Mizzou’s loss last week against Nebraska was bad, however, somewhat inevitable. This week’s loss against Texas Tech was shocking.
Last week I sat and watched a Tiger team and wondered if they were even awake, but this time I watched pondering if they had a pulse.
The past couple weeks were hard on Mizzou. They played more than difficult conference opponents on back to back weeks. Beat the number one team and then lost to the now number 7 team. This ecstasy one week and agony the next affected their play. Missouri played flatter than Marion Jones’ chest during the Olympics in 2000.
It seemed as if this team (apart from TJ Moe) could care less. Although Mizzou came out eager early, with two huge plays for touchdowns in the first quarter, after those two scores, they decided the game was over. No team can play football for fifteen minutes and ever expect to win. Actually, Mizzou did expect to, but Cubs fans have been expecting for the past 102 years. And, let’s face it, expecting something gets you nowhere. Mizzou didn’t do the execution part of winning.
The stats definitely do not lie. The Tigers had 208 yards of total offense in the first quarter alone (led by the two run plays by Marcus Murphy and Kendial Lawrence for 69 and 71 yards respectively). It was a different story after that: 2nd quarter: 85 yards, 3rd quarter: 22 yards, 4th quarter: 40 yards. They were a total of 1 for 11 on third down.
They simply quit. In the third quarter Texas Tech was up by 7 and looking to score again, when Missouri linebacker Zaviar Gooden picked off a pass from Taylor Potts on Mizzou’s 4 yard line and was soon after tackled, and roughly 2 people congratulated him afterward. About 4 minutes into the 4th quarter Andrew Gachkar blocked a Tech field goal attempt, and no one on the Tigers seemed to notice. So, in two crucial situations, Mizzou makes two big plays and hardly seems to care. I could continue with Blaine Gabbert’s embarassing numbers or how Jarrell Jackson had multiple offensive pass interference penalties to compliment his dropped pass in the endzone, but I wouldn’t want to bore you.
The Mizzou team we saw earlier this season was fiery and battled to the bitter end, but the past two weeks they looked wiped out. Because of their nonchalant play the Tigers went from having a chance of competing for a National title to not even competing for a Big XII title in a season where the Big XII teams are more vulnerable than ever.
Hopefully the last games of the season we get to see the Tigers that play hard every down, are eager to put on a show and actually deserve to win football games.
As the team has struggled the past two games I can’t help but wonder what Derrick Washington is doing right now.
