Missouri should have beaten Auburn on Saturday, Sep. 24.
Missouri’s defense held Auburn’s offense to 17 points. Senior running back Nathaniel Peat had a 110-yard afternoon. Despite struggling on offense for most of the afternoon, Missouri was positioned to pick up its third season win in its first ever game in Auburn.
With a minute to go in the fourth quarter and the game tied at 14, sophomore wide receiver Dominic Lovett made a spectacular twisting catch to put Missouri inside Auburn’s five-yard line; a Missouri win in Auburn’s Jordan-Hare Stadium seemed imminent.
Instead, Missouri improbably walked out of Auburn with its second loss of the season. Here are three takeaways from Missouri’s stunning 17-14 overtime loss this weekend.
The play-calling was inconsistent.
Against Abilene Christian last week, the Missouri offense looked really strong. Freshman quarterback Brady Cook was very efficient, completing 22/31 passes for 297 yards and thre touchdowns with zero turnovers. Lovett and freshman wide receiver Luther Burden III had huge days. The Tigers ran for almost five yards per carry. The catalyst: exceptional play-calling.
Many different players were getting involved, and in numerous different ways. Whether it was out of the shotgun or play action, a draw or a sweep, or a vertical or a post route, Missouri’s offense was working all three levels of the field as it did against Louisiana Tech in week one.
There was a stretch in the second quarter where Missouri’s play-calling was refreshingly diverse and unpredictable. On Missouri’s first touchdown drive, four different Tiger skill position players touched the ball, and a rushing touchdown from senior running back Cody Schrader on a nifty option play capped off the drive. On Missouri’s next drive, four different Tiger skill position players touched the ball once again. This drive ended in a touchdown — this time courtesy of a quarterback sneak from Cook. Missouri ran the same play for the same player only once on that second drive, as Missouri threw in a healthy mix of passes and runs to several different players.
In the rest of the game, however, Missouri failed to keep the Auburn defense honest with different kinds of play calls. To be fair, Missouri put itself in holes with negative plays on early downs, which naturally limits a playbook. However, Burden did not register a catch, and Missouri had only one play go for over 20 yards prior to Lovett’s heroic late-game reception. Five of Missouri’s six second-half drives were three-and-outs in large part due to Missouri’s inability to create explosive plays. Missouri could not create consistent big plays on the ground and could not stretch the field through the air. While the Auburn defense played very well, Missouri’s play-calling was conservative, which did not work in Missouri’s favor.
Missouri’s defense was phenomenal.
Missouri’s stunning loss unfortunately overshadowed a lot of positives from Saturday’s contest — the main one being the exceptional defensive play.
It was clear early on that Auburn wanted to run the ball, as its first 16 plays opening the game were all runs. After Auburn scored touchdowns on its first two drives, it looked as if Missouri’s defense was in for another long day against a run-heavy team.
However, after the first couple of possessions, Missouri’s defense tightened up, forcing punts on eight of Auburn’s next nine drives. Auburn entered Missouri’s side of the field only once in that span, as the team could not get much going on the ground or through the air.
Missouri’s defense also showed up in crunch time. Facing a fourth and one at its own 29-yard line with 1:30 to go in regulation, Missouri needed a stop to prevent Auburn from potentially running out the clock and kicking a game-winning field goal. With help from junior linebacker Ty’Ron Hopper and junior defensive back Jaylon Carlies, Missouri stuffed Auburn junior running back Tank Bigsby at the line of scrimmage to force a turnover on downs.
The stat sheet is another marker of the Missouri defense’s exceptional performance. Hopper led Missouri with three tackles for loss and two quarterback hits. Hopper, Carlies and senior defensive end Isaiah McGuire each contributed a sack. Twelve players registered at least half a tackle for loss. Missouri held Auburn to 82 yards rushing on 45 attempts. For context, if we took Auburn’s yards per carry on the season heading into Saturday (5.26) and multiplied it by 45, Auburn should have rushed for somewhere around 237 yards.
It was truly a complete game from the Missouri defense. Defensive coordinator Blake Baker’s crew was firing on all cylinders. All three levels of the defense contributed to Auburn’s struggles on offense, especially the rushing attack that Auburn tried to pound Missouri with. While there are certainly aspects of Missouri football that need some serious re-evaluating after Saturday, the defense has stepped up week after week, and that trend continued against Auburn.
Catastrophic fumble aside, the Missouri rushing attack had its best performance of the season.
While the stat sheet may indicate Missouri had its best rushing performance against Louisiana Tech in week one, the Bulldog defensive line was nowhere near the caliber of Auburn’s. Although Auburn’s run defense got sliced and diced against Penn State last weekend, its front four were the strength of its defense. Led by senior defensive lineman Derick Hall, Auburn had allowed less than 2.5 yards per carry against Mercer and San Jose State, respectively.
Despite the toughness of the opponent, Peat had a fantastic day. The Rock Bridge superstar became the first Missouri running back to register over 100 rushing yards on less than 25 carries since Tyler Badie did it against North Texas last season. As he has been for all four games thus far, Peat’s combination of size and speed gave Auburn’s defense a lot of trouble, as there were numerous plays where more than two Auburn defenders were needed to bring Peat down.
Schrader also had a productive day. Along with several tough runs of his own, the Truman State transfer found the end zone for his third score of the season with 9:34 to go in the second quarter.
Props must also be given to the offensive line. Although it has struggled to open the season, it was able to create running lanes for Peat and Schrader to run through against Auburn.
BONUS: This will (probably) never happen again.
When Lovett made a spectacular twisting catch to put Missouri on the two-yard line with just over a minute to play in regulation, Missouri was in prime position to finish off Auburn and pick up only its third SEC road win under head coach Eliah Drinkwitz. Peat and Schrader are strong backs who are built to score in goal-line situations, and junior kicker Harrison Mevis had never missed a kick inside 30 yards.
The game went to overtime.
After holding Auburn to a field goal on the opening possession of overtime, Missouri could win with a touchdown. On only the second play of the drive, Peat found a hole and booked it down the left sideline and was less than a foot away from victory.
Missouri lost.
Mevis’ miss at the end of regulation and Peat’s fumble to end the game could absolutely be described as flukes. While Missouri had ample chances to win the game in regulation before the final minutes, the team set itself up for seemingly easy success at the end of the game, yet it was unable to capitalize.
It is extremely difficult to come away from Saturday’s game and not mention the feelings felt among followers of Missouri football. It was a shocking loss. The late-game mishaps were difficult to watch.
All Missouri can do is learn from Saturday and move to host the defending national champion Georgia Bulldogs tomorrow at 6:30 p.m.
Edited by Riley Gearhart | rgearhart@themaneater.com
Copy edited by Jacob Richey | jrichey@themaneater.com