starting Chad Bailey in place of Blaze Alldredge. Alldredge and Jamie Pettway did end up rotating in a fair amount in relief of Bailey and Devin Nicholson. The linebackers looked better but still had some issues; whenever a North Texas ball-carrier was able to reach the second level, he often had quite a bit of room to run until a safety made the stop. GRADE: C
Secondary: Missouri's pass defense had looked decent entering Saturday, although admittedly in part because opponents had found it easier to just run the ball against the Tigers' porous front six. And while Kris Abrams-Draine did have an interception Saturday, the secondary got exposed, particularly in the second half. Quite a few times, the issue appeared to be coverage busts, with North Texas receivers running absolutely wide open downfield. Missouri got some nice plays from defensive backs in run support (Shawn Robinson forced a turnover on downs with a tackle for loss and Akayleb Evans forced a fumble), but the secondary will find a lot to fix when it looks at the film of its pass defense. GRADE: D
Special Teams: Missouri's special teams had been sterling so far this season, but Saturday was a bit more sloppy. The Tigers got flagged for four penalties on special teams, although only two of them were accepted. Grant McKinniss nearly had a couple punts blocked. Harrison Mevis continued to be perfect, though. The sophomore made all six of his extra points and also drilled field goals of 40 and 48 yards. GRADE: B-
Coaching: At a bare minimum, Missouri needed to show more fight and readiness to play than a week ago, and the Tigers at least accomplished that. Other than that, it's tough to assess how much of the win to attribute to coaching and how much to the fact that Missouri's roster featured far more talent. On one hand, it was good to see Eli Drinkwitz commit to the run and get the offense going on the ground after it struggled to do so the past two weeks. But the first-down play-calling became predictable and resulted in a lot of seconds-and-long, which played a role in the Tigers failing to score a touchdown during the third quarter. On defense, Steve Wilks' unit looked better than a week ago, but that was a low bar, and North Texas still easily exceeded its season averages in points, total yards and passing yardage. GRADE: C
Final Overall Grade: C+
