1) With Missouri's win over South Carolina, the Tigers went 2-1 this year in the games that will regularly determine their standing in the SEC East. We have talked about this over and over, but I simply always come back to it. The goal for Missouri is to establish itself as the leader of the challenger group in the SEC East. Georgia and Florida have advantages (geography, tradition, recent success) over the other programs in the division. They just do. Over the long haul, those are usually going to be the two most successful programs in this division (Tennessee was in this group at one point, it is currently not). Vanderbilt has issues that no other SEC team has. So the "second tier" in the SEC East consists of Missouri, South Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee. I wrote a few weeks ago about how Kentucky had established itself as the third best program in the division and had done it largely by going 10-5 against those other three teams over a five-year period (greatly helped by 5-0 against Missouri).
Anyway, the Tigers are 2-1 against that group this year. One year doesn't make a trend. Missouri should finish third in the East this year (second is more likely than fourth, but third is more likely than either). That's a good start in year one for Eli Drinkwitz. If he can go 2-1 (or even 3-0) against those teams again next year, he can say he's put Missouri in position as the best of that group and then try to take that next step and catch Georgia/Florida on the right day/in the right year.
Barry Odom went 3-9 against that group of three teams in four years. It is, really above the rest, the reason he got fired. He never beat more than one of them in a single season. Right now, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee are what should be considered Missouri's peer group in this league. The win over South Carolina was big because it shows that Eli Drinkwitz has the Tigers--at least as of today--at the top of that group. It's an excellent starting point.
2) Speaking of Odom, he'll be on the visitor's sideline this week. I'll get into Arkansas more in a second. One thing I am interested in is whether Missouri has to change any defensive terminology or signals this week. I don't know that I'll get an answer when I ask it, but I'm curious how much changed from a year ago when Odom left. The offensive stuff is obviously completely different so that won't be an issue. But the defensive coordinator from last year remains the same and I doubt Mizzou went with wholesale changes to the way it did things the last couple of years. I would assume they're going to have to change that this week or Odom could sit in the press box and tell Sam Pittman and Kendall Briles "Here's what they're doing." He's obviously going to have some familiarity with Mizzou, but I wonder how much Missouri has to switch anything up from what it's been doing the last few weeks because its former head coach is on the opposing team now.
3) So let's get into Arkansas a little bit. First of all, they are greatly improved from a year ago. There's no way to deny that.
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