Five Takeaways from Mizzou’s 49-39 loss against LSU

Pain. That’s all I can feel right now. Just, pain.

This had a chance to be the coming out party for Mizzou on a national scale. LSU is a brand name program. Right or wrong, beating them in a game like this would’ve captured the attention of everyone in a way that beating Kansas State can’t and won’t. It felt like that was exactly what would happen through the first half.

And then, suddenly, everything changed. The quarterback who hadn’t thrown an interception in more than 300 pass attempts threw two. The offense that came out guns-a-blazing sputtered. The defense that could be counted on a year ago, couldn’t be in this game. Jayden Daniels put his team on his back in a way that Brady Cook simply couldn’t.

Missouri couldn’t get the job done. In the latest of the Tigers’ pass-fail tests, it failed.

It’s time to get into the takeaways.

1) The single biggest issue we’ve talked about this year came back to bite Mizzou at the worst possible moment

We’ve talked about this after seemingly every game this season. Missouri’s offensive line simply makes way too many mistakes before the ball is snapped. It happened again against LSU, and the penalties took place at the worst possible time. The Tigers finished the game with two false starts, an illegal snap and two holding calls.

The two most frustrating calls:

• 3rd & 5 from the LSU 44-yard line with 0:15 to play in the second quarter. Brady Cook scrambles for a 10-yard gain. The play is called back due to a Cam’Ron Johnson holding. Missouri kicks a 50-yard field goal to go into the half up 25-17 two plays later, but the hold negated any opportunity to really push for a touchdown to end the half.
• 3rd & 1 from the LSU 41-yard line with 1:40 to play in the game. Illegal snap called on Connor Tollison, pushing Missouri back to a 3rd & 6 from the LSU 46-yard line. Brady Cook was sacked and stripped on the next play. It set up Missouri for its fateful 4th and 32 play, more or less ending the Tigers’ hopes in the game.

There were others we could point to. The two unsportsmanlike conducts that got Johnny Walker Jr. kicked out of the game stand out, in particular. But, ultimately, the Tigers knew their offensive line penalties could come back to bite them. And they did in the worst possible moment.

2) Eli Drinkwitz was aggressive on the first quarter, and then he settled into the belief that he could win the game with field goals

Drinkwitz came out with such a great game plan. The Tigers were firing on all cylinders offensively. They had the LSU defense in a blender. Drinkwitz was so deep into his bag that he broke out a new 2-point play to open up the game. The message appeared to be sent: we’re not messing around. Drinkwitz knew that this game would require 40+ points to win, and he wasn’t going to leave a single opportunity to score on the table.

And then, he did.

Missouri’s first drive of the second half set the tone just as it did in the first half. The Tigers drove quickly down the field and had the ball set up at the LSU 27-yard line. It was 3rd and four. Brady Cook targeted Luther Burden to no avail. Drinkwitz didn’t even think about going for it. He sent the field goal unit right on the field. It’s fourth and four. The Tigers averaged 8.5 yards per play in the first half. They were finding every possible opening in LSU’s zone defense. And he settled. Again. Just as he has for much of his career at Mizzou.

When Drinkwitz asks why we question his aggressiveness, this is the kind of decision we can point to. Sure, he comes out with a random onside kick or a trick play for a 2-point conversion to open the game. But when bullets start flying, he gets conservative. This was not a chip-shot field goal. It was from 45 yards away. Harrison Mevis missed it.

It was simply the first of many unfulfilling drives in the second half of this game.

3) This game was a tale of two halves

It’s hard to imagine a better first half of football from Mizzou. The Tigers outscored LSU 25-17, and they did so with a healthy dose of the passing game. Missouri outgained LSU 271-208 with 227 of those 271 yards coming through the air. The Tigers had seven explosive pass plays in the first half.

The result? Missouri scored on four of its five opening half drives with the lone exception coming on Cook’s first interception of the year. It was an offensive clinic.

Defensively, it was just enough. Mizzou forced a 3 and out on two of LSU’s first three possessions. They forced a field goal on another. Doing that against a Jayden Daniels-led offense is nothing to scoff at. You couldn’t ask for a better start. Mizzou had all of the momentum. Things seemed to be going their way.

And then it flipped.

If we’re being honest, it started with the first Cook interception late in the second quarter. That interception led to an LSU touchdown. Missouri then shot itself in the foot with the Johnson hold on the final possession of the half. From there, it was mostly a disaster.

LSU outscored Missouri 32-14 in the second half. They averaged nearly 10 yards per play. They held Missouri to 2-for-7 on third down.

Most puzzling, though, was Luther Burden III seemingly disappearing from the game plan. Missouri got him involved in nearly every way possible in the first half. He saw just one target in the third quarter; an incompletion. He was targeted four times between halftime and the final three minutes of the fourth quarter. Those four targets were almost exclusively at or near the line of scrimmage. Maybe we should be giving credit to LSU for finding a way to slow him down. That’s possible. Harold Perkins Jr. is one of the most talented players in the country, and he seemed to be the primary player in coverage on Burden in the second half. Good on him.

But it’s on Missouri’s coaches to adjust. You have to find a way to get your best player involved as often as possible in a game like this. It feels greedy to suggest 11 receptions and 17 targets wasn’t enough. But when 11 of those targets and and nine of those receptions took place in the first half, I think it’s a fair place to criticize.

Missouri had every opportunity to win this football game. It came up short when the moments mattered most.

4) Missouri’s defense has some issues to work through

I’ve pushed back against most of the criticism of the Tigers’ defense this season. And, let me say up front that this was quite the test against one of the most explosive offenses in the country.

That being said, the defense fell short, and it has fallen short of expectations for much of this season.

Much of that blame should to go toward the pass defense, and it’s not exclusively on the secondary. Misosuri came into the day with 13 sacks and 32 tackles for loss on the season. Both numbers rank right in the middle of the pack in the SEC. This comes a year after the Tigers were top three in sacks and tops in the league in tackles for loss. Where does that show up most? On third down.

Last year, the Tigers were forcing negative plays on early downs to set up more advantageous third down situations for their pass rushers to pin back their ears and get to the quarterback. This year, the TFLs aren’t racking up and the pass rushing opportunities aren’t getting home. The four best offenses on Missouri’s schedule — Middle Tennessee State, Kansas State, Memphis and LSU — have finished a combined 30-for-65 (46 percent) on third down conversions. LSU finished the day 4-for-4 on third down conversions of four yards or less. They were 0-for-4 on third down attempts of nine yards or more. Starting to see a trend?

This Missouri defense is built on creating havoc. That havoc comes from creating plays behind the line of scrimmage. Well, when the blitzes aren’t getting home (one sack) and the defensive line isn’t tackling the running behind the line of scrimmage (three tackles for loss.) All that blitzing is accomplishing is opening up more throwing lanes.

Here’s the rub: I don’t think Missouri has much of a choice in the matter. The Tigers lack pass rush juice off the edge. It’s something I brought up as a potential issue — and I wasn’t alone — multiple times coming into the season. Moving Darius Robinson to the edge was the clear indicator that the coaching staff saw the same issue we did. Robinson has mostly been fine, but he’s not a guy who wins with speed. Nyles Gaddy can be that guy at times, but he’s mostly a designated pass rusher. Missouri needs Johnny Walker Jr. to be that player, but he got himself kicked out of this game with multiple personal fouls.

The fail-safe was supposed to be Ty’Ron Hopper, who was one of the better pass rushers on the team last year. To put it simply, he hasn’t been the same player defensively for Missouri this year as he was last. He’s not creating as many plays behind the line of scrimmage and he’s missing far too many tackles. In this game, specifically, he lost contain on multiple plays and Daniels was able to make him pay.

This defense has a havoc issue, which is showing up most prominently on third down. But the Tigers’ third down issues are mostly a byproduct of their inability to create negative plays on first or second down. It’s a vicious cycle and I’m not sure how it gets fixed.

5) That’s the kind of loss that will take the wind out of the sails, but it probably shouldn’t

Alright, most of this post has skewed negative. That’s what happens when the team you follow has every opportunity to win a game at home against a top-25 conference opponent and it finds a way to lose. I’m sure most Mizzou fans will go into work on Monday complaining about how the team looked like the same ‘ole Tigers. Maybe that’s what will happen. Maybe we’ll come to find out that the first five weeks of the season was a mirage and the true Tigers are the team that lost 49-39 at home against LSU. It’s possible.

It’s every bit as likely, though, that Missouri’s offense is real. The Tigers have put up at least 30 points in 4-straight games for the first time since 2019. Cook has now thrown for at least 340 yards in each of the past four games. Burden, despite the lack of production in the second half, has more receiving yards than any Mizzou wide receiver through six games in program history.

This team has a lot going for it despite the loss today. It needs to find a way to clean some things up. The turnovers can’t happen. The pre-snap penalties have to be a thing of the past. The defense needs to figure out a way to create more havoc, either via different personnel or new designs schematically.

LSU was the best offense remaining on the Tigers’ schedule, but the next tests come for the offense. Kentucky’s defense is legit. Georgia’s is every bit as good. Those are two of your next three opponents. There’s no time for Missouri to feel sorry for itself. Everything this team hoped to accomplish before the season is still on the table.

That loss sucked. The pain isn’t going away any time soon. But the Tigers still have an opportunity to prove something. This is the first time they’ve faces true adversity this season. It will be very interesting to see how they respond.

Read more