October 16, 2021

Photo by Anna Griffin

College football is built around upsets, the possibility that on any given week, an unranked Texas A&M can stun No. 1 Alabama with the entire nation watching. Those wins send shockwaves throughout the college football landscape and energize a program.

When was the last time Missouri football fans saw their team pull off that type of excitement-building win? An argument can be made that it came in last October’s 45-41 win against Louisiana State University. It’s easy to recall the excitement of the memorable goal-line stand, even if it came against an LSU team that wasn’t nearly as good as it was during a record-setting 2019 season.

Major upsets –– such as the one A&M pulled off in College Station, Texas, last weekend –– don’t happen often. But the groundwork for those types of wins needs to be laid first, even if it’s just pulling off a win in a game that Las Vegas oddsmakers consider a coin flip. 

On Saturday, the Tigers tested themselves against a team currently in the Top 25 for the first time in 2021. For a second-consecutive SEC home game, Missouri not only lost, but also seemed completely out of the game before the conclusion of the first quarter.

“You can’t point fingers at everybody, it’s just an all-around team effort,” sophomore safety Jaylon Carlies said. “It doesn’t matter who it is, it’s the whole team. We all have to do our part, and everybody missed an assignment today.”

Missouri is 3-2 at Faurot Field this season, but those three wins came against SEMO, North Texas and Central Michigan. The two losses came against its two SEC peers. At some point, the Tigers need to find a way to win a game it’s not supposed to. Looking back through the first half of the 2021 season, there are three occasions in which Missouri came out on the wrong side of a 50-50 game.

The Tigers had their first opportunity for a statement victory in early September when they traveled to Lexington, Kentucky. The game came down to the final few snaps in the fourth quarter, but junior quarterback Will Levis and the Wildcats took care of business early in the game to stave off Missouri at Kroger Field.

A few weeks later, in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, the Tigers took Boston College to overtime, but lost 41-34 on a game-sealing interception. The next week, in its first home conference game of the season, Missouri entered as two-and-a-half point favorites against Tennessee only to lose by 38 points.

The Tigers can’t reach their stated goals –– which involve winning the SEC East –– until they begin to steal a game or two. Beating Georgia or Florida starts with consistently taking down Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee. Those are the statement results that could propel Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz’s program. They also make up the difference between making a bowl game or not. Missouri has three wins this season, but none were in games of consequence. 

“Nobody’s happy with the record,” Drinkwitz said. “Nobody is in there patting themselves on the back. We’re all disappointed.”

With each passing weekend, Missouri’s chances at a bowl game fade further and further away. To play past Black Friday, the Tigers need to defeat both South Carolina and Vanderbilt, as well as pick up a victory against a team it’s not supposed to, such as Florida or Georgia. 

Missouri put itself in this situation because of those earlier losses in “coin flip” games against Kentucky, Boston College and Tennessee. Win one of those games, and there isn’t as much pressure to beat the Aggies at home or Arkansas on the road. Instead, to reach a bowl game, they’ll need to find a way to win a game against at least one team that entered this weekend ranked.

“I wish success was always linear, but it’s not,” Drinkwitz said. “We can’t skip steps. I would have liked to, and thought maybe we could have, but we can’t.”

Halfway through the season, fans know what this Missouri team is. It’s a program that lacks the natural talent to hang with the “big boys” in the SEC East, while also coming up short in games that could go either way.

Fans may hope that the Tigers bounce back after the bye week and are capable of eventually stealing a game. But right now, with seven games behind them, the overwhelming evidence suggests that they aren’t.

Edited by Mason Arneson | marneson@themaneater.com

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