Same old problems cost Missouri at Auburn. Can issues be fixed after crushing defeat?

Nate Peat lost the ball as he was heading into the end zone.

Harrison Mevis missed a chip-shot to win it before that.

From the outside, those two plays cost Missouri football its Saturday SEC opener at Auburn, a 17-14 overtime battle. Those mistakes were among the most visible symptoms in the crushing defeat, one that came in a game Missouri seemed to have won multiple times.

But the issues were deeper than that.

"There’s a million plays out there, you can go look,” quarterback Brady Cook said after the game. “You can put it on me, put it on the offense. Football’s a team game, there’s no other game like it. It’s a game of inches. It’s not Peat, it’s not on Mevis. It’s a team sport.”

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Cook might be on to something about blaming the offense. Sure, the unit responded well in the second quarter after being down two scores, putting together enough to tie the game.

And sure, late in regulation the Tigers put together a long drive to give Mevis a shot to win the game. But Missouri had so many other chances to put Auburn away.

Between their last touchdown and Mevis’ field-goal attempt, the Tigers punted on six consecutive drives.

"Negative yardage plays,” coach Eli Drinkwitz said after the game. “We took a shot on the very first series and didn’t hit it and then the second series we tried to boot and got tackled for loss and the third series we tried to run the outside zone and got beat and it was behind the chains. It wasn’t good enough by me.”

Peat was inconsolable outside of the locker room after the game, and his Auburn performance will be remembered for a fumble caused by trying to win with a touchdown. What might not last is the rest of his stat sheet.

The Rock Bridge product led Missouri in rushing on Saturday with 110 yards on 20 carries. He wasn’t the issue.

The problem was the Tigers’ absolute inability to score touchdowns or even generate sustained drives, whether through failures of play calling or execution. It’s a problem that has followed them throughout the season.

This time, though, nothing bailed them out. The long throws to Dominic Lovett didn’t generate points, and Luther Burden never made a catch down the field.

In fact, Burden never made a catch at all. The five-star freshman was off the field at times, but even when he was playing, he wasn’t impactful.

Missouri’s offensive line was better, but not good enough. The Tigers gave up too many sacks (four) and tackles for loss (seven).

The Tigers didn’t execute when they needed to, never generating the push needed to win the game.

“We just couldn’t get in a rhythm in the second half, unfortunately,” Cook said. “Defense did a great job. Just couldn’t get in a rhythm until that last series.”

Cook was right. The defense was spectacular at times, completely stifling Auburn and keeping MU in the contest most of the way.

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Still, there were discipline issues. The Tigers jumped offsides twice on missed field goals, and the second one led to the winning field goal.

Last week it was missed tackling (that happened some on Saturday, too). This week it was ill-timed penalties.

It goes back to the same old root cause for Missouri.

“Attention to detail and focus,” said defensive end Isaiah McGuire, who had a solid game with three tackles and a strip sack. “Those are small details that can cost us big in games like this.”

Missouri’s main issue now is that it’s out of time to fix its issues without a painful correction period. Next week, the defending national champion Georgia Bulldogs are at Faurot Field.

After that, it’s an away game at Florida, and Drinkwitz’s only road win with Missouri came in 2020 at Vanderbilt. A home matchup with the Commodores follows the UF game, but the upcoming schedule doesn’t get easier, and now MU has to figure out its problems in the shadow of an emotionally devastating loss.

“There’s so much energy put into these games,” Drinkwitz said. “And to come so close and to lose, it’s heartbreaking and it’s tough.”

The Tigers were much more resilient in Saturday’s game than they were against Kansas State when they got down early and never found their footing. There’s been definite improvement since then.

But against Auburn, it wasn’t enough. Both games were thought of as measuring sticks of where MU was as a team, and twice they lost.

With the rest of the SEC schedule coming up, Missouri will need to find something new within itself during a difficult time if it is to salvage a respectable season, let alone a bowl game.

“Now we’ve got to finish,” Drinkwitz said. “Now it’s on to the next step, which is finish. Take the losses and make them into lessons and keep on going.”

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Missouri football loses SEC game to Auburn on same old issues