5 Observations: Missouri football

Note: I will be writing something similar about KU – and it won’t be happy either – so stay calm, Erik. But feel free to write something if you want.

Observation #1 – Missouri’s season seemed to end after the win over Nebraska.

Missouri beat Nebraska on the road for the first time since Jesus walked the earth to propel MU to a 5-0 start. From that point on, MU was 4-4 and seemed to get worse as the season progressed.

4 Wins
Colorado (5-7): 58-0
Baylor (4-8): 31-28
Kansas St. (5-7): 41-24
Iowa St. (2-10): 52-20

4 Losses
Oklahoma St. (9-3): 28-23
Texas (11-1): 56-31
Kansas (7-5): 40-37
Oklahoma (12-1): 62-21

This isn’t a good sign for Missouri. At least not for a team that was suppose to compete for a National Title. For a team that was suppose get over the big game hurdle and win the Big XII. For a team that was on the fast track to national prominence. What they looked like was a team stuck somewhere between being wildly over-hyped and dreadfully underachieving. Or maybe they were both, I honestly don’t know.

Missouri had no business losing to OKST at home or to a depleted Kansas team on a neutral field. And a team ranked as high as third in the nation should pose a better fight in a conference championship game than their deplorable 62-21 loss to Oklahoma.

Observation #2 – Thinks are not looking good for the 2009 season.

Gary Pinkel’s offensive philosophy almost got him fired a few years ago. My understanding of the story is that Pinkel made the decision to hand over the offense to Christiansen and let him run the spread the season everyone felt was Pinkel was at the end of his rope at MU. Chrisiansen built an offense that, at the very least, made Mizzou a respectable program and gave them some light in the national scene. But Christiansen isn’t the only guy leaving this season, so is half of the offense.

Chase Daniel = Graduated
Chase Coffman = Graduated
Jeremy Maclin = Likely going to the NFL
Tommy Saunders = Graduated
Colin Brown = Graduated
Ryan Madison = Graduated

That’s six offensive starters, three of whom are the core of the offensive boom they’ve experienced the last two seasons, who will be gone in 2009. Who is the playmaker on this team next season?

Derrick Washington was terrible in big games. In the three key games MU played – Oklahoma St., Texas and Oklahoma (I do not count the KU game because nothing could be gained or lost from winning or losing at the time it was played) – Washington rushed for a combined 57 yards on 25 carries (2.28 ypc). If you throw in the Kansas game, he rushed for 111 yards on 36 carries (3.08 ypc). You can interpret this in many ways, but it is clear that MU’s rushing game was non-existent in big games this season.

Blaine Gabbert threw 13 passes this season. As with all young quarterbacks, there will be a learning curve there, but that learning curve is going to happen with Jared Perry and Danario Alexander – who combined this season for fewer catches than Tommy Saunders – as his primary targets and not Jeremy Maclin (presumably) and Chase Coffman.

Andrew Jones is a highly touted tight end recruit who caught 18 passes this season, but are you going to center your entire passing game on a somewhat raw sophomore tight end?

So with no weapons and a head coach whose initial offensive inclination is to pound it out and hope for the best, I don’t see things going well next season.

The Tigers do not have the kind of talent that is ready to replace Daniel, Maclin, Coffman and company anyway. MU will lose 12 of 22 starters to graduation at the end of the season with the prospects of Jeremy Maclin (#2 WR according to ESPN), Sean Weatherspoon (#3 OLB according to ESPN) and Jaron Baston (likely to stay, but is rising draft boards quickly) going pro. This leaves MU replacing 14 starters at least. MU, like most universities not named USC, cannot replace 14 starters, and the core of its most successful teams in recent history, and expect to win 9-plus games next season.

Observation #3 – Mizzou’s success during the Chase Daniel Era (2006-2008).

“Big XII Football since 2006.”

Overall Record (Includes Big XII Championship and Bowl games)
1. OU: 34-7
2. UT: 31-7
3. TT: 28-10
4. MU: 29-11
5. KU: 25-12

Overall Regular Season Conference Record
1. OU: 20-4
2. UT: 18-6
3. MU: 16-8
4. TT: 15-9
5. KU: 14-10

BCS Bowls
OU: 3 bids (2006-2008)
KU: 1 bid (2007)
UT: 1 bid (2008)

Bowls (2008 bids included)
1. UT: 3 bids (Won Alamo Bowl, Won Holiday Bowl)
2. TT: 3 bids (Won Insight Bowl, Won Gator Bowl)
3. OSU: 3 bids (Won Independence Bowl, Won Insight Bowl)
4. MU: 3 bids (Lost Sun Bowl, Won Cotton Bowl)
5. OU: 3 bids (Lost Fiesta Bowl twice)

Note: The five listed schools and Kansas were the only schools who were bowl eligible all three seasons.

Record Against Ranked Teams (Includes Big XII Championship game and Bowls)
1. OU: 11-5 (8-5 vs Top 20; 2-4 vs Top 10)
2. UT: 7-3 (7-3 vs Top 20; 2-3 vs Top 10)
3. MU: 5-6 (2-6 vs Top 20; 1-4 vs Top 10)
4. TT: 5-7 (4-5 vs Top 20; 3-2 vs Top 10)
5. KU: 3-6 (2-5 vs Top 20; 1-4 vs Top 10)

Conference Titles
OU: 3 (2006 - 2008)

Division Titles
OU: 3 (Outright title in 2006 and 2007, shared title with TEX and TT in 2008)
NEB: 2 (Outright title in 2006, shared title with MU in 2008)
MU: 2 (Shared title with KU in 2007, shared title with Nebraska in 2008)
KU: 1 (Shared title with MU in 2007)
TEX: 1 (Shared title with OU and TT in 2008)
TT: 1 (Shared title with OU and TEX in 2008)

Basically what MU has is an 8, 12 and 9 win seasons (one game left of 2008), three bowl bids (one win and another game upcoming) and two Big XII Championship game appearances (and two bad losses to OU). MU was also tied for the third most wins against ranked opponents. Clearly it has been a good time to be an MU fan.

Observation #4: Missouri (and its fans) have misinterpreted their success.

“We have not arrived. I’ve said that … often.” – Gary Pinkel, Head Coach

“Oklahoma is Big 12 champ again, and Missouri again gets to claim runner-up status, even though we realize the distance between No. 1 and No. 2 is more like No. 1 and No. 5.” – Jason Whitlock, KC Star

“You have to figure that Missouri, when it came down to it, just wasn’t that good a football team.” – Joe Posnanski, KC Star

“Mizzou has been punted back into its inglorious past, when its teams had no chance of consistently competing against the sport's elite.” – Bernie Miklasz, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Now, the situation isn’t as bad as Mr. Miklasz explains it, but part of the reason Miklasz writes these things is because everyone falsely believed Missouri was a championship contender. They’re not; not even close. It seems that Missouri fans were deceived by the point spreads MU put over weak opponents, the athleticism of Jeremy Maclin and their victories over rebuilding/underachieving Nebraska teams. But Texas and Oklahoma showed Missouri fans what Championship teams look like and Missouri is nowhere near that – and if they were, that window is closed now.
Chase Daniel is a good example of Missouri’s season. Daniel had a 15-to-1 TD/INT ratio after the Nebraska game (this means games against such powerhouses as Buffalo, SE Missouri State, Nevada and a “5-7 in the Big 10” Illinois team) and was the Heisman frontrunner. From that point on, Daniel threw at least one interception in each game, finishing with 22 touchdowns, 14 interceptions and a few key fumbles. The kid turned into a turnover machine. There are only 7 quarterbacks in the FBS with more interceptions than Daniel. I’m not saying Daniel sucks, he’s been an excellent college quarterback and will likely end his career with more than 100 career touchdowns, but he’s been very average these last eight weeks and his teams has suffered tremendously for it.

Observation #5: Missouri and Kansas are the same programs.

Yell and scream about that all you want Tigers fans, but it’s true.