As Jamal Roberts trotted the final few yards into the south end zone, capping off the Tigers’ exhilarating 42-31 come-from-behind win over the hated Jayhawks, he might as well have added framing and cement to ground upon which he trod. Well, figuratively speaking at least.
Beating kansas in Columbia after a 14-year hiatus in the Border War rivalry has been on the top of Tigers fans’ priority lists for the 2025 season since the day the renewed rivalry was announced years ago. For the team themselves,
some of whom weren’t yet born when Armegeddon at Arrowhead played out in 2007 and all of whom were in elementary school the last time the two teams faced off, the win serves to solidify the floor for what their season will be.
Based on the number of legitimate unanswered questions about the Mizzou roster entering the season, just about any result (other than 3-9 or worse) was on the table for the Tigers. Even one of the easier SEC schedules remained a daunting road block, made more difficult by the fact that the “winnable” home games in 2024 are now more difficult road games, while the tough road contests are now tough home games. Tossing onto that pile a game against a vastly improved kansas program and reasonable minds could predict a wide variance in outcomes for the 2025 Tigers.
Despite the elation of Mizzou fans (yours truly included) over beating the Jayhawks, the win actually does little in terms of raising the expected ceiling for what the Tigers can reasonably achieve this year. Rather, securing the victory over the wicked from the west went a long way in setting downward limits for that variance. In simpler terms: Mizzou’s season now has a determinable floor and that floor is now higher than the 4-8 outcome it might otherwise have been in an outlier scenario.
With two non-conference wins now in the books, and two more looking exceedingly likely, (Louisiana is without starting quarterback Walker Howard for the season and UMASS just lost to some guy named Bryant) Mizzou can start to shift their vision to the games that can raise their ceiling rather than set their floor. As it sits now, which is where I picked it before the season, the Tigers’ expected wins number sits around 7.5. There are four key games that can raise or lower that ceiling moving forward, so let’s outline those here.
South Carolina
The first of these ceiling raisers, and perhaps the most important, the Tigers take on the Gamecocks in the Mayors Cup in less than two weeks. South Carolina came into the season as a pre-season darling to make a run at the playoff. Driven in large part by their last-second win over Mizzou last year, LaNorris Sellers is reprising his breakout role this year as a dark horse Heisman candidate.
Had Mizzou held South Carolina out of the end zone on that last drive last year, it could have been the Tigers enjoying some of the pre-season accolades the Gamecocks were more than happy to receive over the summer. There is only room for four (or maybe five?) SEC teams in the college football playoff. The way the schedules work out, there probably isn’t room for both South Carolina and Mizzou, so the winner of this game will keep that goal in sight. A win over the Gamecocks can bump that win total up to, if not over, eight.
Alabama
This one is pretty self-explanatory even despite Alabama’s poor week one showing against Florida State. The long-time bullies of the SEC, the Crimson Tide are more vulnerable than they have been in nearly 20 years, yet they still carry most of the clout that they stocked up on during the Nick Saban era. As the only (non-Texas) SEC team the Tigers haven’t beaten since they joined the conference, a victory over the Tide would bump the ceiling of this season from 8-4 to at least 9-3.
@Auburn
This game could just as easily be combined with the road game at Vanderbilt the following week as a single ceiling-raising entity. The reason I’m sticking with just Auburn is that if the black and gold tigers beat the blue and orange ones on the plains, the likelihood they are also able to beat the Commodores increases exponentially. Eli Drinkwitz teams have always struggled on the road, regardless of how good his teams are. Even the magical 2023 squad were challenged in beating bad Kentucky and Vanderbilt teams on the road. Jordan-Hare Stadium is a much tougher environment than either of those places and his year’s Auburn team looks to be much improved over last year’s dumpster fire that nearly knocked off Mizzou in Columbia save for Brady Cook’s heroics. Win this game (and against Vandy) and the ceiling for this season legitimately becomes 10 wins.
@Oklahoma
Mizzou hasn’t won in Norman in more than six decades. That is a really, really, really long time. Beyond what a win would mean just for the history of this rivalry, the Sooners are a legitimate threat in the SEC this season. If the Tigers are able to take care of business in previous road games, as well as dust up a Texas A&M team in Columbia, this will be the game that ensures not only a playoff bid but potentially a birth in the SEC Championship game as well. 11-1 is on the table with a win in Norman in November.
All of that said, the purpose of this exercise wasn’t to predict an 11-1 season for the Tigers, but rather to illustrate which games truly are important for propelling Tiger success the rest of the year. Many Mizzou fans who really, really hate kansas (*raises hand*) might chalk the 2025 season up as a success already. For those with higher aspirations for the squad, squashing the beakers will hopefully serve just as a solid stepping stone to something much more.
