Romp over South Carolina gives 7-1 Mizzou a momentous opportunity at No. 1 Georgia
In 2007, Mizzou fans may recall, the Tigers ascended to No. 1 (albeit briefly) for the first time in 57 years after an epic 36-28 win over No. 2 Kansas at Arrowhead Stadium.
A season later, MU was on its way to a second straight Big 12 North title when it clobbered Colorado 58-0.
The credibility and durability of Gary Pinkel’s program, it seemed safe to assume by then, had been well-established despite losing their previous two games.
But to the contrary following that romp over the Buffaloes, the College Football Hall of Fame-bound coach invoked one of his catchphrases.
“Have we arrived? No, you’ve never arrived,” said Pinkel, who at least allowed as how he had been “very pleased” with the outcome that day.
That unyielding drive amid success and the attached cautionary tale of those words came to mind on Saturday at Faurot Field, where 20th-ranked MU improved to 7-1 for the first time since 2013 with a 34-12 victory over South Carolina (2-5).
Put another way, only three teams in school history (1909, 1960 and 1962) have had better starts to a season.
Never mind that MU in the second half sagged some, essentially pawing its helpless meal after surging to a 24-0 first-half lead.
After that first burst, the victory never was in any real doubt against a foe that failed to get in the end zone in a game perhaps most marked by six MU sacks.
The result and cumulative impact of the season to date made for a pause for perspective as Missouri enters its bye week. Especially since up next is a momentous opportunity at top-ranked Georgia, the two-time defending national champion.
You never arrive, to be sure.
But being on your way and staying the course sure is a fine place to be. And MU at last has that bearing and trajectory — ever-tentative as it might be — for the first time since Pinkel’s retirement in 2015.
A key to the Tigers sustaining this momentum, of course, is to keep feeling they’re grinding through a work in progress and not as if they’ve landed in some cushy destination location.
Or just staying conscious of the fact, as defensive lineman Kristian Williams put it, that room for improvement is “the biggest room.”
Safe to say coach Eli Drinkwitz is thinking there’s a long way to go even if he expresses it a bit differently than Pinkel did.
When I asked him if he felt the 7-1 record reflected a milestone, he more or less shrugged and said, “No, uh-uh. Why stop now?”
A moment later, he added “it really doesn’t mean anything other than we’re bowl eligible.”
But it also could just mean more, as they like to say in the Southeastern Conference.
And it certainly has begun to clarify the status of Drinkwitz.
If this didn’t exactly begin as a season on the brink for the fourth-year coach, it was high time for a substantial step forward after his first three teams had gone 17-19.
That was two fewer wins than predecessor Barry Odom had in his first three seasons (19-19) en route to losing his job following a 6-6 finish the next year.
But the context of Drinkwitz’s regime seems reframed after a breakout start … even if we’re some weeks away from knowing whether it’s a certifiable breakthrough.
For months, quarterback Brady Cook said after the game, MU has been saying it has something to prove.
Now, he added, “I think we’re proving it.”
Cook, whose feathered 42-yard touchdown pass to Luther Burden was a thing of beauty on both ends of the play, is right.
So far.
To be clear, standing in this particular on-deck circle doesn’t approximate what Pinkel achieved in the late 2000s and again in 2013 and 2014 with back-to-back SEC divisional titles.
But it harkens to those times with MU in late October at least on the cusp of contending for a divisional title — at 3-1 just one game behind Georgia (7-0 overall, 4-0 SEC) in the SEC East race.
That era particularly reverberates with Cook, a St. Louis native who grew up wanting nothing more than to be the Mizzou quarterback. He basked in those glory days as a fan.
But as he reminisced about that time, he smiled and added, “I think this tops it, though, being out there and playing.”
Not just playing, of course, but succeeding the way MU is now. Particularly after back-to-back wins by an aggregate score of 72-33 over a key part of its peer group in the form of Kentucky and South Carolina.
Peers not only in the sense that they’re divisional rivals but also that MU’s ability to handle those two goes a long way towards being perched for a meaningful stretch run.
“We’ve set up a November to remember,” Drinkwitz said.
Even if he is entirely focused on the moment at hand.
That means winning the bye week, as he put it, and being ready to play “the next opponent, whoever that might be.”
That would be the Bulldogs, Drinkwitz knows, who thrashed most everyone they played last season but eked out a 26-22 victory at MU. That was then and this is now, obviously. But the one thing that game should provide for Mizzou is to keep the Tigers from being intimidated into losing the game before they even step on the field.
To the contrary: The matchup is so enticing for MU that when Drinkwitz was asked about preparing he referred to a need not to “peak too soon.”
MU is just 1-11 against Georgia, but the win was defining: After Mizzou had struggled in its first SEC season (5-7, 2-6), that 41-26 victory at then-No. 7 Georgia in 2013 was a landmark in program history that emphatically said it belonged.
“We’re going to make a run at it,” Cook said, speaking more generally but no doubt starting with Georgia.
With a comeuppance always looming, arriving is another matter.
But getting started is a nice step.