Wild win against Arkansas, Barry Odom, reflects Mizzou’s growth under Eliah Drinkwitz
.JPG "Missouri quarterback Connor Bazelak throws during the first half against Arkansas Saturday in Columbia, where the Tigers rallied and outlasted the Hogs on a last-second field goal.")
One day a little over a year ago, then-University of Missouri coach Barry Odom sat in his gleaming new office in the palace formerly known as the south end zone project. Overlooking Faurot Field, he considered how much the MU campus and facilities had changed since his playing days nearly a generation before.
“It’s like you’re at a different school,” he said. “It really is.”
With the literal and figurative buzz of ongoing construction resounding and a 5-1 start about to unfurl, the notion of Odom imminently being relieved of his job and moving on to an actual different school came to seem improbable. But then came a precipitous five-game losing streak that ended the Odom era after four seasons, a 25-25 record but nonetheless a meaningful signature.
With Odom watching from above once more, this time from a coaching booth as the Arkansas defensive coordinator, his legacy was underscored in a variety of ways on Saturday … including both by what he left behind and how MU has progressed since then.
In a game that lent a spark to a rivalry looking for a jump-start, Mizzou rallied from a 40-26 fourth-quarter deficit to take the lead, overcame a potentially devastating touchdown and two-point conversion (off an MU defender) with less than a minute left to outlast the Razorbacks 50-48 on Harrison Mevis’ 32-yard field goal as time ran out.
In testimony to the cooler heads that prevailed on Saturday, Mevis afterward said the two timeouts Arkansas took attempting to ice him just gave him more time to think about what to do right.
“Advantage me,” he said.
And advantage Mizzou in dramatic fashion at game’s end.
The largest fourth-quarter comeback in MU history was furnished in large part by players Odom recruited, like Mevis (five of five on Saturday), Larry Rountree (185 yards and three touchdowns) and budding star quarterback Connor Bazelak, the redshirt freshman who casually completed four of four passes for 54 yards on the game-winning drive with the same constantly cool demeanor and array of passes that has led him to a 6-1 record as MU’s starter.
“You’re always as a quarterback going to be measured by your game-winning drives,” coach Eliah Drinkwitz said after the game, noting he tries to rattle Bazelak has “nerves of steel.”
As much as anything else, the victory also reflected Drinkwitz’s instant impact on the program, animating and energizing and otherwise injecting his own touch.
With a fourth straight win, Mizzou now is 5-3 and Drinkwitz is making a fine case to be Southeastern Conference coach of the year with games against Georgia and Mississippi State yet to be played.
The victory also was MU’s fifth in a row over Arkansas in the Battle Line Rivalry created after Missouri left the Big 12 (and rival Kansas) for the SEC. And while one ingredient of a true rivalry is having the other guy win once in a while, a game that could hardly have been closer certainly had its intrigue and appeal.
The story of the day for MU, though, was Bazelak, who exudes patience and poise, constantly displays a feathery touch and is showing an increasing array of skills.
That includes look-off passes that at times are reminiscent of the no-look ones being produced regularly by Patrick Mahomes 120 miles or so west at Arrowhead Stadium.
Keke Chism, who led MU with six catches for 113 yards, said when he looks at Bazelak he sees “a quarterback who’s in complete control” and took his cue from him in the final seconds.
For his part, Bazelak said he just focused on staying calm, as always, and thought about one of the “quarterback commandments” Mizzou has posted that says, “We don’t need a celebrity quarterback; we need a battlefield commander.”
The Tigers would need every bit of his arsenal and calming presence on Saturday.
Seemingly on trajectory for plenty more, MU scored on its first four drives to hold a 20-13 lead midway through the second quarter.
But the Razorbacks tied it and took advantage of Mizzou’s first punt by driving 70 yards on nine plays to take a 27-20 lead into the intermission.
Notably, that unraveling came with big boosts from a problematic targeting call on Nick Bolton, who appeared to do all he could to avoid leading with his head and make a hard-but-clean hit to dislodge the ball but was cited nonetheless. And the touchdown was delivered after a fake field goal that caught the MU defense snoozing.
Self-inflicted elements and all, the predicament had echoes of what Mizzou encountered against Florida on Oct. 31 after a late-first half implosion. That day in Gainesville, the Tigers led 7-6 before the Gators went ahead 13-7 with 1:41 left in the half and made it 20-7 just 33 seconds later after an MU turnover.
Then came the half-ending rumble and another Florida touchdown early in the third quarter, and it was all but over for a team that Drinkwitz later said had lost its composure and went on to fall 41-17.
With three straight wins since then, MU had appeared to have grown from that.
And staring at a semi-similar crossroads on Saturday, they didn’t blink or flinch this time.
At halftime, Drinkwitz told the team, “No great story is fun unless you have a little adversity.”
In this case, the victory came even with the emotions of going up against Odom in play.
“I just feel like the best way to respect him is to prepare to play the Razorbacks as if I’m playing the Super Bowl,” MU safety Martez Manuel said during the week. “Just respect my opponent and respect the game and study my film. Bring everything I’ve got. I feel like the best way to respect Coach Odom is to play hard.”
As it happened, Manuel made a crucial play to keep MU in range, breaking up an Arkansas pass to force a punt that led to the Tigers cutting it to 33-26 on Mevis’ third field goal of the game early in the fourth quarter.
And then chaos was unleashed, with MU rattling off three touchdowns in less than eight minutes to go up 47-40 after Arkansas had taken a 40-26 lead.
All of that, though, was only a prelude to the final minute.
First came a Razorbacks’ touchdown with 43 seconds left, then the decision to go for two … and then the bizarre sight of the ball going off MU defender Jamal Brooks and being plucked up by Arkansas’ Mike Woods to make it 48-47 Arkansas.
Then came the defining sequence of the game, with Bazelak dissecting Odom’s defense to pave the way to victory … all at once a reminder of where this started (with Odom’s baseline) and also where it might be going under Drinkwitz’s thus-far profound influence and direction.
“Let’s go win the game,” Drinkwitz told Bazelak before the final drive.
And so they did, with more of the same seemingly ahead.
This story was originally published December 5, 2020 at 3:35 PM.