How Mizzou football’s offense displayed promise, hope even in losing effort to ‘Bama
The Missouri Tigers expected to at least be competitive against No. 2 Alabama in their season opener at home Saturday night. Despite all the drawbacks they faced — including breaking in a new offense and quarterback and dealing with COVID-19 — the Tigers weren’t going to back down against one of the SEC’s best.
But as they crept toward the end zone, their drives stalled. The Tigers either settled for field goals or came up empty-handed and the Crimson Tide cruised to a 38-19 victory.
Mizzou introduced a new starting quarterback Saturday and fans finally got a look at coach Eliah Drinkwitz’s offense. The Tigers chose Shawn Robinson as their starter, and he took the majority of their snaps.
They had little trouble moving the chains and stringing together drives. A year ago, under a different regime and scheme, first downs were a rarity when the offense collapsed. Those memories didn’t haunt the Tigers as they orchestrated drives into Alabama territory in front of a socially distanced crowd of onlookers at Faurot Field.
“We moved the ball just fine,” Drinkwitz said after the game. “We gotta stay out of negative plays. We can’t take sacks when we have a chance to execute on fourth downs. We gotta execute. It’s all about execution. We’re not surprised about moving the football. We thought we had a good game plan; we thought we had good players.”
The Tigers, on crucial occasions, lost yards in bunches on those negative plays. During the opening drive of the second half, Robinson had a nice drive going after a throw on the run — only to fumble the ball away a few plays later.
Later, when the Tigers reached the Alabama 4, a sack forced them to kick a field goal. Both instances swung momentum, and points to Alabama, right when Mizzou was desperately trying to create its own good fortune.
“Gotta do better,” Robinson said. “Decision-making, just gotta eliminate bone-headed plays and be smart with the ball. And don’t beat ourselves.”
The MU offense functioned the way many fans hoped — especially when it came to Drinkwitz’s scheme, which at Appalachian State had been lauded for being innovative in its attack. Pre-snap motion and tempo kept the Alabama defense on its heels at times. Robinson was efficient, completing 19 of 25 passes for 185 yards and one touchdown, though he didn’t throw downfield much and the Tigers went with shorter passes.
The Tigers’ wide receivers struggled against the Alabama secondary, but Jalen Knox stood out, collecting five receptions for 63 yards.
The offense moved the ball to the tune of 20 first downs. Alabama’s offense collected 22 and was far more explosive, averaging 6.1 yards per play to Mizzou’s 4.4. Drinkwitz was, as expected, plenty aggressive, finishing 2 for 3 on fourth-down conversions.
Drinkwitz shouldered part of the blame when it came to his offense, saying he needed to call more downfield pass plays and give more carries to running back Larry Rountree III. The first-year coach said he liked how the offensive line played and should’ve given them more chances to open holes on running plays in the second half.
Rountree said the Tigers know they need to improve in certain areas — “not beating ourselves” with errors, for instance — but the captain said he saw some positives in the game, and now Mizzou needs to flip the page.
“It’s just not good enough,” Rountree said. “It’s a start, and we know we’ve got to build off of it now. We know if we can get into these predicaments, we get into the low red (zone), we’ve got to score touchdowns and we can’t kick field goals.”
The Tigers fell behind 35-3 but finished on a 16-3 run. While some of their brighter moments Saturday evening came in garbage time, Drinkwitz said he liked the “fight” he saw from his team.
Starting with a game against the Tennessee Vols next Saturday in Knoxville, Mizzou’s schedule doesn’t let up in the next two weeks. The weekend after that, on Oct. 10, the Tigers are at LSU.
“Saw some fight there at the end — that was important,” Drinkwitz said. “Bottom line, we didn’t play well enough on either side of the ball or in special teams to win the game tonight. We had two turnovers, one in the special teams and one on the offensive side of the ball. Defensively, we’ve got to get off the field.”
This story was originally published September 26, 2020 at 11:47 PM.