Pourover: They can’t all be pretty

SB Nation

I’ve been on vacation all week so you’ll excuse me as I get back into things. I thought a good way to get back into the flow would be to spend my day watching college football. I mostly settled into LSU-Vanderbilt,

and Georgia-Ole Miss, both before the Mizzou-Auburn game.

Watching Ole Miss and Georgia battle back and forth was a thing of beauty. Maybe not so much for the defensive minded folks, but for a neutral observer with no rooting interest, I’m not sure there could be a better game. Back and forth playmaking, offensive execution, lots of points! It was exciting to watch.

Contrast that game with what we watched last night, and… yeah they can’t all be pretty. But they can be ugly, and winners. I think winning is the primary goal each week, and the Tigers won. How they won is certainly open to interpretation, but they won. They went on the road and beat a quality team* which is no small feat.

I added an asterisk to the point on Auburn because I want to say this about the Tigers from the plains. I think Auburn is a really talented football team, and probably more talented than Missouri is. They led at Oklahoma with 7 minutes to play and lost. They led, had the ball with 5 minutes to play at Texas A&M, and lost. They were up 10-0 on Georgia and fumbled at the goal line with a chance to go into half up 17-0. But the lost that one too. And then last night, against Missouri they were up a touchdown with 6 minutes to play. Committed two 15 yard penalties on one play gifting Mizzou 30 yards, and Mizzou ended up tying the game and forcing overtime.

Auburn is talented, but their culture sucks because Hugh Freeze sucks, and DJ Durkin sucks. If we lived in a more just world neither of these two would be coaching college football. As much as I want to give credit to Missouri for winning the game, and they do deserve credit, I want to point to Auburn as the perfect example of you reap what you sow.

Jordan-Hare was on fire all night. That fan base is passionate, and the atmosphere is elite. But it doesn’t matter because the team fights like hell until adversity hits. Once they’re thrown a curveball it seems like they just deflate. There is a want to win, but they’re missing the belief. Then you couple that with the other sideline and Mizzou feels like the real life version of a Ted Lasso locker room sometimes, maybe with more cursing from their captain Zion Young.

I’m not sure it’s possible for one player on a football team to will a whole team to a win, but Young sure tried. He embodies Eli Drinkwitz culture to a T. He loudly proclaimed what he was going to do during the coin flip and then he backed it up. He pursued excellence against Auburn and was unblockable for two overtime possessions. Part of me thought maybe you just hand the ball off to him on offense to see what happens. But he believed his Tigers were going to win, and then went out and did what he could to make it happen.

Mizzou wasn’t perfect, they had two turnovers, committed 4 penalties for 50 yards, but they were solid enough on 3rd down, and made enough plays on both sides of the ball to overcome the energy Auburn built through the pumped up crowd. But while Mizzou could have played better, you had to know Auburn was going to self destruct. It’s what they do.

Beau Pribula watched his receivers drop one pass along with 23 completions and 40 attempts. Jackson Arnold threw the ball 30 times, he completed 18 of them, and he watched his receivers drop 4 balls. One would have certainly been a touchdown, another would have been a critical 3rd down completion in the 4th quarter.

Auburn shut down Mizzou’s rushing attack, and it didn’t matter. They still found a way to keep Missouri close enough and then imploded to give up a relatively easy touchdown to tie the game at 17. They ran out a kicker, Alex McPherson, who is still trying to gain weight back after courageously battling ulcerative colitis. McPherson before his illness was one of the games elite kickers. But he doesn’t have the range anymore, and missed three of four kicks, including kicks of 38 and 40 yards.

Missouri’s freshman kicker also missed a 38 yard kick, but on the very next possession the offense picked him up and scored the game deciding touchdown. Auburn picked up their kicker by going backwards and giving him a tougher kick.

I’d say Auburn fans deserve better, but I’m not sure that’s the case. Surely there are some fans out there who don’t want guys like Freeze and Durkin running their program. So for those fans, yes you deserve better. Games at Jordan-Hare with a full stadium are all kinds of fun to watch on TV.

But Mizzou is just in a healthier spot.

The game was ugly. Both teams fought. One team thought they could win, but the other team knew they would. You’ll take it.