Spare thoughts on the shutout by Alabama

Oct 27, 2024 | Uncategorized

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Missouri wide receiver Luther Burden III (3) sits on the field after a ball thrown his way was picked off in the third quarter of a game against Alabama on Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (CAL TOBIAS/ROCK M NATION)

Mizzou will be portal shopping this spring, and other spare thoughts from the awful Alabama game.

After sleeping (and tossing and turning) on the dismantling the Tigers took at the hands of Alabama Saturday, the loss doesn’t look any less disheartening. Mizzou’s playoff hopes are dashed, Brady Cook’s status for the rest of the season is in question and the Tigers enter a bye week with a lot of questions and fewer answers.

I posted my five takeaways immediately following the game, but I had a few more spare thoughts about the loss that I figured I’d make y’all have to think about too:

Missouri quarterback Brady Cook (12,) who was out for most of the game with an injury, watches Missouri play in the third quarter of a game against Alabama on Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (CAL TOBIAS/ROCK M NATION)

Spare thoughts

Any questions about whether or not Mizzou looks for a quarterback in the transfer portal following this season are all but answered. Brady Cook has already said this is his last season, whether he could appeal for another year of eligibility or not. In five quarters of SEC play, Drew Pyne has 16/33 for 120 yards, no touchdowns and three interceptions. Incoming freshman phenom Matt Zollers suffered a gruesome leg injury last month, and while he’s expected to fully recover, the chances that he comes in and excels immediately are slim. Rounding out the room next year will be Aiden Glover, who is clearly not ready and Sam Horn is a big question mark as to whether he even plays football again. Whoever the Mizzou starting quarterback is next year, he is most likely not currently on the roster.
Speaking of quarterbacks, there was a strange pre-game report by ABC’s Katie George that walk-on J.R. Blood would most likely play in some packages during the game. Well we didn’t really get to see that (or maybe we did?) it’s hard to know. Blood did make his Tiger debut early in the fourth quarter, but Mizzou ran the ball three times and punted. Womp womp.
Early on in his Mizzou tenure, Eli Drinkwitz got into the habit of running flea flickers a lot. Like every game. It was kind of funny, honestly how much he LOVED flea flickers. Well since Kirby Moore took over the play-calling duties, the flea flickers have gone away. Until today. On the second play of the game, Mizzou dialed up a beauty of a flea flicker that led to Marcus Carroll missing a blitzing linebacker and Brady Cook getting sacked for an eight yard loss. Womp womp again.
The offensive line played very poorly. Like really poorly. From the jump. Brady Cook had no shot to stay healthy because he was under pressure just about every time he dropped back to pass. The line wasn’t any better in the running game either. Take away the last drive of the game where Mizzou ran the ball 13 straight times for 83 yards against back-ups before Bama brought the starters on fourth and goal to stuff Marcus Carroll, the Tigers rushed for 84 yards on 26 carries for 3.2 yards per carry. That’s bad.
One small bright spot from the game was a resurgent Johnny Walker, Jr. The senior was the Tigers’ returning sack leader from last year’s defense but had only recorded two sacks all season. JWJ had two sacks today, both on key third downs in the first half. He also finished with two other tackles on the day. Hopefully we see this version of JWJ the rest of the year.
I touched on bad play-calling in my Five Takeaways post yesterday, but the game was all but over after the Tigers wasted Brady Cook’s last drive with poor play-calling. After a kick catch interference penalty and a few nice runs up the middle to put the Tigers into Alabama territory for the first time, Kirby called two consecutive deep shots to covered receivers. Mizzou’s lack of a downfield passing game has been well documented all season. Trying to bring it back in this spot was destined to fail.
We got to see our weekly dumb timeout usage at end of the first half. Drinkwitz first (rightly) let the clock run toward the end of the half until Mizzou was able to run the ball for a couple first downs. They then gain another first down and crossed the 50. Instead of calling a timeout (Mizzou had two) Drinkwitz wastes at least 15 seconds before THEN calling a timeout with 27 seconds left. The Tigers ended up kicking a 59-yard field goal on third down as time expired (it missed). It would have been nice to have an extra play to move the ball a bit closer for that kick, wouldn’t it have?
Speaking of that weird last drive… With no time outs and 10 seconds left, Kirby drew up a slant to the middle of the field. It was a poor throw by Pyne resulting in an incompletion, but if that ball had been caught by Wease, the time would have run out before Mizzou could have spiked the ball. Just bad.

Well, you’ve read enough of my frustrated ramblings on a Sunday morning. It’s off to the bye week where I think we could all use a little break. Until next time.

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