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Ten Thoughts on Mizzou's 66-24 loss to Tennessee

1) Missouri officially has a Tennessee problem. Yeah, I know, so does almost everybody else in college football. I get it. This isn't as much about this year or this game as it is the general trend. Mizzou won five of its first seven against the Vols as members of the SEC. Tennessee was down and Mizzou kept kicking the Vols on the ground and were a big reason they stayed there. In 2017 and 2018 Missouri popped Tennessee with back to back 50-17 humiliations. Tennessee then beat the Tigers 24-20 in 2019. In the three years since, the Vols have outscored Missouri 163-60. None of the games has been in doubt by the end of the third quarter. Tennessee has done virtually anything it wanted in those games. Georgia was always out of reach for Missouri (on a consistent basis anyway). But the Tigers don't really look to be any closer to the Vols now. The goal needs to be to catch Kentucky and Florida. And then worry about anything beyond that.

2) Today was a master class from Josh Heupel. Yes, Tennessee has better players. But the Vols did anything they wanted to. Back up and give them cushion, we'll go down the field 12 yards at a time. Come up and press, we'll throw it over the top. Oh, by the way, we're also going to run all over you. Like I said, they have good players. But that much better? A lot of today was about scheme. In fact, a lot of Tennessee's season has been about scheme. It's time to give Heupel his due as an offensive master. Because he has done it everywhere. The only places you could say he's "failed" have been because those teams have had bad defenses. That's not his fault.

3) As Jarod Hamilton wrote, this wasn't just a bad day for the Missouri defense, it was an historic day.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE THOUGHTS FROM SATURDAY

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