Three takeaways from Mizzou football's win against Arkansas
Missouri football punched its ticket to a bowl game on Friday with a win over Arkansas at Memorial Stadium. The game was the Tigers' best offensive performance of the season and the defense came on late to preserve the win in the "Battle Line" rivalry.
Here are three takeaways from Friday's game.
A non-offensive offense
It’s been a year of mixed results for Missouri’s offense. Throughout the 2022 campaign, the Tigers have shown flashes, but usually struggled, especially early in games.
On Friday, that wasn’t an issue. The Tigers won the toss and deferred to the second half, then stopped Arkansas in three downs, capped with an Isaiah McGuire sack.
MU took over and marched down the field for a 41-yard Harrison Mevis field goal. After that, Arkansas rolled down the field for a score to take a 7-3 lead.
Other times this year, that would have been nearly too much for the Tigers to handle. Not Saturday.
Led by quarterback Brady Cook, who torched the Razorbacks with his feet throughout the first half, Missouri added a touchdown on a Cody Schrader run.
Their next drive started in the first quarter and ended with a Missouri touchdown. Cook kept the ball and earned eight of his 125 first-half rushing yards on the score.
The Tigers added another Mevis field goal before halftime. The performance wasn’t enough to go to the locker room with the lead, but still, a marked improvement over much of the season.
Tough start
While the offense came out playing as well as it has all year, the Tiger defense struggled in the early going. Mirroring the Razorbacks, a rushing quarterback was also a huge problem in the first half for Missouri.
KJ Jefferson went for 61 yards in the first two quarters. He scored one touchdown and broke plenty of MU tackles to extend drives throughout the first.
The Tigers had trouble with tackling throughout the half. Running back Raheim “Rocket” Sanders had 31 yards in the first half, but would have had more if a long first-quarter run hadn’t been called back for a hold.
Missouri held a lead late in the half, but the Razorbacks took 11 plays to go 75 yards down the field. Sanders scored to cap off the possession with an eight-yard reception, and after the offense couldn’t get a touchdown, Arkansas led 21-20 at the break.
Early in the second half, the defense seemed to improve. It still had some trouble tackling Jefferson but was able to give the offense a chance to win the game.
Throughout the fourth, the unit got even better, making key stops at key moments.
To the bowl
Missouri’s win on Friday was its sixth of the season and made the Tigers bowl-eligible. Now, MU will wait to see what its postseason destination will be.
The win made the Tigers the 11th SEC team with six or more wins this season. The conference could have up to 13 teams eligible for a bowl if Auburn beats Alabama and Vanderbilt takes down Tennessee.
One or two SEC schools are likely to be playing in the College Football Playoff. The Tigers are likely to be low in the selection process, which goes as follows:
With two schools taken by the playoffs, the Sugar Bowl and the Citrus Bowl will each have an SEC team. If neither of Vanderbilt or Auburn gets bowl-eligible, that would leave either six or seven bowl-eligible teams remaining, depending on how the playoff shakes out.
Since it is not a semifinal game this year, the Orange will take the highest-ranked champion of the SEC, Big Ten or Notre Dame.
The remaining teams will be split between the Pool of Six bowl games, which the SEC sets. Those include the Texas, Las Vegas, Music City, Gator, Liberty and ReliaQuest (formerly Outback) bowls.
Other SEC teams could also get spots in the Birmingham and Gasparilla bowls, which are filled by ESPN Events.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Mizzou football: Takeaways from Arkansas rivalry game
