Sputtering offense, lack of discipline derailing Mizzou season
Angling toward stability and maybe even something resembling prosperity merely five weeks ago, Missouri football’s abrupt, perplexing turn since then became an outright plunge on Saturday at Memorial Stadium.
And with this free-falling fourth straight loss, and second in a row without scoring one measly touchdown, the prevailing question goes from what caused this cave-in (?!) to how and when it’s going to end?
Because now it’s disintegrated from what might have seemed a quirk at Vanderbilt … into what ought to have been a wake-up call that was a double-down of futility at Kentucky … into a 27-0 dismantling at No. 6 Georgia … into another form of distress signal after this 23-6 loss to No. 11 Florida.
Because after producing more punts (32) and penalties (31) than points (27) these last four games, the twist on a season that began with the anvil of an unjust NCAA bowl ban hovering overhead is that MU is on the verge of making its appeal a moot point.
Preposterous as that punishment for the actions of a single rogue tutor might be, and worse yet that the NCAA is shamefully and without account holding up its response, the looming self-inflicted aspect of the deal is more relevant testimony to the state of the program.
The joke a few months ago among some Mizzou fans was that it would be typical of MU’s fortunes to make good on a much-anticipated season only to have it rendered anti-climactic by a postseason ban.
Now it’s more like … is it really a bowl ban if you don’t qualify for a bowl?
That’s a worst-case scenario, of course. But what’s really not in play now?
Up next is a visit by Tennessee, which like MU is 5-5 overall and beatable but trending the other way with three straight wins. Then there’s horrendous Arkansas, which figures to be 2-9 with a game at Louisiana State in store before it meets the Missouri Tigers on Nov. 29 in Little Rock.
Win those two and MU can salvage a semblance of the season, and then let’s see what would happen with a bowl berth. That would be …. OK-ish, at least, even if it still would do little to generate excitement about what’s ahead.
Lose both and even the dwindling number of us who fundamentally believe in Odom and want to see him succeed will have to face that he’d be vulnerable to losing his job with six straight losses to end the season.
And a loss to Tennessee and victory over Arkansas certainly wouldn’t feel much like traction or cause for celebration and certainly would make for more fan unrest and apathy.
It’s the Show-Me State, after all.
The shame of it is that Odom seemed to have built a foundation of goodwill and credibility with the five-game winning streak after the funky season-opening 37-31 loss at Wyoming.
The plummet since essentially undid that, capital squandered. And what started as the baffling sort of thing that makes you wonder if something happened behind the scenes now has become the new reality.
A reality in which MU’s somewhat salty defense held a top-11 team to just two touchdowns for the second straight week … only for the offense to fail to produce as many as one either time, meaning MU now has gone 147 minutes and 40 seconds of game clock since its last TD.
Regretting he didn’t have “a great philosophical answer” about the downfall of the offense (which scored 31 points or more in each of its first six games but 27 total in four since), Odom nonetheless allowed as how there were many reasons “we’re not functioning at all offensively.”
“We’ve got a lot of questions,” said Odom, whose words seemed to hang there a second before he added, “We’ve got answers. But we’ve got to find a way to go execute.”
Some of that is that on offensive coordinator Derek Dooley. Some is on a line that just isn’t as good as advertised and on quarterback Kelly Bryant, the Clemson transfer who, alas, has moments but hardly is a game-changer.
But the signature of this loss was sabotage — and we don’t mean the suspect ruling that awarded a pivotal catch to Florida’s Kyle Pitts when it appeared that either MU’s Khalil Oliver had intercepted it or the ball had to be ruled incomplete.
We mean Mizzou beating Mizzou with exasperating lack of discipline, the sloppy sort of stuff that sticks in the craw as a reflection of a coach’s impact on his team.
Take the first sequence of the second half: Trailing 6-3, Mizzou was staked to a first and 5 after a Florida offside. The Tigers still weren’t going to convert when the scrambling Bryant ran out of bounds on third and 8, but MU had a reprieve when Florida’s Mohamoud Diabate was flagged for a personal foul for hitting him out of bounds.
The reprieve, though, was fleeting, because MU’s Albert Okwuegbunam was whistled for unsportsmanlike conduct for yanking a Florida player away from the gathering scrum.
Next thing you know, a short punt (one of 10 punts for MU on Saturday), a couple Florida passes and a personal foul on MU’s Tre Williams later, Florida took a 13-3 lead on a 34-yard touchdown pass.
The first touchdown of the game for either team was too much to overcome for Mizzou, whose day was epitomized by the unacceptable spectacle of later being cited for three infractions on one play to put itself in a third-and-38 bind after the personal foul was assessed on offensive lineman Case Cook.
All of which leaves MU in a different sort of bind: Two games in the next 13 days to redirect this season once again, a span in which Odom points to “the resolve that will define us.”
Here’s hoping that’s defined in the affirmative. But it will be against the force of gravity now, both in terms of the momentum and the tendencies working against MU.