Welcome to a new series called ‘What’s The Trend’ that highlights the biggest risers and fallers in the Mizzou Football world each week! After an Electric Week 2 Border War victory over Kansas, here are this week’s trends.
On the Rise
Beau Pribula
Beau was on this list last week, but how can we not add him again?? The Penn State transfer was raising many question marks ahead of the season whether he would be able to compete or not; he’s answered the questions.
CBS Sports — and many other outlets — had Beau Pribula
in their bottom three SEC quarterbacks coming into the season. Now his name has started to be thrown around in the Heisman race.
Pribula’s PFF stats have been off the charts, ranking as one of the best quarterbacks in the country. The Mizzou fanbase has fallen in love with their new quarterback and I’m stoked to see if he can keep up his magic.
Everything involving the Run Game
On both sides of the ball, Mizzou has been a force to be reckoned with when it comes to running.
On offense, the team has racked up 508 rushing yards to go along with six touchdowns. A bulk of the work has been a two-headed monster of Ahmad Hardy and Jamal Roberts. The team ranks 39th in the country on PFF for run offense.
On the defensive side the Tigers have been arguably more dominant. Mizzou held Kansas to a staggering 31 rushing yards through the entire game. Combining that with Central Arkansas’ rushing total, the Tigers have allowed just 185 rushing yards through two games. (I’ll do the math for you: Mizzou has a net +323 rushing yards). On PFF, the Tigers run defense ranks 13th in the country.
Donovan Olugbode
Aside from one of the best catches I’ve seen in a long time, Olugbode has been rising the ranks as a clear target for Beau Pribula. In just his first two collegiate games ever, he’s racked up 7 catches for 66 yards proving that he can do it as a true freshman.
Olugbode has been receiving high praise from teammates and coach Eli Drinkwitz with everybody saying the catch was no surprise to them; the true freshman has done it in practice plenty of times.
Olugbode is 100% a name that Mizzou fans need to keep on their radar for the next seasons to come and I’m definitely excited to see how he does the rest of the season.
On the Decline
Linebackers dropping into coverage
Despite a strong run defense performance from the Tigers, Jalon Daniels had open receivers all game. A lot of these open receivers were at fault of the linebackers blowing zone coverage. Drinkwitz knew right after the game, mentioning that in hindsight the team probably should’ve played less zone.
Triston Newson and Josiah Trotter had rough games in zone coverage, posting low PFF grades. The Tigers as a whole went from a 90.2 PFF coverage grade in their matchup against Central Arkansas, to a 59.7 coverage grade in their matchup against the Jayhawks.
The linebackers will definitely look to improve on their zone coverage and I’d expect there to be a lot less of it during Week 3.
Refs
The fans addressed it before the game was over, Drinkwitz has addressed it, THE BIG 12 ADDRESSED IT. The refs were very questionable during Missouri’s Week 2 matchup and since then, the Big 12 officiating crew has been reprimanded.
Nobody on social media seemed very happy with the officiating and I think it definitely deserves a spot on this list.
The ZOU pass
This was another thing that I felt needed to be added for the second consecutive week.
In case you missed it, Mizzou has switched from a queue system to a lottery system, leading to another round of chaos on X and other social media.
The lottery system gives certain classes priority over others on a game-to-game basis.
I don’t know if there is a chance of the ‘ZOU pass’ ever making its way into the trending up category but right now; it’s on a declining slope.
