Mizzou’s upset of LSU testimony to new regime, mindset: ‘That’s what real winners do’
Since the back-to-back SEC East titles in 2013 and 2014, the pinnacle (along with 2007-2008) of the last two generations of University of Missouri football, there was this: The program had reverted to an exasperating existence that defined it for decades before Gary Pinkel’s revitalizing touch.
Starting with Pinkel’s final season, 2015, MU was 30-34 in that span, including Barry Odom’s four seasons and the first two games of the Eli Drinkwitz era.
There were some fine moments along the way, times when it appeared Odom’s teams were on the cusp of something. But the cumulative effect was a program shrouded in some combination of fan apathy and pessimism.
And, admit it, the return of an abiding sense that things just aren’t quite going to work out even when a monumental opportunity is at hand … like that thing we won’t mention that happened 30 years ago last week.
So for all the exhilaration of an upset in the grasp with Mizzou clinging to a 45-41 lead over defending national champion LSU on Saturday at Faurot Field, you could sense the dread among some MU fans across social media platforms about what bizarre way this might slip through as LSU methodically made its way down the field.
What happened next should purge those paranoid assumptions.
Because while only time will tell if this was a program-changing statement, it certainly was a perception-altering one.
Because after LSU arrived at the 1-yard-line, MU bristled and executed an improbable and indelible goalline stand culminating in Joshuah Bledsoe’s breakup of a fourth-down pass to Terrace Marshall Jr. — who had 11 catches for 235 yards and was virtually uncoverable the rest of the game.
Because the 45-41 victory over No. 17 LSU is a terrific reminder that past performance is no guarantee of future results.
Especially when you consider the path to this victory, perhaps MU’s most striking since winning at No. 7 Georgia in 2013 and its first time beating a defending national champ since 1978 when it took down Notre Dame in Warren Powers’ first game as coach.
Start with this: Given the challenges of the last few months as he was trying to install a program, as well as the loss of a half-dozen key players this week, MU sure appears to have something in Drinkwitz.
Plain and simple, his team was the better one and had LSU completely off-balance defensively.
Meanwhile, MU was largely the physical equal of the other Tigers as they outgained them 586-479 in a game that featured the ingenuity of a fleaflicker and a fake punt (that failed but …) and an exotic screen pass that Chiefs coach Andy Reid might have to review for future use.
An intriguing key to it all was freshman quarterback Connor Bazelak, making his second career start. He threw for 406 yards and displayed poised, deft control of an offense that seems contoured to him and makes you imagine promising possibilities ahead.
Heck, if not for a couple key turnovers, MU might have been able to distance itself. But turnovers are part of the game, and the final dramatics were an important test, and testimony, in themselves.
“It was our will versus theirs,” Drinkwitz said. “And we wanted it more, bottom line.”
Now, LSU (1-2) isn’t the team it was after losing many key players from a year ago. And it had to contend with the disruption of having the game moved to Columbia because of the threat of Hurricane Delta.
But as the COVID-19 coronavirus looms, we all have to make adjustments to the chaos of the times.
And Mizzou had its own stuff, didn’t it?
Drinkwitz summed it up vividly after he dropped his head when he was asked to trace the journey to this moment.
“I think it was March, maybe 16th, we cut these guys loose. We didn’t know when we were going to get them back,” he said. “And we got back in June and had to follow new protocols nobody’s ever seen before. We’ve had players on our team get a virus nobody has a cure for.
“There was a point when it looked like college football was going to get canceled, and then it came back. And then we had to do walk-throughs nobody’s ever seen before; we had to do a fall camp nobody’s ever seen before.
“We were supposed to fly down and play in a hurricane, and now we’re playing in a home game. We lost seven guys from the travel party for contact tracing and other things.
“I mean, it’s just every day, there’s something new.”
Including this day, when something new meant a refreshing victory that portends more ahead.
It was much-needed for MU fans, of course, but also for a team that even Drinkwitz acknowledged had to be wondering “is this really going to work?” … until it did.
Best of all, it came through a game that provided every chance to flinch from turnovers or other moments that went awry … and having the defending national champions perched on the 1-yard-line with the gravity of the recent past hovering thick.
“They just kept playing ‘this play,’ ” he said. “They just kept playing this play as hard as they can. And to have that mentality in this day and age, that’s what real winners do.”
None of which guarantees anything ahead. Even what team MU will play. Next up was supposed to be Vanderbilt, which is 0-3 after losing each of its last two games 41-7 (to LSU and South Carolina.) But as of Monday afternoon, that game had been postponed to Dec. 12 because of what the Southeastern Conference called “positive tests & subsequent quarantine of individuals” in the Vanderbilt program.
So, for now, anyway, the Tigers play next Oct. 24 at No. 10 Florida.
And Drinkwitz knows how fickle that all of this is, noting he didn’t see any trophies being handed out Saturday.
“Right now, we’ve got Win One,” he said. “There’s seven more games. Unless they cancel the season today, no, it’s not a signature win. It’s just a win.”
Still, it’s a win that said something substantial: After the last few years of diminishing expectations and dwindling hopes, MU football is capable of capturing imaginations again instead of just reinforcing doubts.
This story was originally published October 10, 2020 at 5:56 PM.