At the halfway point of the Missouri football season, the most generous assessment is that the tougher half of the schedule is over, and the Tigers appear to be physically better than their 3-3 record would indicate. The least generous assessment is they are physically better than their 3-3 record would indicate, but their record is still 3-3, and therein lies the problem with a team that beats up on bad opponents but buckles against good ones.
If Missouri is going to get to 8-4 — which is my benchmark for the season to be more than just OK — it will have to beat at least one currently ranked opponent in the second half of the season. Here are my observations at the halfway point.
*I’m not sure what it will take for Missouri to pull a big upset, but I’m pretty sure fashion isn’t the answer. After the yellow-on-yellow-on-yellow optical assault failed against Georgia, the thought was, ‘We’re on the right track here, but if we take that yellow helmet and make our already enormous Tiger head logo even bigger — like the size of an actual tiger’s head — that would push us over the top.’ If the logo gets any bigger, it’s just going to be a Tiger neck with the words “To Be Continued” written on the facemask. Alas, the Alabama Crimson Tide, wearing the same boring clothes it wears every week, like a bunch of vagrants living under a bridge, wasn’t intimidated.
*I would love to see freshman running back Tyler Badie on the field as a slot receiver when he’s not taking his turn at running back. Considering all of Johnathon Johnson’s drops this season, Badie looks like a more dependable option in the slot who could also do some damage on jet sweeps that stretch defenses horizontally.
*While Derek Dooley is at it, he should scheme up a little more for freshman wide receiver Jalen Knox. He’s the only receiver making tough catches. And stop using tight ends Albert Okwuegbunam and Kendall Blanton as targets for bubble screens and short perimeter passes. They are gigantic, but they aren’t nimble enough to make anyone miss in the open field. Get those dudes upfield. In the last two weeks, there has been a greater commitment to using Samson Bailey as a vertical threat than the two main tight ends.
*I’ve been impressed with linebackers Terez Hall and Cale Garrett. Obviously the defense has mostly stunk, but those two have been dependable tacklers who have eliminated big plays in the running game. They will be tested in the next two games against Memphis and Kentucky, the nation’s fifth and 26th-ranked rushing offenses, respectively.
*The Tigers rank 118th nationally in pass-efficiency defense. Until they climb in the rankings to at least No. 99, let’s cease and desist with the finger wagging in opposing receivers’ faces on the rare occasion of an incomplete pass. That goes double if the opposing team is winning.
*Major missed opportunity for Barry Odom when he didn’t light anything on fire after the Alabama loss. Always launch the major motivational campaign after the toughest game of the season is over, so you will get credit for inspiring the turnaround if your team starts reeling off victories.
*In his fourth year as a starting quarterback, Drew Lock is running out of chances to produce a nationally significant win. Missouri’s losses this season have certainly been group efforts and not the fault of any one person, but Lock has been part of the problem in those games. He does have two more chances in the regular season to beat a ranked team, and I would pinpoint the game at No. 11 Florida on Nov. 3 as the opportunity to put the team on his back and win a game that would define him as more than a statistical marvel.
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Piggybacking on the last point, here are my votes for the signature victories of Missouri’s last six starting quarterbacks.
*Brad Smith: Missouri 41, Nebraska 24 (Oct. 11, 2003). Smith had three rushing touchdowns, one passing touchdown and one receiving touchdown as the Tigers beat the 10th-ranked Cornhuskers for the first time since 1978.
*Chase Daniel: Missouri 36, Kansas 28 (Nov. 24, 2007). Daniel completed 40 of 49 passes for 361 yards and three touchdowns in what I consider the biggest victory in Mizzou football history. That game landed him on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
*Blaine Gabbert: Missouri 36, Oklahoma 27 (Oct. 23, 2010). Gabbert completed 30 of 42 passes for 308 yards and a touchdown as the Tigers upset the No. 1 team in the BCS standings. It was coach Gary Pinkel’s only victory over Oklahoma.
*James Franklin: Missouri 41, Georgia 26 (Oct. 12, 2013). Franklin rushed for one touchdown and completed 18 of 27 passes for 170 yards and another score. After being knocked out of the game with a shoulder injury, he got some late-inning relief from the right arms of Maty Mauk and Bud Sasser to take down the seventh-ranked Bulldogs in Athens.
*Maty Mauk: Missouri 21, South Carolina 20 (Sept. 27, 2014). It was the quintessential Mauk performance. His stats were frightful — 12 of 34 for 132 yards and no touchdowns — but he extracted a road victory from his hindquarters with two late touchdown drives that erased a 20-7 fourth-quarter deficit. The Gamecocks were ranked 13th at the time.
*Drew Lock: Missouri 28, Arkansas 24 (Nov. 25, 2016). Nobody except Eric Beisel could believe it when the Tigers overcame a 17-point halftime deficit to beat the bowl-bound Razorbacks on Faurot Field. Lock completed 16 of 26 passes for 268 yards and one touchdown.
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A few months ago, I came home from work and discovered the trail of destruction a Labrador retriever with intestinal distress could leave on a variety of floor surfaces. The first move seemed obvious — relocate the dog to the backyard — but beyond that it was hard to know how to begin the cleanup process … or to imagine walking barefoot in this home ever again.
I imagine that’s how the NCAA’s Mark Emmert feels after the college basketball corruption trial finished up this week in New York. So many programs were accused of offering vast sums of money to players — or letting shoe companies offer money on their behalf — that the NCAA enforcement staff would need to expand tenfold to follow all the leads uncovered by the FBI’s investigation. There is filth everywhere.
With that said, if the NCAA is going to have even a shred of credibility moving forward, it needs to start by sending investigators to Kansas to begin scrubbing. That is the starting point. The Adidas powerhouse program probably isn’t any more complicit in letting an apparel company stock its roster than its Nike peers, but Kansas is the one whose coaches were caught in the act.
Bill Self was texting away with an Adidas bag man, letting him know that KU needs “a couple real guys.” There is no rational explanation for this personal relationship other than Self being beholden to the bagman for paying players to attend Kansas.
Then there was KU assistant Kurtis Townsend, who told an Adidas consultant that if the father of five-star recruit Zion Williamson is asking for cash, employment and housing then that is the price of doing business.
“If that’s what it takes to get him for 10 months, we’re going to have to do it some way,” Townsend said, according to a wiretap transcript that was read in court but not allowed as evidence.
The “whatabout” crowd will say Duke, the school that actually landed Williamson, must be as dirty — or even dirtier — than Kansas. That’s certainly possible, despite Mike Krzyzewski’s dismissive take on the trial as a “blip.” Quin Snyder arrived at Missouri two decades ago with a very flexible view of NCAA compliance, and he learned that somewhere. The NCAA should absolutely follow this path wherever it leads, even to the doorstep of the sainted Coach K, but the path should start in Lawrence.
My prediction is that the NCAA will investigate, Townsend will take the fall, the Jayhawks will self-impose some penalties and Self will give a convincing apology before accepting the next NBA job offered to him. None of that will really clean up college basketball, which has hundreds of Labradors with irritable bowel syndrome, but the NCAA can’t just hold its nose and pretend this mess doesn’t exist.
