Missouri enjoyed a nice five-week ride in college football鈥檚 upper tier this year.
The soft launch of the 2024 Tigers featured walkover victories against Murray State and Buffalo and harder-than-expected wins against Boston College and Vanderbilt.
As expected, they are 4-0 heading into their game at Texas A&M. They鈥檝e had a bye week to prepare for the Aggies, which was one more bonus in what might be the most favorable schedule Truman will see for the rest of their time in the Southeastern Conference.
Will the Tigers take full advantage of that practice time and prove worthy of their national rankings? Will quarterback Brady Cook get locked in and unleash Luther Burden III in one of the week鈥檚 higher-profile games?
Or will Mizzou鈥檚 sputtering passing attack cost them on the road against a solid SEC opponent?
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From this week on things get real for Missouri.
Coach Eli Drinkwitz has received ample praise for his CEO-level work on steering NIL-fueled Missouri into the fast lane. But his game coaching has been less stellar, especially against Vandy.
Now he must match up against an excellent defensive coach in a hostile environment.
Writing for Saturday Down South. Connor O鈥橤ara and this take on the Tigers:
I know that the raw numbers suggest that Mizzou鈥檚 offense is fine at 36.5 points per game (No. 29 in FBS), but anybody who watched this team with the context of the preseason expectations knows that plenty of meat has been left on the bone. Brady Cook鈥檚 downfield accuracy hasn鈥檛 been there and there鈥檚 a lingering sense of angst for a group that surprisingly ranks No. 57 in FBS in yards/play. There have been too many droughts of Luther Burden III unable to get looks in space and while Nate Noel has been a bright spot in the backfield, he鈥檚 not at Cody Schrader levels of dominance.
So against A&M with a defensive line that feasted against Arkansas and forced Taylen Green into some bad turnovers, can the Tigers play their best offensive game of the season in that atmosphere? That鈥檚 what it鈥檒l take. Mike Elko figures to let his defensive line pin its ears back and force Cook into some of those quick decisions. If Mizzou OC Kirby Moore doesn鈥檛 have some screen passes and quick hitters outside the hashes, it鈥檇 be stunning. Whatever the case, we鈥檙e about to find out whether the Tigers are Playoff-worthy.
At , Brandon Marcello offered this assessment of Mizzou:
Missouri was out of sight and out of mind on its bye week. The Tigers haven't necessarily been overly impressive with Boston College and Vanderbilt pushing them to their limit at home. The road trip to Texas A&M, which has been sneaky good in close games against Notre Dame (loss) and Arkansas (win), is a massive challenge this week. It's easy to understand why the Tigers are only slight favorites according to the oddsmakers in Las Vegas.
We鈥檒l know a whole lot more about this Missouri team soon enough.
THE GRIDIRON CHRONICLES
Here is what folks have been writing about college football:
Bill Connelly, : “September is always a dizzying college football experience. After the world's longest offseason, we are desperate to overreact to everything we see. We careen from wild finish to wild finish and from breathless Saturday to breathless Saturday. And then, as the calendar flips to October ... we realize not a lot has changed in terms of the big picture. The final Saturday of September gave us another round of thrills and once again made it really hard for me to contain the My 10 Favorite Games list at the bottom of this column. Georgia pulled off its greatest comeback in school history in the biggest game of the week, only to lose anyway. Miami "lost" via a last-second Hail Mary but won anyway. Oklahoma rose from the dead. Long field goals and awful field goals decided countless games. And yet, as we head into October, we see that the top nine teams in the preseason AP poll are a combined 36-4, with two of four losses coming to other top-nine teams. Ohio State is an even bigger Big Ten favorite than it was a month ago. Bama and Georgia are both still likely to make the College Football Playoff.”
Paul Myerberg, USA Today: 鈥淚t took one quarter for new-look Alabama to assert itself as same-old Alabama. With coach Kalen DeBoer now calling the shots, the No. 4聽Crimson Tide聽put No. 1 Georgia in an early hole and seemed poised to rout the聽Bulldogs聽in this marquee SEC matchup. But Georgia crawled back, turning a would-be rout into an epic thriller that could be just the first of multiple meetings between these two rivals this season. Buried under an early barrage, the Bulldogs crawled out of a series of multiple-score deficits to take a 34-33 lead with just over two minutes left. But the Crimson Tide responded with a 75-yard touchdown pass from Jalen Milroe to freshman wide receiver Ryan Williams, converted the ensuing two-point play and then intercepted Carson Beck in the end zone to secure a wild 41-34 victory. Take a deep breath. This was four games in one: first, an Alabama rout; second, a Georgia surge to make things respectable for the Bulldogs; third, a Georgia comeback for the ages; and four, a response from the Crimson Tide to make things right in the final minutes. In the end, a close game between two of the top teams in the Bowl Subdivision will give Alabama a major boost without doing too much damage to Georgia's chances of reaching the 12-team College Football Playoff.鈥
Pete Fiutak, College Football News:聽"Really? 鈥淒id the 12-team expanded College Football Playoff take away one ounce of fun from this? Nah, it was still special. Even in the pre-expanded CFP way there might be a second meeting between (Georgia and Alabama) -- they can and might play each other in the SEC Championship. And then there鈥檚 a shot to meet again in this new expanded CFP. (By the way, I鈥檓 not buying into Texas yet, and still not totally sure about Tennessee, but that鈥檚 for another day.) Alabama will be favored against everyone the rest of the way by double-digits except for Tennessee on the road on October 19th. Georgia has it tougher with dates at Texas and Ole Miss and home games against Tennessee and the rivalry date against聽Geogia Tech, but . . . Yeah, let鈥檚 get more of this.鈥
Ari Wasserman, : “Here’s my takeaway from that game: when two titans of the sport play, someone has to lose. Sometimes really good teams lose to really good teams. Sometimes the explanation found after sifting through the debris for why the loser lost really isn’t that deep. There isn’t some hidden coaching flaw you’ll find in (Kirby) Smart or something he’s not doing right. Alabama is elite and has been elite from quite some time. The Crimson Tide rarely lose, regardless of who is on the other sideline. If you’re a Georgia fan, you probably agree with that sentiment. Georgia has won way too much and Smart has built something far too impressive to start questioning whether he — who beat the Crimson Tide in the national championship game at the end of the 2021 season — has an Alabama problem. But for a minute there, things felt dicey. The Monday takeaway from the game could have been much more about what is wrong with Georgia. Had things finished the way they started — with Alabama just blowing Georgia out — asking Smart about his record against Alabama may have been more appropriate.”
Will Backus, : “Amid Matthew Sluka's exit stemming from an NIL dispute, UNLV came out Saturday and beat Fresno State 59-14. Quarterback Haji-Malik Williams, who opened the year behind Sluka, threw for 182 yards -- a single-game season high for UNLV in 2024 -- and three touchdowns. Williams also had 120 yards rushing and another touchdown to boot. This was also the first time that the Rebles scored more than 27 points against an FBS opponent. (They eclipsed that mark in the first half.) UNLV is now 4-0 with two Power Four wins against Houston and Kansas on its record. Barry Odom's squad will get another chance to pad its résumé with an upcoming home game against Syracuse. Beyond that, the Rebels should be seen as the favorites to win a strong Mountain West Conference, though an Oct. 25 matchup against Boise State looms large. Get past that and everything is in front of them.”
Dan Wolken, USA Today: 鈥淣obody in college football has punched above its weight in the name, image and likeness era more than Ole Miss. For years and years before it was within the rules to pay players, Ole Miss would catch the suspicious glare of opposing fans and pique the interest of NCAA investigators every time it landed a big-time recruit. That was the way it used to work in college football when you鈥檙e not an Alabama, Ohio State or Southern Cal. But now? NIL has brought it all out into the open, and Ole Miss has truly knocked it out of the park under Lane Kiffin. Though the actual numbers are opaque, The Grove Collective is widely viewed around the industry as one of the best-run and most organized groups in the country, raising a ton of money and helping Kiffin put out competitive offers for top talent . . . The point here is that Ole Miss has gone all-in on NIL as its path to the top of the sport because it鈥檚 the only way Ole Miss can get to the top of the sport. Last year, it got the Rebels to 11-2 with a Peach Bowl win. This year, after Kiffin added even more talent, they started at No. 6 in the US LBM Coaches Poll. And now, despite the expectation that the Florida job is going to come open after this season, there鈥檚 a legitimate debate about whether Kiffin should take the job because of how well things are set up in Oxford.聽That鈥檚 how much NIL has changed the narrative around the Ole Miss program.聽 And yet on Saturday,聽the Rebels lost 20-17 at home to Kentucky聽of all teams. It鈥檚 not a loss that necessarily wrecks their season. They still have opportunities to get back in the College Football Playoff race against Georgia and LSU. But it is the first really deflating loss Kiffin has suffered in the NIL era against a team that he was supposed to beat, and the psychology of it is going to be fascinating.鈥
MEGAPHONE
鈥淲e were more explosive. But so were they. They鈥檙e an extremely explosive team. They are going to be explosive all year because they have explosive playmakers. I know the team I got in that room. I didn鈥檛 learn anything tonight that I didn鈥檛 already know. They鈥檙e fighters.鈥澛
Georgia coach Kirby Smart, after losing the shootout to Alabama.