Why Mizzou football’s 4th quarter vs. Ohio State should go down in program history

I don’t have to read minds to know what Missouri football fans were thinking in the fourth quarter.

Missouri, in the biggest game of the season, was at the Ohio State 7-yard line to start the final frame of a game in which it had done nothing well offensively.

Please, God, find a way to win, I’m willing to guess were the words running through the minds of the Mizzou faithful.

This time, there was no disappointment. There was no woulda, coulda, shoulda.

There rarely was this season.

What followed were 15 minutes of the best football Missouri has ever played. They were 15 minutes that deserve to shine in the annals of MU athletics lore for the remainder of time.

The fourth quarter of the 2023 Cotton Bowl, much like this Tigers team, will live forever in the minds of Missouri fans.

“The fourth quarter’s probably going to go down — and it’s going to be a tough one to beat,” Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “Down 3-0, to score 14, to play as well as we did, yeah. I’m just going to be really proud. It’s hard to contextualize all that stuff right now.”

In the moment, I’m sure it’s hard for the head ball coach to put it into context — especially considering Drinkwitz’s own circumstances. He spent the offseason fielding questions about his job security. Now, he may never have to pay for a Booches burger again.

But think about it this way.

There have been five games — historically — in which Missouri allowed three points or fewer to an Associated Press top-10 team: 1941 vs. No. 6 Fordham, 1974 vs. No. 7 Arizona State, 1978 vs. No. 5 Notre Dame, 1981 vs. No. 9 Mississippi State and Friday against No. 7 Ohio State.

What the Tigers did in the Cotton Bowl — a 14-3 Missouri win — wasn’t just a complete game or a happenstance.

It was generational. You should acknowledge it as such.

“We looked up: It’s the fourth quarter and we have zero points, but what are you gonna do?” quarterback Brady Cook said. “We were driving, we were confident, we still believed in the game plan, still believed in the calls that were being sent in. And we believed in each other. So, when we put up 14 in the fourth, it’s no surprise to us.”

Putting up 14 points in the fourth quarter is one thing. Doing it against this Ohio State defense was another.

The Buckeyes’ defense allowed 11 points per game leading up to the Cotton Bowl. That ranked second nationally.

That’s why when Cook hit Marquis Johnson for a 49-yard gain into Ohio State territory, it felt like a shift. Missouri was on the doorstep and walked to the other end of the field to start the fourth quarter. The game was Missouri’s for the taking.

In the end, Missouri scored 14 points in the fourth quarter on one of the best defenses in the land. The two scoring drives spanned over 90 yards each.

How did Missouri do it?

It took trust. Drinkwitz said offensive coordinator Kirby Moore called a designed quarterback run for Cook, but the head coach overruled him and said Cody Schrader deserved the rock. Schrader took the ensuing handoff seven yards for a score on his patented inside-zone running play.

It took guts. Darius Robinson was hurting from a groin injury. Kris Abrams-Draine suffered a separated shoulder and was told to leave the game, only for him to respond as such...

“He said, ‘The hell I am.’ (He) put his stuff on, ran back out there and played unbelievably tough,” Drinkwitz said. That defense finished the game with a strip-sack fumble.

It took experience. Think of how many times Missouri was faced with a similar situation in years prior? Where nothing was working and the answer didn’t immediately make itself known.

Cook and Schrader, who took plenty of those bruises last year, came together to find a way to win.

The ball placement on the insurance touchdown to Luther Burden from Cook was, in a word, professional. Some quarterbacks dream of making that throw but are never actually skilled enough to do so.

Cook, the guy who dreamed of being QB1 for Missouri, is skilled enough.

Schrader capped off his incredible season with a 128-yard rushing performance. That was good enough to set the single-season Missouri rushing record that Tyler Badie set two years ago. He carried the ball 29 times in the Cotton Bowl and helped ice the game after the late Ohio State turnover.

Two of the most doubted athletes at the University of Missouri delivered the Tigers to their biggest win since 2013.

“We pushed each other all year long,” Cook said. “We looked at each other, we said we’re going to do anything. Anything it takes to get this one done.”

They did. They got it done in one of the most emphatic ways, as calendar 2023 comes to an end.

In terms of sports around the state of Missouri, there was an NCAA Tournament basketball team, a Super Bowl-winning franchise and an MU athletic department that has made it clear it’s willing to do what is necessary to keep up in the SEC. Look no further than MU extending its two coordinators to make sure they stay in Columbia.

What Drinkwitz and his football team did in Arlington, Texas, on Friday was a feat that transcends just one year. It proved Missouri could topple a college football blue blood and has a permanent spot in the SEC.

In a season where MU had so much to prove, it proved it belonged. In just one quarter, MU went above and beyond. It put its foot down and thoroughly beat a team it wanted to beat, instead of just the teams it needed to.

In just one quarter, Missouri showed the college football world it has the potential to be a power that will have the chance to play for a national championship in the newly expanded playoff next year.

That one quarter will live forever in Missouri Tigers lore. You’ll remember where you were when you watched it. You’ll never forget it.

“To win the 88th Goodyear Cotton Bowl classic in that kind of game with these men in this brotherhood,” Drinkwitz said, “to cement ourself as a top 10 team in the country, going from unranked to top 10 in the country, (that’s) going to be pretty special.”

The Star has partnered with the Columbia Daily Tribune for coverage of Missouri Tigers athletics.