If you watch, read and listen to the people who love college football so much that they can’t help but nerd it up, you might be convinced that this sport is a chess match contested between grandmasters. It can be … if both sides have the same pieces.
But when one side has acquired and developed an offensive line that mauls so effectively that it can score on quarterback sneaks from the 2-yard line, then it’s going to win. That is true even if its coach seems so confused about the viral entry points of the head that he wears his mask like a Bedouin setting off across the Sahara rather than a man spending an afternoon inhaling and exhaling in proximity to his beefy collection of five-star blockers.
We can add Tennessee’s Jeremy Pruitt — owner of the longest winning streak in the SEC at eight games, thank you very much — to the list of league coaches who preside over teams significantly better than Missouri. Perhaps I previously judged Pruitt too harshly based mostly on one moment of reality show confusion involving asparagus. And even if I judged him correctly from an herbaceous standpoint, it doesn’t much matter whether Pruitt could win a game of “Name That Vegetable” against Eli Drinkwitz, because this contest was about whose team could stuff the other in a gym locker.
The Tigers’ 35-12 loss on Saturday was most notable for Tennessee rushing 51 times for 232 yards and converting 4 of 4 fourth downs. The Volunteers ran when they wanted, even when Missouri knew it was coming, and had such trouble choosing which of their big ol’ plowers to put on the field that they used as many as seven at a time.
In the most charitable view, the Tigers lost a game but found their quarterback of the future in perpetual freshman Connor Bazelak. That might turn out to be true. If it is, that’s great, because given the NCAA’s suddenly generous stance on eligibility, Bazelak could start games in six consecutive years before retiring and relocating to The Villages in Florida. But let’s give it a few more weeks before making the QB-of-the-future pronouncement. When Brad Smith beat Illinois in the 2002 season opener, it was an obvious, “All the other quarterbacks should transfer now because this is the guy for the next four years” moment. Bazelak played well without any help from his wide receivers, and the 37-yard pass he threaded to tight end Logan Christopherson on fourth-and-1 was perfection, but he played three quarters and his team scored 12 points.
Again, a very promising showing just nine months removed from an ACL tear, and he absolutely deserves to start this week against LSU, but I’m awaiting more data before further proclamations. It’s going to be hard for any quarterback who can’t create something out of nothing with his legs to elevate Missouri’s offense this year, and the Tigers don’t have one of those guys on the roster. If they could borrow a quarterback for the season, Ole Miss backup John Rhys Plumlee would be more helpful than Tom Brady.
In an unusual season such as this, and particularly during an opening three-game sequence in which Missouri is a perpetual double-digit underdog, gleaning meaning from the separate but more-or-less equal beatdowns seems futile. Instead of trying to find meaning, I decided to let the game’s winds and undercurrents guide me on a metaphorical journey.
Watching this game made me feel like I was invited to an 8-year-old’s birthday party. At this party, at the encouragement of his parents, the guest of honor starts playing the piano, and it’s not bad, certainly better than I could do, but let’s be realistic here, this kid is maybe in the 79th percentile of 8-year-old piano players. So, obviously, the hope is that this will be a one-and-done “Prelude in C Major” by Bach and we can all move on with our day, but then Shawn Robinson attempts to run a zone-read keeper on third-and-9 and is tackled for a 1-yard loss and it becomes abundantly clear by the encouraging nods of the kid’s parents that this is going to be a whole set list and we’re going to have to politely clap after each song.
Are there brief moments of levity? Sure, every time the camera pans to Pruitt fighting a losing battle to position his neck gaiter even close to an orifice there is the fleeting surge of smug superiority that comes with correctly predicting we would all be stuck eating Papa John’s cheese pizza because that is the kid’s favorite. But that correct prediction is a pyrrhic victory, because nobody really wins with Papa John’s cheese pizza.
Then Bazelak enters the game and starts chucking passes as the dad makes a move for the remote control, raising the possibility that this might become one of those fun parties where the guys sit in the living room and watch the game while the women do all the actual work of caring for children. But then the wide receivers drop every other pass, and it becomes apparent the dad is just turning on “PAW Patrol” for the benefit of his 4-year-old daughter and this is the exact opposite of one of those fun parties where the adults get to set a terrible example with prolific drinking and swearing in the presence of impressionable youngsters.
The last glimmer of hope fades when Bazelak makes his one bad decision and throws an interception, and the parents make the surprise announcement that their son also has begun taking lessons on the recorder and would like to play a few songs.
