Today marks the start of Season 2 of PowerMizzou’s backward-facing column, “What Just Happened?” A quick reminder of the ground rules: What follows will be lightly informed, minimally researched but well-punctuated commentary.
There are some big questions looming as I look to the future of the past. Can I continue to fill this space without the help of Season 1 stalwarts Michael Porter Jr., Dawn Staley and Waltz? I can only say that eventually things will happen, and surely some of them will be worthy of praise and ridicule.
So let’s get started.
Preseason football camp has begun. I have yet to watch a practice or interview anyone, but I am assuming the so-called experts are about to be proven wrong, the leadership in the locker room is unimpeachable and the tight ends will be more involved in the passing game. There have been good things seen out there but a lot to get cleaned up before the opener — that’s for sure!
As we eagerly await the UT-Martin Skyhawks’ visit on Labor Day weekend, a big question is whether new offensive coordinator Derek Dooley is up to the task. The nature of the job is that 70 times per game he will have to disprove the notion he is a doofus. Nothing against him personally, but doofus is the default position football fans take with the men who stare over color-coded, laminated menus on game day. That status can be temporarily suspended for a few minutes, but the first bubble screen that gets blown up on third-and-1, it’s right back to doofus.
Regardless of what video game era you were raised in — for me it was Tecmo Bowl, with only four play choices, and the Bo Jackson plays never failed — you probably have a false sense of superiority about your ability to pick apart a defense with your mind. I am not above the fray in this regard, but I vow to judge Dooley on his own merits and not the standards of his predecessor, Josh Heupel.
I give Heupel full credit for doing the job Barry Odom hired him to do before the 2016 season: turn the disastrous offense he inherited into something competitive, by any means necessary. Heupel did that by protecting an inexperienced offensive line and unsure quarterback with a quick-hitting, run-pass-option offense that tried to dictate terms with a frantic pace. What Heupel’s offense didn’t protect was Odom’s defense, which needed all the help it could get.
Last year was more of the same, except Drew Lock and the offensive players got better at their jobs. Missouri ranked eighth nationally in yards per play at 6.7, so it was statistically very efficient, and all those big plays made for shorter drives. Where I would add some context to those numbers, though, is that the nature of MU’s offense was that it elongated games against overmatched opponents and thus created statistics that exaggerated the effectiveness of the offense.
I call it the beer goggle effect.
I have had experiences on both sides of the beer goggle equation, but the one that sticks with me most was the first one, which happened in the 10th grade. John Cougar Mellencamp was playing a mini-concert in a nearby town to raise awareness for the plight of farmers. For me and my classmates, it was a handy excuse to skip school and do our part to support barley and hop farmers. Anyway, after a half-day of supporting those barley and hop farmers, I became enamored with a biker woman who dwarfed me in age, size and alcohol tolerance.
A can of Aqua Net had paid the ultimate price that morning to lacquer her platinum blonde perm into place. There was leather, there was denim, there were boots. She kept a Marlboro in one hand, a Coors Light in the other hand and — this was the kicker — an on-deck Coors Light in her cleavage. I had no natural defenses for that.
I went to bed that night feeling like I had gotten to first base with Lita Ford — second base was occupied by a sweating 12-ounce Silver Bullet — in a parking lot full of jealous, mulleted gawkers. The next day at school, the gawkers insisted she more closely resembled Ozzy Osbourne in drag. I took their word for it, as my version made absolutely no sense.
I learned a valuable lesson that day. I didn’t apply it, but I learned it.
If I can steer this column back in the general direction of football, I want to make clear I am not comparing Josh Heupel to a human can koozie who may or may not have resembled the former lead singer of Black Sabbath. I’m just saying his 2017 offense’s gaudy numbers — 502 yards and 37.5 points per game — dazzled UCF’s administration enough to get Heupel a head-coaching job, but they are an artificially high statistical bar for his successor.
So before the season starts, I have set a sober standard for what success might look like for Dooley’s offense in 2018, based on points per possession.
Last year, Missouri averaged 2.6 points per offensive possession. Considering this year’s schedule is harder, I would be impressed with 2.3 points per possession (which would probably pencil out to about 30 points per game).
Compare that to the last two truly successful Missouri teams. The defensive-minded 2014 SEC East champion team averaged 2.0 points per possession, and the offensive juggernaut 2013 SEC East champion team averaged 2.6 points per possession.
For some reason, the idea of splitting the difference, nestling right there in the middle, is very appealing to me.
