Much has been made of Drew Lock's improvement of Missouri's last four games. The Tiger offense as a whole has been much more productive, putting up 182 points in that span after being held to 27 total over the three preceding games. The improvement probably has gotten the least attention where it has been the most important: Up front.
"I think we've kind of picked it up a little bit the last couple games," right tackle Paul Adams said. "I think it's kind of just been a little bit of the formations we've been seeing. We saw a lot of 3-3 stack the last couple of weeks. We've kind of relied on our perimeter game a little bit."
"We didn't play as fast or maybe as confident or as urgent as we have here the last two, three, four weeks," head coach Barry Odom said. "The improvement you see to me is with more speed, playing together a little bit more consistently and a little bit more of an attitude."
Through the season's first four games, Missouri gave up 14 tackles for loss, including four sacks. Over the last four, the Tigers have given up four sacks and 11 TFLs. It's not a drastic improvement, but added together, Mizzou is in the nation's top dozen teams in both categories.
"We weren't playing the way we wanted to for sure," offensive line coach Glen Elarbee said of the season's opening four games. "Effort and everything we always talk about, it wasn't where we wanted it to be. It never will be, but I think we've played better since then."
Much was made in the offseason of the Tigers bringing their offensive line back intact. But throughout camp, coaches insisted every job was open. That played out when Trystan Castillo and Tre'Vour Simms won starting jobs. Yasir Durant has also become a starter at left tackle over Tyler Howell. Howell, Adam Ploudre and Jonah Dubinsky all still rotate in, giving Elarbee something he didn't have a year ago: Depth.
"Everyone's still kind of moving around a little bit," Adams said. "Different feels, just kind of trying to get your steps together, but we work on it every day in practice."
"Howell and Ploudre are getting a bunch of reps, Jonah filling in there every once in a while," Elarbee said. "Seven (players) for sure."
                      TEAM TURMOIL COMING TO COMO
For the second time in two years, Missouri will face an SEC foe with an interim coach making his debut. The Tigers hope this time goes a lot better than the last one.
LSU relieved Les Miles of his duties last season the week before Mizzou visited Baton Rouge. Missouri was roughed up 42-7 by the Tigers from Louisiana. This year, it's Florida, which fired Jim McElwain on Sunday. Defensive coordinator Randy Shannon will lead the Gators this Saturday.
"It probably would (fire them up) because they know they got something to prove," Terry Beckner Jr. said. "We done been through it before, but they'll probably have some fire in them."
Barry Odom did discuss the situation with his players, but Missouri knows it is something over which they have no control.
"I talked just real briefly to them about my respect for Mac," Odom said. "For us, any comparison to when it's happened before won't really relate to this current situation. We're two different teams, different season, different group of guys."
"I think they might just play harder," Adams said. "We kind of just let it be. Game planning's still the same, everything's still the same. Just a different coach on their side."
Perhaps the most intriguing part of the changes is that Shannon will cede defensive coordinator duties to defensive line coach Chris Rumph. How much changes for the Florida defense is an unknown.
"As much as you'd like to know what to expect, every week you seem to get something different," Elarbee said. "We've prepared for what we saw on tape and there will probably be something similar to it, but there will be changes."
"We'll find out Saturday," offensive coordinator Josh Heupel said.
Regardless, Missouri expects to see what every Florida opponent sees: An elite defensive unit.
"They've recruited really well over the last few years and they've got playmakers all over the field," Odom said. "
But there may be some cracks in this Gator defense that haven't been there in previous seasons. Florida currently ranks 40th in overall defense and 85th in yards per play.
                      BECKNER IS BACK
Through the first few weeks of the season, Terry Beckner Jr. showed flashes of the dominant player most thought Missouri was getting out of East St. Louis High School three years ago. But he didn't do it consistently. Over the last few weeks, that has changed.
Beckner pointed to the Georgia game as his turning point.
"Definitely after the Georgia game was probably me feeling like I could trust it," he said. "Finally my body is just adjusting back to football. Even though I did come back to play, it wasn't me."
In that game, he picked up half a sack. Two weeks ago against Idaho, he led the Tigers with six tackles and got two more sacks. At Connecticut, Beckner had four tackles, 2.5 for a loss and a pass break-up in Missouri's 52-12 win over the Huskies. After back-to-back seasons shortened by torn knee ligaments, Beckner is starting to show the unlimited potential many saw in him coming into college.
"It's the mental part," Beckner said. "Once you have it up there everything else will fall into place. But if you don't have it up there, your physical part will be a little poorer because your body is telling you you can't do it."
The return of A.J. Logan next to Beckner has helped as well. He lights up when asked if he's seeing more single blocks since Logan's return.
"Yes," he says with a huge smile. "Probably more than I ever have."
Now the key will be to take what he has done against some of the lesser lights of Missouri's schedule and replicate it in Missouri's critical four-game stretch.
                        FOLLOW THE TIGERS
Saturday's game will kick off at 11 a.m. Central time on SEC Network. The league announced Monday that the Nov. 11 game against Tennessee has been slotted for a 6:30 p.m. kickoff on the same channel.
