KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — Amidst a roaring crowd of 95,821, the Missouri Tigers lined up alongside the giant block T at the center of Neyland Stadium. The Volunteers took their position a short 10 yards away and waited.
Foot made contact with ball and the scramble was on for the onside kick. The ball vanished into a blur of orange, white, black and gold. When the dust settled and the dog pile disassembled, Tennessee had the football, but was called for an offsides to negate the play. The next kick, a Volunteer touched the ball before it traveled 10 yards, and Missouri got the ball.
Mizzou took over at the Tennessee 39 and ran out the clock.
“Sometimes I wonder why I do this for a living,” Missouri coach Gary Pinkel said.
But after the chaos of a 29-21 victory by No. 20 Missouri (9-2, 6-1 Southeastern Conference) over the Tennessee Volunteers (5-6, 2-5), it’s clear why Pinkel does what he does. The Tigers are 9-2 on the season and one win away from making a repeat appearance in the Southeastern Championship game.
“You never know what’s going to happen,” Pinkel said.
The start to tonight’s game was anything but romantic. After an early touchdown on the team’s opening drive, the Tigers stalled and couldn’t find answers no matter where they looked.
A few failed third down conversions, a plethora of penalties and a handful of dropped passes left the Missouri offense stranded deep in its own territory multiple times. Senior receiver Bud Sasser said he knew he and his team needed to turn things around in a hurry.
“We were a little antsy to start. I had a big drop at the beginning and that’s six points early on in the game,” Sasser said. “We knew we were messing up ourselves. We just had to come out and make some plays.”
Generous field position gave the Vols the opportunity to steal the lead on a fake field goal attempt. Junior quarterback Patrick Ashford made it happen with a 31-yard pass to take a 10-7 lead-
But senior running back Marcus Murphy carried his struggling offense into the endzone on his second touchdown run of the day. Then the floodgates opened up for sophomore quarterback Maty Mauk and the Missouri offense.
The Tigers scored 16 unanswered points to open the second half as Mauk connected with senior receiver Jimmie Hunt on a 73-yard touchdown pass — the longest of the season. Mauk followed that up minutes later by hitting Sasser in the back corner of the end zone to seal the win.
“We were moving the ball throughout the game,” Sasser said. “We knew that we could do it, we were just hurting ourselves … But we stuck with it, nobody gave up.”
When the offense struggled, senior defensive end Markus Golden and the defense kept Missouri in the game. Golden and co. locked down the Vols and sophomore quarterback Joshua Dobbs, holding Tennessee to a mere 53 yards on the ground and forcing two turnovers.
Golden ended the night with six total tackles, two sacks and a fumble recovery too, all of which he credited to his teammates.
“I did it tonight. I did it tonight for my teammates,” Golden said. “Can’t nobody do it by themselves.”
With the win, Missouri clinched at least a share of the SEC East crown. The team is a win away from playing for its second SEC Championship in three years since joining the conference. But championship allure is the last thing on Sasser’s mind.
“We’re trying to be 4-0 in November. That’s our goal,” Sasser said. “We’re almost there. We’ve got a bunch of guys on this team that can do it and we know what we have to do.”