This fall will mark 10 years since Missouri announced a seismic change: The athletics department would leave the Big 12 conference and join the SEC. Missouri’s new home has brought the department increased revenue, which has helped bankroll improvements like the South Endzone football facility and new softball stadium. But for virtually every sport, the move has brought new challenges, as well — better competition and more pressure to spend to keep pace.
Over the past 10 weeks, we have been counting down Missouri’s top 10 athletics moments from its first decade as a member of the SEC (which is actually nine years of competition because it took a year for the change to take effect). Note that wrestling, which has spent the past nine years as a member of the Mid-American Conference and will rejoin the Big 12 next fall, wasn’t considered for inclusion since it didn’t compete in the SEC.
For our final entry, we look back to Nov. Nov. 30, 2013, when No. 5 Missouri hosted No. 21 Texas A&M for a night game at Faurot Field. Beat the former Big 12 rival and 10-1 Missouri would win the SEC East division and earn a spot in the league title game the following week.
Previous Entries:
No. 10: Thomas' one-hitter clinches regional title
No. 9: Cunningham’s ‘flu game’ keys historic upset
No. 8: Mizzou opens Martin era with win over Iowa St
No. 7: Schweizer closes career with sixth NCAA title
No. 6: Mizzou women draw record crowd, top Tennessee
No. 5: Mizzou scores first ever hoops win over UK
No. 4: Mizzou football makes statement with win at Georgia
Missouri quarterback James Franklin couldn’t see the play unfold, but he didn’t have to. The roar told him all he needed to know.
Franklin had just handed the ball off to running back Henry Josey on a third down and one. As usual, he pretended he still had the ball afterward and rolled to the right side of the field, his back turned to the action. But as soon as he heard the explosion of noise, the sound of 67,124 joyous voices reverberating through the cold Columbia night, he understood. Josey had found a hole and was sprinting for the end zone, no defenders in his path. The 57-yard score would give Missouri a seven-point lead over Texas A&M. The Tigers were less than four minutes from completing their improbable run to the SEC East title.
“Not to sound like a goody-goody, but I carried out my fake like I was supposed to, and so right as I was turning around, I hear the crowd roar,” Franklin said. “Immediately in my head, I assumed, oh yeah, he scored. ... Just handing off that ball and hearing that roar, that’s such a good feeling, to see it happen as I’m turning around, and just take off.”
Josey’s run would become the moment within the moment — not only the defining highlight from our pick for the top Missouri sporting event since the Tigers joined the SEC, but the culmination of a redemption story for both player and team. To set the stage for how the Tigers found themselves in that position, though, we have to back up a bit.
As noted earlier in our countdown, Missouri’s first season in the SEC hadn’t exactly gone as planned. After averaging 9.6 wins across their final five seasons as a member of the Big 12, the Tigers had stumbled to a 5-7 record in 2012. Starting as early as summer workouts, the following season became, in the words of wide receiver Marcus Lucas, a “revenge tour.”
Missouri proved its legitimacy with consecutive wins over ranked opponents Georgia and Florida. Even after a heartbreaking loss to South Carolina, the Tigers controlled their destiny in the SEC East race, and they responded by throttling both Tennessee and Kentucky. A gutsy win at Ole Miss in the penultimate week of the regular season set up the most significant matchup at Faurot Field in at least three seasons: Beat former Big 12 rival Texas A&M, and Missouri would play Auburn (which had topped defending national champion Alabama on the infamous kick-six play moments before Missouri’s game kicked off) in Atlanta for the SEC Championship, with the winner likely to earn a trip to the national title game.
No surprise, Franklin said the Tiger players were excited in the locker room prior to the game — perhaps overly so. Not only did the team have a trip to the SEC title game on the line, but the matchup represented an opportunity to avenge a 59-29 loss at Texas A&M the previous season and served as Senior Night, the last home game for the team’s seniors.
Having so much on the line led some players to take the field a bit tight, to which Franklin attributed Missouri’s slow start. The Tigers forced Texas A&M, led by defending Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Johnny Manziel, to punt on the first possession of the game, but then gave the ball right back by going three-and-out. The Aggies then scored on their following possession, with running back Tra Carson making several defenders miss on a draw play and running 29 yards to the end zone.
Missouri couldn’t answer, punting again on its second possession. Even when the Tigers looked to receive a gift that might swing the momentum in their favor, with Texas A&M punt returner De’Vante Harris fumbling and defensive back John Gibson falling on the ball at the Aggie 36-yard line, they couldn’t take advantage. Head coach Gary Pinkel inserted backup Maty Mauk at quarterback for the ensuing offensive series and Missouri went three-and-out and had to punt.
The Tigers finally got a shot in the arm the following possession. Texas A&M had pinned Missouri at its own six-yard line, but Franklin found wideout L’Damian Washington for a 23-yard gain on the first play of the drive. A few plays later, facing third down and six at the Texas A&M 38, Franklin went deep again. The Tigers likely needed just a few yards to reach field goal range, but Franklin saw that former five-star recruit Dorial Green-Beckham had just one defender covering him on the outside, and he threw for the end zone. Green-Beckham blew past the Texas A&M cornerback and Franklin’s pass dropped perfectly into his arms, tying the game at 7.
“My favorite ball to throw was a deep ball, whether it was a go route or a post,” Franklin said. “So I was always looking. They say, especially for quarterbacks, you hear a lot of quarterback coaches say ‘You never go broke taking a profit.’ And I was told that a lot, and in my head, when they would say that, I would say, ‘Yeah, but you don’t get rich without taking a risk.’ So every time we had the option to go deep, if the defense gave us a look, that was my number one. It didn’t matter if it was first down, second down or third down, or even fourth down, I was thinking ‘I’m going for it.’”
The long score rejuvenated the home crowd, but Manziel quickly answered with a deep shot of his own. On a third down and 10, Manziel spun away from a pass-rusher and uncorked a rainbow that hit Derel Walker for a 32-yard score. Missouri had an opportunity to continue the scoring streak, but placekicker Andrew Baggett missed a 47-yard field goal as time expired in the first half, allowing Texas A&M to take a touchdown lead into the locker room.
While the first 30 minutes hadn’t exactly gone as planned for Missouri, both Franklin and Lucas said the team didn’t panic during the break. That represented a noteworthy change from the year prior. According to Franklin, down the stretch of the 2012 season, the team had become so accustomed to injuries and misfortune that, whenever an opponent landed a blow, he felt like the players thought “here we go again.” But by the end of the 2013 season, Missouri had proven to itself that it could play with anyone in the SEC.
Lucas said the message during halftime was that the team was right where it wanted to be: with a chance to win the division.
“I remember, just, hey, this is where we want to be, this is exactly where we want to be, loving every second of it,” Lucas said. “Let’s just go out and play four complete quarters and finish this game out at home, and let’s go to the championship game.”
Whatever the message at halftime, it worked. Missouri received the ball to start the second half and drove 75 yards in less than three minutes. Franklin hit Washington for a 35-yard gain that gave Missouri a first and goal from the two-yard line, then running back Marcus Murphy tied the game on the next play. Missouri then forced a punt and scored again. This time, Franklin threw a fade to Washington in the corner of the end zone. Washington timed his jump perfectly and caught the ball over the extended hand of the defensive back in coverage, but the official initially signaled incomplete, suggesting Washington hadn’t maintained control of the ball. Replay, however, showed a touchdown, and with 6:26 to play in the third quarter, Missouri took its first lead of the game.
Texas A&M still had plenty of fight left. A few possessions later, the Aggies put together a 98-yard drive. Trey Williams broke off a 25-yard run on third down and one, then fellow tailback Ben Molena scored from seven yards out on the following play.
With the game tied in the fourth quarter, Missouri and Texas A&M took turns making defensive stands and forcing the opponent to punt — until Missouri got the ball on its own 34-yard line with less than five minutes to play. Josey rushed for four yards on first down, then Franklin kept the ball on a quarterback draw on second and pushed the pile for five more. On third down and a yard, the coaching staff trusted Josey to move the chains. The entire Missouri offensive line — comprised of four players who would go on to start at least one NFL game — sealed off the defenders lined up across from them and pushed them to the left. Receiver Jimmie Hunt, who had come across the formation in motion and lined up at H-Back behind right tackle Mitch Morse, kicked the Texas A&M defensive end to his right, opening a huge hole. Josey saw it and began accelerating before he even reached the line of scrimmage. The only defender with a chance to stop him, defensive back Clay Honeycutt, lunged for Josey’s ankles, but Josey leapt out of his outstretched arms. At that point, no one remained between him and the end zone, and with the joyous roar from the home crowd propelling him, Josey out-ran everyone for the decisive touchdown.
That it was Josey who scored made the moment even more surreal. Josey had burst onto the scene as a sophomore in 2011, racking up 1,168 rushing yards and averaging 8.1 yards per attempt through 10 games. Then he suffered a gruesome injury against Texas, tearing the ACL, MCL and patellar tendon in his left knee. The injury required multiple surgeries and forced Josey to sit out the entire 2012 season.
Franklin, who also missed much of 2012 due to injury, said while he rehabbed alongside Josey that year, Josey would tell him “don’t worry, James. I won’t let this happen next season.” Indeed, Josey played a significant role in Missouri’s 2013 rebirth, running for 951 yards and 13 touchdowns during the regular season. The most important of those yards and scores came on his 57-yard scamper against Texas A&M. Even in the moment, with the game still undecided, Lucas said he almost teared up thinking about all Josey had gone through to get back onto the field.
“I don’t think that there wasn’t anybody that kind of had a sparkle in their eye when that happened,” Lucas said. “I mean, he had some great runs earlier in the season, that first game, that almost brought tears to people’s eyes knowing the road that he had came back from. … It was great for him to cap it off and just send us to the next level.”
Missouri couldn’t quite book its travel to Atlanta yet, however. The defense still needed to stop Manziel and company at least one more time.
As it had virtually all game, the unit delivered. Texas A&M faced a third down and seven and Manziel threw a bubble screen to leading receiver Mike Evans, who entered that night having racked up 1,318 yards and 12 touchdowns in 11 games. Evans was immediately hit by safety Matt White, but he spun free. He tried to reverse field, but instead of finding room to run, Evans got swarmed, ultimately being tackled by eight different Missouri defenders. The play lost six yards and forced Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin, who had likely planned to go for it on fourth down if necessary, to punt with 2:20 to play.
The third down stand represented the biggest play in an overall stingy performance by the Missouri defense. The Tigers’ fearsome edge-rushers, who racked up 41 sacks on the season, fourth-best nationally, usually shot upfield as quickly as possible under former defensive line coach Craig Kuligowski, which resulted in gaudy sack numbers but sometimes made it difficult to set the edge. Against Texas A&M, however, Michael Sam, Kony Ealy, Shane Ray and Markus Golden would get into the backfield, stop and spy on Manziel, hemming him inside the pocket. As a result Manziel totaled just 195 yards passing and 21 rushing — both well below his season averages. Evans, shadowed for much of the night by all-SEC cornerback E.J. Gaines, had just eight yards on four catches.
Lucas had supreme confidence the defense would deliver with the game on the line. That was typical of the 2013 season: whenever the team needed a clutch play or series, regardless of whether it was the offense or defense on the field, someone delivered.
“All year long, there was never a game where just the offense dominated,” Lucas said. “It was never a one-sided game. It was, every single game, if you go back and look at it, it was each side of the ball is doing their thing. … It was about team football and trying to win that championship.”
Missouri would never give Texas A&M another opportunity to tie the game. Franklin faked a handoff to Josey and hit tight end Eric Waters on a short pass that Waters took 16 yards for a first down, then Russell Hansbrough ran 11 yards for another first down, effectively sealing the game. After Franklin took a knee, the Missouri sideline swarmed onto the field, and the fans started to cascade over the brick walls at the edge of the bleachers.
As he celebrated among the fans, Franklin remembers feeling a rush of emotions: joy that Missouri had won the division title, redemption after some had called for Mauk to keep the starting job after Franklin returned from injury, a tinge of sadness that he had just played his final game at Faurot Field. Through it all, he made sure to savor the moment.
“It was happy, it was sad that it was over, and it was fulfilling because we did deal with a lot of adversity as a team,” Franklin said. “... Everyone was just extremely happy, and it was fun. It’s something that you don’t really get to experience that much.”
Missouri hung with Auburn for three quarters the following week, but the Tigers’ dreams of winning the SEC and national title were dashed during the final 15 minutes, when Auburn scored 14 unanswered points. Missouri would finish the season on a high note, however, when Josey rushed for three touchdowns and Ray returned a fumble forced by Sam for the clinching score against Oklahoma State in the Cotton Bowl.
The Tigers finished the 2013 campaign ranked No. 5 nationally and tied a school record with 12 wins. The season not only proved that Missouri could compete in its new conference, but helped cement the legacy of Pinkel, who faced some heat after the disappointing year prior. Pinkel is on the National Football Foundation ballot this year for induction into the College Football Hall of Fame.
Eight years and two coaches later, Missouri is still trying to recapture the magic from its second season in the SEC. Until then, Josey’s fourth-quarter dash to the end zone and the field-storming that ensued will live on as the Tigers’ most celebrated moment since joining the league.
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