After another hard-fought victory, this one over Texas A&M (aTm), the Missouri Tigers stand at 9-1, their first 9 win season since 1969. Looking back, this game went about as expected. Mizzou hung a 40 spot and aTm ran the ball reasonably well and mixed in enough through the air to keep things interesting (although the poor tackling by the Tigers was a concern). aTm controlled the clock with its running game, and the Tiger defense stiffened when it had to.
Mizzou got a complete effort from its offense. Chase Daniel did nothing to hurt his Heisman chances. He completed 77% (27 of 35) of his passes for 352 yards. The mourning Tony Temple had 141 yards in his best game of the year, and he returned to Kansas City immediately to help bury his grandmother. Future Heisman contender Jeremy Maclin had 146 yards and 2 touchdowns. Probable All American and man-beast after-the-catch Martin Rucker had 6 receptions for 54 yards.
The defense performed reasonably well, although I wouldn't give it a grade of A like Graham Watson did. A B is in order for the D in this game.
The punting game was awful yesterday, but Jeff Wolfert continued his perfect conference season handling field goals and extra points.
Watching Kansas' impressive victory over Okie State, I was impressed by something else besides the way KU dismantled the Cowboys: the lack of mention of Mizzou as a national title contender by ABC analysts Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit. If you pay no attention to college football and just happened upon the game, you would be excused for thinking that Mizzou had taken its usual place on the college football trash heep (with the other Humanitarian-and-the-like Bowl participants and non-bowl teams). Musburger and Herbstreit heaped tons of (deserved) praise upon Todd and the Fat Man and they talked about the scenarios that would put Oregon, LSU, Oklahoma, and Kansas into the national title game. Not once were the Tigers mentioned in the talk about the national championship.
Maybe it's the past November failures of the Tigers under Pinkel. Maybe it's the number of teams in front of Mizzou. Yes, the Tigers need a bit more help than KU and OU. But they get the Beakers in two weeks on a neutral field. If they beat Kansas State next week and Kansas, they would then play OU in a rematch in the Big XII championship game. Something tells me that the Tigers, if they can get there, will not have the butterflies in their stomachs that they had when they lost to OU at Owen Field, largely due to Tiger mistakes.
Some say the Tigers have the best loss of any one-loss team. That may be true, but let's not forget that this Missouri team started the season by beating Illinois, a win that looks bigger and bigger every week. Not only have the Illini beaten Wisconsin, Penn State, and then #1 and then-undefeated Ohio State, but they beat Ohio State at the Horseshoe to send the Buckeyes to the first loss of the season.
The Tigers' next game, against Kansas State, concerns me more today than it did at the beginning of play yesterday. Kansas State was humiliated by a team that knows what it feels like to be humiliated. After getting 76 hung on them the week before, the Bugeaters came out and hung 73 on Kansas State. A season's worth of frustrations came gushing forth on the arm of Joe Ganz, and the Wildcats got turned into corn meal.
In year's past, Kansas State has begun its games with videos of past victories over that day's opponent. Colorado showed a similar video (second item) during its game with Mizzou, and Mizzou went out with an extra attitude to make a point. I hope KSU does a similar thing to get this year's Tigers more riled up than they already will be. They might do better by showing pictures of puppies and flowers because I don't think you want to get these Tigers riled up.