Legends exist outside of numerical explanation.
I’m not sure there’s a metric out there that properly explain what happened on Saturday.
There are metrics I could use to describe the actual events on the field. Success rates, completion percentage, yards per play, scoring opportunities…the usual stuff.
But none of that really captures what actually happened on Faurot Field on October 19th, 2024. Unless I come up with a “time spent in hospital” coefficient for all of the possible variables.
You’ll see all the usual numbers I run out for these pieces and none of it is really going to stand out. And you’ll scratch your head and think, “huh, was it really as awesome as it seemed at the time?”
And I, the football numbers guy, will emphatically nod my head and say YES IT WAS EVERY BIT AS INCREDIBLE AS IT SEEMED AT THE TIME IGNORE THOSE DUMB SPREADSHEETS.
…but we’re going to look at them anyway because that’s what we do here! Be careful, it’s ugly:
Advanced Box Score
Defense won the day here, holding both offenses to under 360 yards each, less than 5.0 yards per play, and at or below 3.0 points per scoring opportunity. Auburn was much more balanced than Missouri, who was hell-bent on taking my advice and passing the ball to open up the run. The problem, of course, is that Mizzou spent the majority of the game without their starting quarterback, which made the overall effectiveness of the offense wane quite a bit. But more on that later.
When Missouri Has the Ball
Missouri’s Offense vs. Auburn’s Defense
Look: there was nothing good about this offensive performance. Auburn came in ranked 25th in defensive SP+ and played like it nearly all game. Six tackles for loss – five of which were sacks – and four passes defensed is a stout havoc line and holding Mizzou to its worst success rates since the A&M game is obviously very impressive. We’re just very lucky that Mizzou’s only two good drives happened when they did and ended in touchdowns.
Be Efficient Through The Air
I thought I was being too lenient when I set the bar at 42% for passing success rate and…nope, that was definitely a goal too far. Between Cook and Pyne Mizzou’s passing success rate finished at 26.5%.
Winner: Auburn
Generate Explosive Plays
In the face of a defense that didn’t give up any easy stuff I set a goal at seven (7) explosive plays in hopes that it would be enough to generate some scoring opportunities. Mizzou ended up with:
Q1: Pass from Brady Cook to Brett Norfleet for 16 yards
Q1: Run by Nate Noel for 15 yards
Q2: Pass from Drew Pyne to Jordon Harris for 17 yards
Q2: Pass from Drew Pyne to Theo Wease for 21 yards
Q3: Run by Marcus Carroll for 20 yards
Q3: Pass from Brady Cook to Mookie Cooper for 78 yards
Q4: Pass from Brady Cook to Theo Wease for 19 yards
Q4: Brady Cook scrambles for 14 yards
Q4: Pass from Brady Cook to Luther Burden III for 16 yards
That’s nine explosive plays. And Mizzou needed every single one of them.
Winner: Missouri
Finish Your Drives
I thought this game would be slightly higher scoring so my thought was, if Mizzou stay’s at Auburn’s average of 3.6 points give up per opportunity, then they need to generate 8 scoring opportunities. Instead Mizzou generated 7 scoring opportunities and averaged 3 points per opportunity…and won. Whew!
Winner: Auburn
When Auburn Has the Ball
Missouri’s Defense vs. Auburn’s Offense
While we will always remember this as the Brady Cook Hospital Game, the real MVPs were the guys making stops for 60 minutes of game time. Brady’s heroics wouldn’t have amounted to jack squat if the defense had watched their QB hobble off the field and fall into a funk of malaise and let Auburn uncork their explosive plays. Instead, Corey Batoon’s boys held the bad guy Tigers to 10 points and six explosive plays on the day. They’re not the flashiest or make as big of booms as last year but damn if this defense isn’t supremely competent and well managed.
Win On 3rd Down
I keyed in on 3rd-downs as a major stat that Auburn struggled with and insisted that the Mizzou defense keep Auburn’s 3rd-down conversion to under 38% for the game. Final tally: 4-14, or 28.8%.
Winner: Missouri
Limit the Scoring Damage
You can move the ball all you want but it doesn’t matter if you can’t maximize your points when you have the chance to score! I was hoping Mizzou could hold Auburn to 3 scoring opportunities at around 4.5 points per opportunity. While Auburn did manage to generate 7 scoring opportunities, they only managed 2.4 points per opportunity. That’s a win in spirit!
Winner (in spirit!): Missouri
The Little Things
“The Little Things” Report Card
Demerits
Auburn FINALLY won the turnover battle and enjoyed an 8-yard advantage in starting field position and lost. Incredible.
Also…Mizzou had two penalties in the game. I know I sarcastically mentioned after the A&M game when there were bigger things to worry but, over the past four games Mizzou has been whistled for 17 penalties, or 4 per game. That’s quite a bit better than the 28 penalties called for in the first three games of the year (or 9.3 per game).
Extra Points
Success Rate by Quarter
Look at these success rates by quarter, and then pair it with…
What quarter did the yards happen?
…the yards per quarter. While Drew Pyne was certainly ready to take over he is not a guy who was going to make the plays to beat this Auburn defense, and the yards/success rates show. Meanwhile, when they had the chance to pull away and add some points while a wounded Mizzou attempted to recover, Auburn’s offense whipped up 223 yards and a 51.2% success rate…and 10 total points over 6 possessions and 5 scoring opportunities. That was their chance to salt this game away and they did not do that. And then the fourth quarter happened and everything went to crap.
Ok, let’s do the quarterback comparison:
Cook vs. Pyne
This is why diving deeper beyond raw stats is so important. Yes, the touchdowns and turnovers portion tells you a lot about how each quarterback did. But otherwise you’d look at total yards and think “well, hey, Pyne finished out Brady’s first drive and got another field goal later on, that wasn’t as bad as I thought”. And then you see that Brady averaged nearly one more yard per play, finished with more points in fewer opportunities, and (most importantly) had better success rates in running and passing the ball. Mizzou had more rushing yard when Pyne was taking snaps but wasn’t as effective in keeping up with the chains than when Brady was quarterbacking. And, yes, Brady took more sacks, but even with that demerit he was the better passer by far, whether that net passing yards or passing yards per play. Against a Top 25 defense a Brady Cook that was disassembled, taken out of the stadium, under medical machinery, and then forced to restart his mind and body while the game was still going on, was much better than the guy who prepared all week to take over and was given nearly 40 minutes of game time and 7 possessions to do something with it.
That’s not meant to be disrespectful to Drew Pyne, by the way. The guy came here knowing he was going to sit behind Brady Cook and I’d much prefer he is on this team. But fanbases tend to have a quick hook for starting QBs and vastly overrate a backup’s ability because, frankly, they haven’t seen the backup suck out loud. Folks, I hate to break it to you, but college football teams do not have good backup quarterbacks. If they do, then the coaching staff made a huge mistake and should be playing that guy instead. Look no further than Ohio State last year: even Ryan Day got fan-brained into thinking that Devin Brown would be better than Kyle McCord and chased McCord out of town so Brown could start. The Buckeyes then got skunked by Mizzou. And that’s Ohio State! One of the top three greatest recruiting schools in the history of the world! Pyne is getting practice reps and live reps with this team and, maybe next year, could vie for the starting job. But this year he is still a guy who has never won a quarterback competition in his five years of college ball with barely a 62% career completion percentage and an adjusted net passing yards average of 6.6 yards…or what Brady Cook threw with a torn labrum in 2022.
First Downs Gained
Thanks to Pyne’s appearance with the 1’s we added some new combos to the 1st-Down Generators chart. Marcus Carroll padded his lead while Nate Noel and Cook -> Wease stay solidly in the top three. Looks like the new rule is “as long as Mizzou gets at least 17 first downs they can win”.
Conclusion
The important thing about beating Auburn is that Missouri beat Auburn. Yes, there are some questions about Brady’s Cook’s long term health and effectiveness. Yes, the offense is still a problem against Top 25 defenses (which…duh?). No, this doesn’t make anyone realistically think everything is great and now this team is unstoppable.
But let’s just enjoy this win and that special moment that, in the past, was a type of event that would happen against Missouri. Let the win soak in, Alabama will still be there when we’re done enjoying a hard-earned victory.
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