Mizzou football grades: Analysis from Missouri Tigers’ SEC win at Kentucky Wildcats

Missouri football is bowl eligible for the 2023 season, even if it didn’t look great right out of the gate.

The Tigers shook off a 14-point deficit in the first quarter to pummel No. 23 Kentucky on the road behind plenty of offense and an active defense.

The final score in Lexington: Missouri 38, Kentucky 21.

Here are our postgame evaluations from Missouri’s road SEC win over Kentucky...

Missouri’s offense

The two biggest numbers from Missouri’s offense were 20 and 15.

That would be 20 unanswered points, and 15 points scored in the fourth quarter. That’s how you give yourself a chance to win a game on the road in the SEC.

On a rare night when Luther Burden was being bottled up by the Kentucky defense, the rest of the offense stepped up.

Brady Cook shook off a first-quarter interception, and the offense shook off a rough start as a whole: Missouri turned a 14-0 deficit to a 20-14 lead. Then a 21-20 deficit became a 35-21 lead because the offense was able to take care of business.

Cook snapped his streak of 300-yard passing games, but he didn’t need to sling the rock for Missouri to win on Saturday. He did rally from his early interception, and showcase some solid awareness.

He took a shot to Theo Wease that was intercepted in the fourth quarter, but Cook knew there was a flag on Kentucky that negated that interception.

On another note, trusting Wease has been paying off for Missouri. Burden struggled, but Wease picked up where he left off. Wease caught six passes for 58 yards and a patented one-on-one red zone touchdown.

That all equals winning football on the road.

Grade: A

Missouri’s defense

It did not look good from the get-go.

Ray Davis was slicing through the MU defense so easily. Everything Kentucky was trying on offense was working. The Wildcats were up 14-0 quickly.

Through the second quarter, and mostly through the third, Missouri’s defense held Kentucky to 16 total yards. That allowed the Tigers’ offense to get back in the game.

Aside from a 71-yard drive in the third quarter that allowed Kentucky to regain the lead, the defense was disruptive and aggressive. Defensive coordinator Blake Baker’s blitz schemes led to six sacks on the night, including one by Philip Roche, which also forced a fumble.

It was a night of redemption for Missouri’s defense.

After allowing 42 points to LSU last week, the Tigers forced two turnovers, wreaked havoc and never broke. Case in point, Marcus Clarke, who was flagged for defensive holding which turned a 20-yard gain into a 30-yard gain, rallied in the fourth quarter to intercept a Devin Leary pass.

Even though Kentucky’s offense shot itself in the foot with eight penalties, the Tigers’ defense still took care of business.

Grade: B

Missouri special teams

The play of the game was certainly, without a doubt, Luke Bauer’s dime of a pass to Marquis Johnson. That got Missouri up off the canvas and into the game.

But, that trickery was marred by a missed block on a Harrison Mevis field goal that allowed Kentucky to get a hand on that 46-yard kick.

In what was, at the time, a one-possession game, that blocked kick could have extended Missouri’s lead to 31-21 in the fourth quarter.

Grade: C+

Missouri defensive tackle Darius Robinson

D-Rob is feeling fine.

A quad injury hobbled Robinson to the point where Eli Drinkwitz had to decide whether or not to shut him down for an extended period of time.

Robinson showed out Saturday against Kentucky. He had 2.5 tackles for loss, two sacks and six total tackles. He was the disruptive force that MU’s coaching staff envisioned him to be when they moved him from defensive tackle to defensive end.

Having Robinson healthy for the second half of the season is a massive win for Missouri.

Grade: A