Mizzou Tigers’ Blaze Alldredge has big debut at linebacker against Central Michigan
It’s clear Missouri linebacker Blaze Alldredge is not to be trusted with self-assessment.
“To be honest, I felt like I played pretty bad,” Alldredge said after the Tigers defeated Central Michigan on Saturday.
Uh, OK. Let’s check the individual stats for clues.
Tackles, 10. Sacks, 3.5. Tackles for loss, 6.
Wait until Alldredge thinks he’s had a good day. The numbers will be off the chart.
Let’s chalk it up to a humble nature ... and there is some truth to the notion of missing tackles early in the game. Alldredge spent plenty of his postgame interview praising teammates for allowing him to do his job. “I wish I could give some of it to them, but that’s not how stats work.”
Undoubtedly, Alldredge benefited from the play of teammates just as they did from him. But it’s also true that Alldredge, the transfer from Rice who was playing in his first Missouri game, made the most of his opportunities, and another big effort is required Saturday when Mizzou visits Kentucky.
The Wildcats ran up 564 total yards in last week’s 45-10 victory over Louisiana-Monroe with quarterback Will Levis passing for 367 and four touchdowns.
Mizzou came up with some nice defensive totals against Central Michigan, including nine sacks and 13 tackles for loss. But the Tigers also surrendered 475 total yards
“Game one to Game two, we have to make a major improvement with our defense,” Missouri defensive coordinator Steve Wilks said.
The second half on Saturday was more encouraging than the first, when Central Michigan collected nearly 300 total yards. All of Alldredge’s sacks came in the second half when the Tigers turned up the pressure and brought blitzes from several spots. In all, six players recorded sacks, including the first by quarterback-turned-safety Shawn Robinson.
On that play, Robinson darted untouched directly to quarterback Jacob Sirmons, and Alldredge tipped his cap to Wilks.
“One of the biggest strengths of our defense is that we do a really good job of making everything look the same,” Alldredge said. “Especially at the college level, there’s not a lot of quarterbacks that are able to notice slight differences, call out blitzes or call out different coverages. Credit to coach Wilks.
“It’s been one of my favorite things about the defense since I’ve come here is that we do a really good job of keeping our looks the same so the offense doesn’t know what’s coming.”
Missouri got solid play from another transfers, Akayleb Evans, who started his career at Tulsa. Evans recorded an interception and two pass breakups.
“I definitely think we have an aggressive defensive mentality,” Alldredge said. “Our goal is to score on D, get to the passer, get strip sacks, affect him, make him overthrow the ball.”
That’s Alldredge’s game. At Rice, he was twice an All-Conference USA selection and team MVP. His 21 1/2 tackles for loss in 2019 ranked second nationally.
Mizzou was in the market for a transfer at that position after the departure of All-SEC linebacker Nick Bolton, selected in the second round by the Chiefs.
“As soon as we evaluated the tape, we knew he was somebody we wanted,” Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “We sold him on replacing Nick Bolton. I don’t know that we sold him on being Nick Bolton. He has to be Blaze Alldredge in our defense.”
For at least one game that was more than good enough, even if he doesn’t think so.
This story was originally published September 8, 2021 at 3:15 PM.