The Missouri Tigers are moving in the right direction as the SEC season winds toward the finish line. Eli Drinkwitz’s team is making strides on the defensive side of the ball.
By Matt Zemek
South Carolina and Vanderbilt are not especially good teams, but good teams lock down weaker opponents, and that is exactly what Missouri has done the past two games against the Gamecocks and Commodores. Mizzou has allowed a total of just 10 points, showing that earlier games against Alabama and Florida taught this team necessary lessons. The Tigers were willing to learn from their hard knocks and find the ways in which they needed to grow and develop. Now Missouri, arguably the most pleasantly surprising team in the SEC East, meets the unexpected overachiever in the SEC West, an Arkansas Razorback team which should have been credited with a win at Auburn earlier this season and which took LSU down to the wire before falling just short.
1 – Contain Feleipe Franks as a runner
The book on Franks has remained the same since his transfer from Florida: Make him beat you with the pass, and make him beat you with patience. Franks contains natural athletic ability, but his skill at diagnosing plays and reading defenses has never been his strong suit. He has great straight-line speed as a runner, so opposing defenses need to keep him tucked in the pocket so that he doesn’t have available running lanes. Once he can be kept in the pocket, the second key for stopping Franks is to make him orchestrate a 12-play, 80-yard drive.
LSU defeated Arkansas and Franks a few weeks ago, but the Tigers almost let the game slip away because they allowed Arkansas receivers to get behind their secondary. Arkansas scored 35 points on Florida because the Gator defense lost containment on several occasions and allowed home-run plays. If defenses can shut down the big play and keep Feleipe Franks in the pocket, they increase their chances of achieving their objectives against Arkansas.
2 – Embrace the challenge
Missouri went through a rough period earlier in the season against the more loaded portion of its schedule. As noted above, those difficult moments against quality SEC opposition taught the Tigers how to be better. This week, Missouri has to deal with the opposite potential effect: having games against South Carolina and Vanderbilt erode good habits. No, Missouri can’t allow the softer part of the schedule to reduce this team’s level of urgency. Missouri has to turn the page from these wins and remember how – and why – it has improved over the course of the season. The Tigers need to continue to apply those lessons against Arkansas. Respecting the opponent is a cornerstone aspect of a winning performance this weekend.
3 – Connor Bazelak and game pressure
The Missouri offense hasn’t faced a lot of game pressure in these two recent victories. The Vanderbilt game was a start-to-finish blowout, and the South Carolina win was a game in which Missouri led 17-3 with just over five minutes left before South Carolina scored a late touchdown to make the game cosmetically closer.
This is a game in which Missouri figures to get a much tougher test. Connor Bazelak answered the call against LSU on October 10, but he hasn’t been in a late-game pressure-cooker situation since then. In a game which means a lot to these schools, Bazelak needs to find that mixture of calm and decisiveness which elevates quarterbacks to the next level.
Saturday‘s game kicks off at 11:00 AM CT (12:00 PM ET). You can watch this Missouri football game on the SEC Network.
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