Missouri football’s loss to Tennessee was brutal in every sense of the word. But the stats behind the 62-24 drubbing Saturday at Faurot Field magnify the issues that plagued Missouri during non-conference play to an even greater extent.
“We have a long way to go,” Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “But it starts with me, and it starts with doing everything I can to make sure that we make forward progress. And we didn’t do that today. We took a step back today.”
2013
The cracks Missouri’s run defense showed through the first four games this season continued against the Volunteers. Everything broke as Tennessee rushed for 452 yards and tallied 5five rushing touchdowns.
Historically, an entire month’s worth of Swiss cheese-esque defense culminated in the second-worst Missouri run defense performance of the century. Only Auburn’s 545-yard performance in the 2013 SEC Championship game prevents this from being the worst.
10 Tennessee scoring drives before a stop
The ground game’s woes precipitated an inability to keep Tennessee from scoring. It took 10 drives and 50 minutes of game time before Missouri finally put its foot down — with a fourth and goal stop at the 1-yard line, no less — and prevented Tennessee’s offense from putting more points on the board.
Between the start of the game and the fourth quarter stop, Missouri allowed 55 points and 602 yards. The span included seven touchdown drives and seven drives that ended in field goals.
On these drives, Tennessee wasn’t granted fortuitous field position, where they only needed to pick up a couple first downs before reaching the goal line. All but one of the Volunteers’ scoring drives until that point needed 50-plus yards, including two drives of 75 yards, one drive of 86 and one drive of 92.
Ironically enough, the Tigers didn’t end the game on that goal line stop. Missouri scored a touchdown that gave Tennessee time to work the ball downfield and punch in one last score before the end of the game.
58.2 seconds: average time of Tennessee’s possessions in the first half
It took Tennessee an average of 58.2 seconds to drive down the field and score on its first five possessions of the game. In a complete 180 from their contest against Boston College last Saturday, the Tigers were not beaten by a slow, methodical ground-and-pound offense that milked the clock. Rather, Tennessee took it to Missouri early and often.
The figure is aided by the fact that two of Tennessee’s first quarter possessions combined for 17 seconds — one set up by a 32-yard interception return by redshirt junior linebacker Jeremy Banks to put the ball at Missouri’s 1-yard line, the other a 92-yard house call by junior running back Tiyon Evans.
When a defense has difficulty getting its bearings against a team that chews the clock and doesn’t run a hurry-up offense like Boston College, it’s even more difficult for that defense to find success against a team that ran a play every 19 seconds in the first half.
3 first quarter rushing TDs by Tiyon Evans
Tennessee’s run game — a team effort with six players rushing for at least 35 yards — dominated throughout the game, due in large part to Evans’ torrid start to the game.
His three touchdowns from distances of 1, 8 and 92 yards out in the first 15 minutes set the Tigers up for success. The three scores alone put him at 101 yards rushing, and if the Volunteers had another crack at scoring in the first quarter, Evans would have had the opportunity to tie the FBS record for most rushing touchdowns in a quarter.
4.3 Missouri offensive yards per play
While Missouri’s defense served as the primary factor for the nature of Saturday’s loss, the offense’s 4.3 yards per play through three quarters made matters worse.
The Tigers sustained two drives of 50-plus yards in the first half, a difficult predicament when the best starting field position Missouri’s offense inherited was their own 29-yard line.
It was the result of terrific defensive game-calling by Tennessee’s defensive coordinator Tim Banks, whose defense routinely had an unblocked man in the backfield harassing redshirt sophomore quarterback Connor Bazelak or senior running back Tyler Badie. But Missouri’s offense did itself in with several holding calls to negate big plays, and the run game was stuck in neutral all afternoon.
Missouri worked its way to finishing a yard better per play by the end of the game, as Bazelak completed 10 of his 14 fourth quarter passes, but garbage time yards don’t make up for a dreadful first 45 minutes of football.
2.5 rushing yards per carry
Bazelak stumbled into a 322-yard passing performance, albeit with no touchdowns and two interceptions, but he moved the ball down the field. As mentioned above, the Tigers weren’t nearly as impressive on the ground as they appeared to be in Week 1, with just 2.5 yards per carry as a team.
Most of the troubles stem from the Tigers’ inability to create running lanes for Badie, often resulting in minimal gains — if any. After Badie’s 203-yard performance to open the season at Central Michigan, his performance on the ground has steadily declined as the schedule has flipped into conference play. He accumulated 214 yards on the ground in the following three games.
On Saturday, Badie mustered just 41 rushing yards on 21 attempts and just under 2 yards per carry, while the rest of the team put up 33 yards on the other nine attempts of the afternoon.
1991
Saturday’s effort now leaves Missouri’s rushing yards average at 307 yards per game. This digs Missouri into a hole as one of, if not the worst run defense in college football, and one of the worst run defenses in the history of Missouri football.
Through five games, Missouri’s defense is on pace to have its worst run defense in 30 years, when Bob Stull coached the 1991 Tigers to a 3-7-1 record and a jaw-dropping 334.3 rushing yards allowed per game.
As four of Missouri’s final seven opponents are within the top half of the FBS in rushing yards per game, including two teams that entered the week in the top 10, there’s no telling where this average will end come the end of the year.
Edited by Kyle Pinnell | kpinnell@themaneater.com