Three weeks ago, following a 52-28 loss to Georgia, Missouri football players began openly talking about winning out. Following a 45-16 win over the Florida Gators, they’re halfway there.
It was a bold move for a 1-5 football team whose coach had just told the media he lit remnants of the season’s first half on fire with a can of lighter fluid. The claims were rightfully met with a truckload of skepticism. After all, Mizzou had not beaten an FCS opponent and had come closer than 18 points only once at that point in time. The optimists could see the schedule being much more favorable, but it was tough to shake the images Missouri put out in the first six games.
“We see the teams we were going against,” senior running back Ish Witter said. “They’re still good teams, but we’re still a good team too. I know the first half of the season didn’t really look like that, but I know we can keep up with these teams and put up points and our defense can do what they do. I definitely felt like we could finish out.”
“We don’t want to lose man,” linebacker Terez Hall said. “We lost how many games straight?”
Hall is informed it was five.
“Five games straight. That’s terrible, man,” he said. “We got to get that together man. We wasn’t that type of team. Every team we played, man, we had an opportunity to beat them. Everybody was just down on us, Mizzou this and that. We want to win. That’s the main thing. Nobody can come out here and just keep losing. Just hate losing. That’s the thing about it.”
Asked to identify a turning point, a couple of Tigers actually pointed to the game before Georgia. Coming off of a bye week, Missouri lost 40-34 to Kentucky. It was the fourth straight loss in those five, but it was the first time the Tigers had actually competed with anyone for 60 minutes.
“After Kentucky we were definitely like okay, we found our groove and we’ve just got to keep it rolling,” Witter said.
“I think Georgia and Kentucky both helped us out a lot,” wide receiver Emanuel Hall said. “Georgia’s the number one team in the nation, we went out and scored 28 points against them. I think when you do that it gives you confidence, oh they’re number one, we can do it against a lot of schools and we’re playing like it.”
Idaho and Connecticut came first. Neither are good teams, but Missouri had buried both by halftime. They did the same to the Gators and interim coach Randy Shannon, racing to a 28-6 lead at the break that could have been bigger if not for a Drew Lock interception in the end zone on the Tigers’ opening drive.
Florida wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders as it came to Columbia. The Gators were 3-and-4, but were two plays from 1-and-6. They suffered a 42-7 beatdown against Georgia last week and then fired Jim McElwain. After the game, Odom talked about getting a win “against what I thought was a really good team.” Whether he meant that the previous three-and-a-half hours had changed his mind wasn’t exactly clear.
Either way, the Tigers put together their most complete game of the season on Saturday. The offense put up more yards (455) than anyone had on Florida. The defense kept the Gators out of the end zone until a meaningless garbage time touchdown against the second-string defense. Tucker McCann made all his kicks, Larry Rountree III has made the kickoff return game a factor and Anthony Sherrils finished the special teams trifecta by recovering a muffed punt to set the Tiger offense up with a short field.
All in all, the good feelings have hit a crescendo in Columbia with a three-game winning streak.
“You’re never as good as you think and you’re never as bad as you think. I’ll take the positive momentum, we’ll use it,” head coach Barry Odom said. “The game of football’s supposed to be played with emotion and momentum and energy. When you can do that, you understand schematically what you’re trying to do and you’ve prepared the right way, then you can go and you can play freely on Saturday, you can play fast, you’ve got confidence. When you get all those things moving in the right direction, the same direction, now you’re starting to see some of the effects of that.”
And with that, the Tigers are ready to return to the most leaned upon cliche in sports.
““We just been taking it one week at a time,” wide receiver J’Mon Moore said. “We’re executing, getting better at practice every day, make. Just keep pushing. Everybody holding on to the rope and getting better every week.”
“You asking the wrong guy,” Terez Hall echoed. “I don’t be talking about the rest of the games. Honestly we say one game at a time, I be taking one practice, one day, like one hour.”
“Happy for my team. I want them to understand that without a doubt,” Odom said. “But also I’m anxious to get started on the next one and keep the 1-and-0 focus.”
Suddenly, a bowl game (insert Jim Mora “playoffs?” rant here) doesn’t seem so crazy. Missouri has won three games in a row. Three more might not be a big stretch.
“They are aware of it. We won’t talk about it in here,” Odom said. “I know that’s a boring answer. I’d love to talk a little bit more grander ideas and thoughts, but I don’t know that we can handle that. We’ve got something going right now that we’ve got to focus on one game at a time. We do that and that other stuff will take care of itself.”
Message received.
“I’m not worried about the rest of the year. I don’t even know who we play besides Tennessee,” Terez Hall said. “I don’t even look at the schedule. They give us the paper, it say Tennessee Vols on there, I’m preparing for Tennessee.”
That one’s at 6:30 next Saturday. And the Tigers will enter it riding a wave of momentum that has been completely absent from Columbia for the last three years. It’s suddenly become a pretty big weekend on campus. Mizzou can move to the verge of bowl eligibility 24 hours after some kid named Porter plays his first game across the street at Mizzou Arena. Don’t look now, but Missouri sports are trying to become fun again.
“You show and bring some energy, believe that you want to be out there on that field, that’s what you’re gonna get,” Terez Hall said. “You’re gonna get results like that.”
