Mizzou Suffers Third Loss of the Season at Home to Texas

The new 9-game SEC schedule is a blessing and a curse.

It makes the idea of a 3-loss team being in the College Football Playoff plausible while making the floors and ceilings of teams extremely variable. No. 18 Missouri Tigers football was on the wrong end of this new reality as it fell 34-20 to No. 7 Texas at home Saturday morning.

It was the Tigers’ third AP Top 10 opponent of the season, second at home. Despite having a sold-out crowd behind them during the first real football weather game of the season, they couldn’t capitalize on opportunities or avoid past mistakes.

Blake Craig went 2-for-4 on field goals. He now boasts a 65.2% success rate on field goals this season, including a 64.3% success rate inside the 40-yard line.

For the most part, special teams resurfaced as a key issue.

Aside from Craig’s continued woes, Brunno Reus had a punt blocked near the end of the second half that gave Texas the ball on Mizzou’s 39-yard line and began a stretch of three straight scoring drives for the Longhorns.

“One of the keys to winning for us today was to ensure special teams, and we didn’t do that in any form or fashion,” Mizzou head coach Eli Drinkwitz said after the game.

The Tigers held a 10-7 lead after one quarter, scoring on their opening drive of the game for the first time since the season opener. They were then held scoreless in the second. The lone positive from the special teams unit was a forced fumble by Jackson Hancock on a kickoff with 11 minutes to go in the third quarter. Mizzou’s offense could only manage three yards and Craig missed from 46 yards out, failing to capitalize on the turnover.

What originally looked like an exciting quarterback matchup between Austin Simmons and Arch Manning turned into a lopsided battle dictated by both teams’ defenses. The Tigers came into the game as the SEC’s fifth-best scoring defense compared to the Longhorns’ fourth-best.

The scoreboard read 10-10 at halftime with few big plays from either side. Yet the stands in Memorial Stadium were still clamorous due to some confusing replay reviews.

Drinkwitz didn’t want to dwell on any plays that were called back or rulings that affected the game.

“They made the plays when they needed to to win the game, and ultimately we did not. That’s what it came down to. It didn’t come down to officials and reviews; it came down to the opportunities that we had as a team,” Drinkwitz said.

Manning had one of the best games of his career against a Power Four opponent, going 28-for-38 for 297 yards and three touchdowns, but Mizzou’s defense still created pressure and forced turnovers. After totaling one sack combined in the two weeks prior, Death Row got to Manning three times, along with nine tackles for loss, seven hurries and three forced fumbles.

Simmons and the offense struggled to find consistency when they were given opportunities. He went 23-for-43 for 252 yards and two touchdowns, mixing in some chunk plays with a hospital ball that led to a game-sealing interception.

“Mentally, this sucks, losing in that type of way,” Simmons said. “I’ve just got to be better from a throwing standpoint.”

When the score was knotted at 13-13 in the third quarter, Naeshaun Montgomery turned a simple 7-yard curl into a 72-yard touchdown after breaking a tackle of the lone defender in front of him. It was the Tigers’ first touchdown since Simmons found Brett Norfleet from two yards out on fourth down during their opening drive.

But Mizzou couldn’t create any momentum off the Montgomery touchdown. Its final four drives of the game accumulated 12 plays for 14 yards, three punts and an interception from Simmons that gave Texas the game and injured Cayden Lee.

The Tigers finished the game 3-for-16 on third downs compared to the Longhorns’ 6-for-13 mark. Execution on the key down epitomized the amount of missed opportunities and self-inflicted wounds that buried Mizzou in what was a close game until the final few minutes.

With Georgia and Kentucky on the docket across the next two weeks, the Tigers’ College Football Playoff hopes are greatly diminished, but not entirely out the window.