No playoffs, no problem: Mizzou still has plenty to play for

Oct 30, 2024 | Uncategorized

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Photo by Jason Clark/Getty Images

Despite dashed playoff hopes, the Tigers till have many reasons to finish the season strong.

As soon as the clock hit zero Saturday in Tuscaloosa (or let’s be honest, as soon as Brady Cook headed to the locker room in the second quarter,) it was clear that the clock on Tigers’ chances to earn a birth in the inaugural 12-team playoff struck midnight. Not since 2008 had a Tiger football season began with so much hope for national championship relevance. Eight games in to the season, that team and this one are mirroring each other closely… and not in a good way.

Both teams finished their eighth game with a record of 6-2. The 2008 team lost one of their games at home (to Oklahoma State), they had a blow out loss on the road to top 10 Texas the following week for their second loss. While both teams’ hopes for a national championship were dashed after their eighth game, the 2008 squad was able salvage a division championship and a 10-win season.

How will this current Mizzou team respond to broken dreams of a playoff birth and a run at an SEC and/or national title? The Tigers have plenty to play for to close out the season, but the answer to that question may be the most important one so far in Eli Drinkwitz’s tenure in Columbia.

Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images
Chase Daniel and the 2008 team didn’t end how Mizzou fans wanted either.

Let’s make it eight

Mizzou still has four regular season games (plus a bowl game) left on its schedule. I was never a math wizard but I’m pretty sure that means that 10 wins is still on the table for the Tigers, even if they lose another game somewhere along the way. Mizzou fans, no matter how old, can easily count the number of 10 win seasons for the Tigers on two hands.

Historically, seven Tiger teams have reached the double-digit win mark: 1960, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2014, and 2023. While six of those seasons have come in the last 17 years, reaching that mark should not be cast aside by Tiger players, coaches and fans as insignificant. When a program goes it’s first 118 years of existence and only achieves a double-digit win mark once, it is unbecoming of the Mizzou faithful to look down their noses at that mark as something unimportant.

In fact, Mizzou only won nine (9) games TWICE in their first 118 years (1899 and 1969). Winning nine regular season games has only been achieved nine times total, so hitting that mark in the regular season and then jumping to 10 wins with a bowl victory would automatically place this “disappointing” season as a top 10 season in Mizzou football history. That’s not nothing.

Photo by Mike Ehrmann/WireImage
While the SEC no longer ties in with the Independence Bowl, no Mizzou fans want a comparable bowl placement in 2024.

Bowl a strike

It seems like a tale as old as time, or at least as old as the Gary Pinkel tenure. Mizzou winning a decent number of games yet being designated to a third-tier bowl. Mizzou fans have made more than their fair share of trips to Shreveport, Fort Worth and the Gasparilla Bowl.

Finishing the season strong (with nine or 10 wins) means the Tigers will get to enjoy a much better bowl selection than a six or seven-win team would. With the major bowls being sucked into the playoffs (and more than 2-3 SEC teams destined to fill those bowls) that should leave plenty of decent-to-good bowl games open for teams like Mizzou. Those games include the Liberty Bowl, Las Vegas Bowl, ReliaQuest Bowl (formerly Outback), Texas Bowl, Gator Bowl and Music City Bowl. Texas Bowl notwithstanding, every bowl on that list should sound appealing to Mizzou fans as a place offering an interesting, if not new, destination.

If Mizzou finishes with six or seven wins, there is a real chance they end back up in Houston at the Texas Bowl (bad, bad memories there) or even back in the Gasparilla Bowl or Birmingham Bowl. If Eli Drinkwitz wants to end this promising season with a real wet fart, playing in Birmingham after half his roster opts out would certainly be one way to do that.

Recruiting momentum matters

Building off the incredible amount of momentum from the 2023 season, Eli Drinkwitz and his staff went on an historic (for Mizzou at least) run of recruiting success last spring and summer. According to 247 Sports, Mizzou currently sits as the 16th ranked recruiting class for 2025, which is close to the best in Mizzou history in the online recruiting rankings era.

The easiest way to lose all of that amazing momentum is to… lose games. While it seems as if top Tiger commits like five-star quarterback Matt Zollers and four-star offensive lineman Jack Lange are locked into signing with Mizzou, other programs are hard after five-star lineman Lamont Rogers and four-star receiver Donovan Olugbode (among others.)

Beyond the 2025 class, Mizzou is deep in the middle of building relationships with 2026 recruits at this point in the fall. That class includes the number two overall recruit in the country in in-state and Mizzou legacy Jackson Cantwell. His father, Olympian Christian Cantwell’s, status as an alumnus of Mizzou certainly helps Eli Drinkwitz in that recruiting race, but if the Tigers want to beat out Georgia, Alabama (and everyone else) for the 6’8 monster, finishing better than 7-5 this season would go a long, long way. Cantwell, like past elite in-state recruits Dorial Green-Beckham and Luther Burden, can make or break an entire recruiting class. Drinkwitz is going to need to land that guy and hopefully land him early enough to use as a momentum builder for the rest of the class.

While many Mizzou fans might already be writing this season off after two blow-out road losses to ranked SEC teams, the fact remains that the Tigers are 6-2. It may not be the most aesthetically pleasing 6-2 record a Tiger team has ever achieved, but 6-2 is 6-2.

If this team can dig deep and find a way (hopefully with the help of a relatively healthy Brady Cook) to win a few more games, all the positive vibes this coaching staff has built in the last 12 months won’t be for naught. This season can still be salvaged. Ten wins and a bowl trip to Florida is still 10 wins and a bowl trip to Florida. That’s something to build on. The one thing Eli Drinkwitz can’t allow to happen is to let 2024 hurt 2025 and beyond.

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