Explore Mizzou Sports Talk

Join the Conversation

undefined

Post By

The Auburn matchup shows us time might be a flat circle

Oct 16, 2024 |

Missouri v Auburn
A tale of two programs going in different directions. | Photo by Michael Chang/Getty Images

In 2022, Auburn and Mizzou faced off in one of the dumbest games in SEC history. How have the programs changed since then?

As Nathaniel Peat’s outstretched arm reached for the Jordan-Hare Stadium southwest end zone pylon in overtime, Mizzou fans began to celebrate. Auburn was one of only three SEC teams Mizzou had yet to defeat in conference play. It appeared as if, despite the odds, the black and gold Tigers would steal a victory on the road and move to 3-1 early in the 2022 season.

Alas, what came next is a vicious scene forever etched in the memories of many Mizzou fans: Peat loses his grip on the ball as he’s slammed from behind. The ball dribbles into the end zone. An Auburn defender jumps on the ball and the game is over. Just like that. What will be left unmentioned is the missed 26-yard field goal at the end of regulation that would have clinched a victory before overtime. What also never will be discussed is the fact that the Mizzou defense only gave up 217 total yards and 17 points on the road and lost. Those facts aren’t going to be brought up. It was, if not the most frustrating Mizzou loss in recent memory, certainly the dumbest.

In the 24 months following this fateful game, the Auburn and Mizzou programs have taken disparate paths only to end up back where they started: Matched up again in a tilt with high stakes and much to lose for both programs.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL: DEC 29 Goodyear Cotton Bowl - Missouri vs Ohio State
Photo by Nick Tre. Smith/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
The Mizzou program has experienced an upward trajectory since the 2022 match up with Auburn.

Moving on up

As much as the ending of the 2022 game with Auburn was a kick to the groin, the Mizzou program has managed to right the ship in the subsequent two years. After the loss to Auburn, Eli Drinkwitz’s Mizzou record sat at 13-14. The Tigers followed up the Auburn debacle with valiant defeats in their next two games (at home in a brutally close loss to #1 Georgia and on the road at Florida by seven points.) However, since the loss in Gainsville, Mizzou has gone on a 20-6 run, including two bowl appearances and a Cotton Bowl win in 2023.

Not only has the Tigers’ record taken off on a rocket since the Auburn game, but individual performances for many standout Tigers have improved as well. Nathaniel Peat’s game-losing fumble opened the door for Cody Schrader to take the helm at running back. Against Auburn, Peat had 20 carries for 110 yards while Schrader finished with seven carries for 29 yards. The following game against Georgia, Scrhader had 89 yards to Peat’s 37 yards. Peat had one more game (against Florida) where he outrushed Schrader, but starting against Vanderbilt, Schrader took the reins and never gave the job back.

Brady Cook experienced a similar surge his first year as a starter. Through the Auburn game, Cook had thrown a grand total of four touchdown passes and four interceptions. Following that game, Cook closed out the 2022 season throwing 10 touchdowns and only three interceptions. Both offensive players’ remaining 2022 campaigns set the stage for a truly remarkable 2023 run which was thankfully missing any PTSD-inducing losses.

Ole Miss v Auburn
Photo by Michael Chang/Getty Images
The Auburn program, while not completely bottoming out, has been treading water since 2022.

Treading water

While Mizzou was busy thriving post-Debacle on The Plains, the victorious team of that game took a very different path. Already on the hot seat coming into the game, Auburn head coach Brian Harsin managed to last three more games into the season (all losses) before being unceremoniously fired less than two seasons into his time at Auburn. The blue and orange Tigers went on to finish the 2022 season 5-7 before making a splashy, if controversial, hire of Hugh Freeze in the off-season.

In 2023, Freeze’s first season had very mixed results. Auburn won their first three games before losing four straight. They bounced back with three straight wins against Mississippi State, Vanderbilt and Arkansas, but closed out their 6-7 campaign with an embarrassing loss to Diego Pavia and New Mexico State, a Hail Mary loss to Alabama and a bowl beat down by Maryland. Coming into the game with Mizzou, Auburn sits at 2-4, and is on a similar three-game losing streak.

Missouri v Auburn
Photo by Michael Chang/Getty Images
Mizzou and Auburn are back where they started in many ways.

The more things change, the more they stay the same

Despite the drastically different paths that Mizzou and Auburn have taken from Sept. 24, 2022 to Oct. 18, 2024, the teams will kick off under conditions remarkably similar in climate, if not location. Like his predecessor, Hugh Freeze enters this game under heavy criticism from Auburn fans, boosters and outside media.

While he began his Auburn tenure with legitimate SEC coaching bona fides, his Tigers program has gone an underwhelming 8-11 so far. Freeze may not be in danger of losing his job with a loss to Mizzou like Harsin was, but he does face a similar threat if the Auburn season continues its current tailspin. Auburn must go at least 2-4 in their remaining six games to make a bowl, with only one “easy” win left on the schedule (against a much improved 5-1 Louisiana-Monroe team.)

Eli Drinkwitz’s squad, on the other hand, is still reeling. Or at least still reeling in the public’s eyes following a blow out road loss to a ranked team in Texas A&M. Like the Mizzou 40-12 loss at Kansas State in 2022 followed by an easy win against an undermanned non-conference foe, the Tigers enter this version of the Auburn game looking to redeem themselves against a conference opponent that remains one of three SEC teams they have never defeated in conference play.

The shoe is on the the other foot in this match up, as the black and gold Tigers host the blue and orange ones this time around. Mizzou fans better hope they don’t see any repeats of two years ago. The 2022 version of this game ended up kicking off something truly great for Mizzou. If a similarly disgusting result happens this time around, there is a legitimate worry that Drinkwitz’s program could begin a spiral the opposite direction. Despite an early loss, every Mizzou goal remains on the table for the Tigers at this point. That will not be the case if they drop this game to a stumbling Auburn team.

Hopefully, at least in this instance, time is not a flat circle.

read more

Thanks Hugh, for the extra motivation

Oct 16, 2024 | ,


The Morning Commute for Wednesday, October 16th

Welcome to the Morning Commute

Today we’re talking about bulletin board material.

Motivating a football team to get “up” for a game is an artform as old as the game itself. Sometimes an upcoming opponent says something that is truly ignorant and riles your team up (anyone remember “old man football” by Sheldon Richardson before playing Georgia?), sometimes it’s an innocent comment that gets blown out of context, and sometimes stuff is just flat made up in the form of propaganda.

If you hadn’t seen/heard, Auburn Coach Hugh Freeze held his Monday media presser and tried to hand a compliment down to Mizzou’s Eliah Drinkwitz. However, it didn’t come out quite right, because when he complimented Drink for doing a great job of building the program, he said that Drink has done so despite having a “lesser roster in recruiting.”

I’m going to give Freeze the benefit of the doubt and believe he truly meant it as a platitude but just did so in a poorly-worded effort. Either way, you know that those words are plastered all over the football complex this week to light a fire under the Mizzou players’ feet. Not that they needed extra motivation knowing what is still within reach for this team, but that little turn of phrase was probably a welcome sight for the Mizzou coaches.

This kind of bulletin board material can give, as in this instance, and it can take away, as it worked against Mizzou just a couple weeks ago leading into the Texas A&M game. If you’ll recall, Brady Cook was asked about the crowd noise he anticipated dealing with at Kyle Field, and he gave an answer about how loud they make practice with crowd noise piped in over big speakers. He said he felt practice was louder than any game, and he clearly didn’t mean that as a slight of Texas A&M fans – he was just saying that they prepare in a way where they try to make it harder in practice than it is in the game.

But that didn’t stop pundits from taking his comments out of context and presenting it as if Brady had said practice is louder and tougher than it will be at A&M. That’s not what he said, and definitely was not what he’d meant. Lesson learned I’m sure about being very intentional about the words you use.

Talk about this subject always reminds me of an instance long ago with the master of disingenuous bulletin board material – Bob Stoops at Oklahoma.

In 2002 when Oklahoma played at Mizzou (this was Brad Smith’s redshirt freshman year), there was news surfacing from Norman that reporters down there had seen signs posted in the OU team facilities that had Mizzou players talking smack about how they were going to beat the Sooners that week.

We found out about it because the local Mizzou media asked our coaches and players about those remarks. Problem was, none of our guys said anything of the sort. This was in the early stages of Gary Pinkel’s tenure when we were very reserved in all comments to the media. It was completely fabricated by OU coaches/staffers as a way to motivate the Sooners in a game they were heavily favored in.

I get why coaches do that stuff, but it really pissed me off at the time because then our guys were blindsided by the questions from the media. But in the end, Mizzou got the last laugh as we nearly pulled off the upset in a classic game against #3 OU, before falling by a 31-24 final score.

To each, his own I guess.

Did you see how Oregon brilliantly manipulated the rule book at the end of their 32-31 win over Ohio State Saturday? The Ducks were clinging to that one-point lead, and Ohio State was driving for a game-winning field goal attempt as time was winding down.

The Buckeyes had the ball at the Oregon 43-yardline on a 3rd down snap with just :10 seconds left to play. OSU had a timeout left, so they could use the whole field and needed maybe 10-15 more yards to have a decent shot at a walk-off game-winner.

Prior to the 3rd down snap, Oregon called a timeout. When they came back , Oregon took the field with 12 players, and Dan Lanning has confirmed that it was done so intentionally. Ohio State snapped the ball and threw an incomplete pass because it’s hard to find someone open when you’ve got 12 defenders. More importantly, four precious seconds ticked off the clock, leaving just :06 seconds left.

Yes, Oregon got called for the 5-yard penalty, but that only moved the ball to the Oregon 38-yardline, which would have left a 55-yard field goal attempt by OSU. Oregon gambled that Buckeye Coach Ryan Day didn’t have the kicker to make that long of a kick, and they were right, because OSU ran one more play.

And if you saw how the game ended, it ended when OSU QB Will Howard scrambled and slid on the Oregon 26, but he did so with no time left, so they couldn’t use a timeout to set up the shorter field goal try.

Because a 12-man penalty is a live ball foul, Oregon knew that the 3rd down play that didn’t count would still burn some clock, and that stroke of genius worked to perfection since Howard couldn’t get down in time on the ensuing play. It was a big gamble and it’s not something we’ll likely see too often, but it sure worked this time.

I do wonder if the rules committee will look at this going forward and try to make this penalty a dead ball foul, because doing this the way Oregon did clearly manipulated the rule book. I commend Oregon for doing it, because they used the rules to their favor. I just wonder if it will be allowed in the future?

Here’s this week’s hilarious SEC Shorts video.

Yesterday at Rock M and Rock M+

It was cool to see some younger guys get in on the action and have this one comfortably put away early, but for the most part the W is the only real thing to take away from this game. Nothing done during the course of this game gave you any insight of foresight to predict how the rest of the year will go. So don’t sweat anything about this game.

As Nate writes, good job Tigers, way to take care of business. Now, we’ll see what this team really has under the hood this Saturday when the talent level is more even.

I wish I had some more humorous or profound observations on what this game means in the context of Mizzou’s season or its story as a program… but that’s not the point of filler! It’s not to teach us anything or to explore any meaningful depth of life (or football). It’s there to fill a slot on the schedule. And that’s it. It’s not good, it’s not bad. But it is there.

He said what we were all thinking. We all watched the game because we had to, not because we were all that excited about it. Let’s hope these types of games are a thing of the past going forward.

The Sooners only lost three players to graduation or expiring eligibility, but five others hit the transfer portal. And of those five, three were among the Sooners’ leading scorers. Losing that sort of production from players who have been in your program and developed could signal some NIL struggles.

Sounds like a bit of a rebuild situation for the Sooners. You hate to see that. But more than that, you love to see that.

  • Tuesday’s morning commute gave updates on Mizzou’s football TV schedule, volleyball weekly awards and some men’s hoops predictions.
  • It’s election season, so time to cast your vote in the weekly SBN Reacts poll that asks Tiger fans to chime in on their confidence with the rest of the season.

Rock M Radio: Before the Box Score reviews the UMass dub

Subscribe to Rock M Radio on Apple Podcasts. Or stream episodes through Megaphone or Spotify. Have a question for us? Leave a 5-star review with your question and that show just might answer it in an upcoming episode!

If you like Rock M Radio drop us a Review and be sure to subscribe on your preferred podcasting platform. Follow @RockMRadio on Twitter and if you heaven’t already head over to our YouTube channel and click that subscribe button!

  • (** RockMNation has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though RockMNation may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links.**)

read more

Notes from Tiger Talk: Auburn

Oct 16, 2024 |


What Eli Drinkwitz, Curtis Luper and Marcus Carroll had to say at Bud’s Classic BBQ.

With Homecoming on the horizon, “Tiger Talk” was back up and going at Bud’s Classic BBQ.

Here’s what Eli Drinkwitz, Curtis Luper and Marcus Carroll told Mike Kelly.

Eli Drinkwitz | Head coach

  • Guys channeled the right energy, had great focus last Friday night
  • Praised the fast start
  • Pressuring the punter was a bad idea on the fake punt. Great tackle by Luther Burden III. His proudest moment of the game
  • On Corey Flagg Jr.’s interception, Tre’Vez Johnson moved outside so that UMass quarterback Taisun Phommachanh thought he had a receiver open in that window. Flagg jumped the passing lane and came up with the pick.
  • We have a lot of trust in Marcus Carroll, he did a great job with outside zone on Saturday.
  • Everything’s good with Luther. He practiced fully today.
  • Brett Norfleet was in Witness Protection Program for a few weeks. Good for Brady’s confidence to re-establish a connection with Norfleet.
  • Josh Manning has earned his opportunities.
  • Appreciative of the defensive line depth stepping up in the wake of Joe Moore’s season-ending injury.
  • Appreciative of his job at Auburn, got to be around a winning program.
  • Impressed with Mizzou’s attitude today at practice.

Curtis Luper | Running Backs Coach

Marcus Carroll | Running Back

  • Blessed to be a part of the team. The offensive line is awesome.
  • Him and Curtis Luper were at Marcus’ house talking on the couch for three hours when Marcus was in the portal
  • On lessons learned from football: Never feel comfortable. It’s always about adapting.
  • Wants to get a Master’s degree in art. Paints a lot. Dated back to high school. Last painted a skyline. “I ain’t no Michaelangelo.”
read more