With time dwindling down in the second quarter, junior running back Russell Hansbrough lined up behind his quarterback in the shadow of the Vanderbilt goalpost.
The ball was hiked, and Hansbrough took the handoff. He was met by a wall of defenders and bounced out to the right side. He darted ahead and with a hoard of Commodores nearing, he dove for the goal line.
Touchdown, Tigers.
Hansbrough’s score was the first touchdown of the day for Missouri in its 24-14 Homecoming win over the Vanderbilt Commodores. The score was also the last of the day for Hansbrough, but that didn’t stop him and fellow back, senior Marcus Murphy, from carrying the Tigers to victory.
Hansbrough had 19 touches on the night — one short of his career high — for 87 rushing yards. And Murphy churned out 93 yards on 16 carries, which ties his career high.
“We knew that we were going to be a big part of today’s game and that we will be from here on out,” Murphy said. “The offensive line did a good job blocking up front and creating lanes. We just read it and ran hard. If you run hard, those are the results you are going to get.”
Missouri coach Gary Pinkel stressed the importance of the team’s rushing attack and praised his two running backs for kickstarting the offense.
“We just tried to get some continuity going,” Pinkel said. “They did a great job and they really ran hard. Those guys are good running backs and they’re a pretty good one-two punch for us.”
The man responsible for some of those open running lanes, senior offensive tackle Mitch Morse, said that the team had been working on the running game for a while and stuck with it once they saw their hard work come to fruition.
“You find what’s effective and run it,” Morse said. “We focused on our run game last week and saw some success in that. So we focused on that in practice and got some looks that we wanted. In the end, it was just winning our one-on-one battles.”
As a unit, the offense tallied 244 yards on the ground for the day. Not only was it the first time the offense had eclipsed the 200-yard mark since the first game of the season against South Dakota State — it was also a season high.
“Our running game was really big today,” senior wide receiver Bud Sasser said. “That gets the defensive guys really tired when you’re just running downfield. They think the ball might be coming, they turn around and the running back is running past both of us. We were able to do that a couple of times tonight.”
Despite the big numbers on the ground, it wasn’t a pretty victory. Mizzou incurred 14 penalties for 100 yards. But against the Southeastern Conference’s last-place team, the Tigers had just enough.
Mauk rebounded some from disappointing showings against Georgia and Florida with 141 passing yards on 11 of 23 passing, including two second-half touchdowns to Sasser.
Murphy said that the offense was aggressive running the ball tonight, and the success shows that the team is well on its way to improving as the final stretch of the season draws near.
“We fought hard in the run game just to open it up and spread it out and get some passing touchdowns,” Murphy said. “It’s been a little while, but that shows that we’re getting back on track and improving.”