At this point, I’m sure you’re tired of hearing Mizzou’s game against UMass called, “sleepy.” But you know what I’m tired of thinking about? How this game lacked a startling amount of disrespect.
I get
it, y’all, Eli Drinkwitz paints himself and the team as the type of SEC, “bless your heart,” type of program that we all would hope they can become. You only get to act like that, with a sense of smug condescension, when you start winning a lot over a long period of time. And Mizzou is kind of getting there. You don’t celebrate wins over UMass anymore. You just tip your hat, sign their check, and go on your merry way.
But damn if it doesn’t make things a little less fun. I want to see celebrations! I want to see funny dances! I want to see guys getting in each others’ grills! SEC play can’t come back soon enough. Because even though this week’s play is pretty impressive in its own right, even I can’t drum up enough disrespectful momentum to pretend its anything but a display of dominance over a weaker opponent.
Damn it, though, I’m going to give it my all.
Here’s the grading scale:
Category 1: How difficult/impressive was the play? (0-20)
Category 2: How hard did the opposition try? (0-20)
Category 3: How much did his teammates help? (0-5)
Category 4: What did the player do immediately afterward? (0-20)
Category 5: How did everyone not involved react? (0-15)
Category 6: Is there a backstory/context to consider? (0-20)
And once again, courtesy of the best running back in the country, here’s your DPI Play of the Week.
Category 1: How difficult/impressive was the play?
I’m not going to lie to you, this isn’t the most difficult run we’ve seen Hardy make this season. No one is doubting his quality as a runner, but sometimes your offensive line executes and you’re left with nothing but green. Hardy does his part to get the edge and run past one defender and through another. But the bar he’s starting with is higher than almost anyone else in the country. He could’ve done this with a badly executed blocking scheme. Giving Hardy this much room to run is genuinely unfair. 9/20
Category 2: How hard did the opposition try?
I say this with all sincerity in my heart: God bless Malcolm Greene, No. 1 in white.
When faced with the assignment of staring down the most feared running back in college football right now, there are a lot of things you can do. Piss your pants. Run away screaming. Make a business decision and get the hell out of dodge. Greene, to his credit, does none of these things. He stands firm, plants his feet and readies himself to try and meet the momentum that Hardy is carrying with him.
Alas. Things don’t always work out the way we want. Chin up, Mr. Greene. At least when you can pick it out of the turf.
For good measure, Hardy also bulldozes one more guy on his way to the endzone. As if juking the first defender into an Auntie Anne’s pretzel wasn’t enough, he’s got to go and pound the next one into dough. Hmmm… am I hungry for pretzels?
I love the fighting spirit these defenders are showing. It makes it that much sweeter when Ahmad boils them in baking soda and then bakes them and covers them in flaky salt.
Hang on, I’m gonna go get a pretzel. 17/20
Category 3: How much did his teammates help?
Go back and look at that first image. Within a half a second of the snap, the line has completely cleared the right side of the field, save poor Mr. Greene, as we just discussed. This is great execution that only amplifies the excellence of Mizzou’s rushing attack. It won’t win Hardy any extra points here, but it makes me feel better as a fan, so I’ll take it. 1/5
Category 4: What did the player do immediately afterward? (0-20)
Hardy’s celebrations tend to die down as the game goes on, and this is no exception. He gives a little flex before going to dap up his linemen. But we’re still waiting for that big celebration that will tip the scale on this end. It’s about combining a bruising run with an ego-bruising celly. We’re not there yet, but we’re close. I can feel it. 8/20
Category 5: How did everyone not involved react? (0-15)
Thank god we got a replay angle in the highlights, because it adds a lot of great context to this run. Let’s go back to the moment after Hardy runs past Greene.
There’s just something about the way he’s propping himself up and grimacing that makes this run a little extra special. It’s the kind of face you make when you do something colossally stupid, get hurt, and then think, “yeah, I kind of knew that was going to happen.” It’s beautiful, in a way, that Greene has that moment of self-clarity in the middle of the play.
But wait, there’s more!
Greene really caps this play off, one in which he got completely cooked, by anxiously watching to see if Hardy will tiptoe to the pylon. Glorious. There’s nothing more disrespectful than toasting your defender so hard that he pulls up just a second later to see if you can pull the whole damn thing off. Ahmad Hardy, you’re changing lives.
Bonus points for Zachary Farris’s feeble reach out to shoestring Hardy on the way to the end zone. Thanks for coming, soldier. 14/15
Category 6: Is there a backstory/context to consider?
With this performance, Hardy put himself firmly on top of the leaderboard for rushing yards (730) and is tied at the top for rushing touchdowns (9). He continues to break tackles at what I can only assume is an illegal rate. And while one might accuse him of stat-padding in this game, he did miss more than one full quarter of action and still manage to drop 130 and three scores on UMass. Going into the bye week, consensus seems to be forming around his candidacy as the best back in the country. 11/20
For yet another punishing touchdown run, Ahmad Hardy’s third score of the day was 60 percent disrespectful to UMass-Amherst, its traveling fans and, most specifically, Malcolm Greene. Poor, poor Malcom Greene.
