As time wound down in the final regular season game of 2014, the Missouri defense dug in for one final stand. The Tigers held a slim seven-point lead, and Arkansas quarterback Brandon Allen was marching his team down the field.
Allen handed the ball off to running back Alex Collins, but senior defensive end Markus Golden burst through the line and poked the ball free. The Tigers recovered and secured a 21-14 victory and their second consecutive Southeastern Conference East division title.
“Today, man — it don’t get no better than this,” Golden said following the game.
Mizzou’s victory over Arkansas in the inaugural Battle Line Rivalry locked up the team’s slot in the SEC championship game, but it was only a small part of a much larger streak. The Tigers won their final six games of the regular season to storm back to the top of the SEC East and secure a spot in Atlanta.
“You never know what’s going to happen,” Missouri coach Gary Pinkel said.
But the season wasn’t without its fair share of struggles. The Tigers suffered their first loss of the season to the underdog Indiana Hoosiers at home in a heartbreaking 31-27 defeat. The Hoosiers drove 75 yards down the field and scored the game-clinching touchdown with 22 seconds remaining, spoiling Missouri’s hopes of a perfect season.
“We never thought it was going to slip away,” sophomore linebacker Michael Scherer said. “We had confidence until they got in the end zone that we were going to stop them, but that’s just how the game went.”
Then, just a few weeks later, the Tigers dropped their biggest game of the season and lost to Georgia 34-0. The five-turnover, shutout loss was easily Missouri’s worst, and it put the team’s season in a state of flux.
“We should never play that bad, ever,” senior wide receiver Bud Sasser said. “It showed on the scoreboard.”
The loss was a major setback early on in the team’s season. The Tigers were faced with an uphill battle to climb back to the top of the SEC East standings, and they needed some help to get there.
“A lot of guys had their heads down, which is the way you should feel,” junior defensive end Shane Ray said. “But we need to pick it up. We need to figure out what we did wrong and everybody needs to do something extra.”
And that’s exactly what the Tigers did.
The team won its next six games over Florida, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Texas A&M, Tennessee and Arkansas, and courtesy of a few late-season losses by the Bulldogs, the Tigers clinched the SEC East title for the second year in a row.
Missouri’s final three-game stretch was particularly tense. The team defeated the Aggies, Volunteers and Razorbacks in last-second victories, and every game was decided by one touchdown or fewer.
“To see the journey we’ve been on this year and to see how we’ve fought in every game is very rewarding,” Sasser said after the final normal-season game against the Razorbacks. “Nothing can top that feeling.”
