It’s November 12th and Missouri’s most likely win occurs in three days when the Mississippi State Bulldogs come to down for Senior Night in Columbia. The remainder of Missouri’s schedule lays out thusly,
with win probabilities added (and, it should be mentioned, not adjusted for the loss of Beau Pribula):
- Mississippi State – 76%
- at Oklahoma – 31%
- at Arkansas – 59%
So this is an important one to win if the Tigers have any dreams of hitting 8, let alone 10, wins for the third straight season.
If you don’t know anything about Jeff Lebby’s Mississippi State squad I don’t blame you. After going 2-10 and winless in the SEC last year, they made a little yip of noise by going undefeated in their non-conference slate – including the take down of ‘24 Playoff participant Arizona State – before losing every SEC game they’ve played so far…except for Arkansas (lol). Against power programs the Bulldogs have played in 5 one-score games and gone 2-3 in said games. They’ve scored more than 20 points in every game except their tilt against Texas A&M but have a defense that’s given up at least 20 points to every power program they’ve played. Yes, that includes Florida, possibly the most damning fact I’ve listed so far.
Their offense is the 5th fastest in the country, enjoys 13 drives and over 70 plays per game, and attempts to wear out defenses by dragging teams into sprints that, typically, they don’t get into. If there’s a lack of motivation or preparation you will get burned and it will be no fun to watch.
When Missouri Has the Ball
Jeff Lebby is not really a defense-positive kind of guy and his team reflects that: 66th overall, 73rd in EPA/play allowed, 84th in 3-and-out percentage, 68th in 3rd-downs allowed, 81st in points per scoring opportunity. He’s a very late-aughts type of football coach, the one that ran the no-huddle-hurry-up offense to take advantage of lumbering defenses built around stopping the run and fielding a defense that existed to create one or two stops to break serve and win in a shoot out. Which means Mississippi State’s defense has a couple of avenue to take advantage of but here’s what I want to see.
RUN THE F***ING BALL, KIRBY
You have a 3rd-string-freshman-quarterback who is a 3rd-string-freshman-quarterback. Your offensive line struggles at times with pass protection. You have two tremendous running backs. And Mississippi State ranks 118th in run defense. If Mizzou ends up with a play balance of anything less than 60/40 in favor of the run – and I’m being VERY lenient here in that calculation – it should be considered a football war crime and Kirby Moore should go to the football Gulag. Mizzou should have at least a 46% success rate on the ground and, at minimum, 25 carries between Hardy and Roberts.
Convert 3rd-Downs
Even with Missouri’s recent 3rd-down struggles, they still rank 15th in the country in 3rd-down conversions. Mississippi State’s defense ranks 68th in stopping 3rd-down conversions. Mizzou needs 3rd-down conversions to function properly. Let’s go for at least a 42% success rate on 3rd-down.
Finish Your Dang Drives
As previously stated, Mississippi State’s defense is 81st in points per scoring opportunity allowed with 4.43. Missouri’s offense ranks 18th with 4.8 points per scoring opportunity. So if we assume Mississippi State speeds up the game a tad and Mizzou ends up with 12 possession, we’ll shoot for 7 scoring opportunities and 4.5 points per scoring opportunity which would roughly be 31 points.
Yes, I think it’ll be a shoot out. No, that does not fill me with confidence.
When Mississippi State Has the Ball
Mississippi State has attempted some quarterback juggling the past two games but Blake Shapen is still far and away their starter. Kamario Taylor has been impressive in his limited time on the field, to the point where there have been some low rumblings as to him potentially being better than the COVID super senior Shapen. Still, it’s Shapen’s last year and Taylor has plenty of time left to play. But, regardless, there’s a good blue print on attacking this offense.
Stop The Run
A quick primer on the Bulldogs offense: they use the run for efficiency and they use the pass for explosiveness. Their run rates are in the middle-high portion of the country but basically they run on 60% of standard downs and then only 34% in passing downs. That’s a lot of pressure on a quarterback and, as we saw in Missouri against A&M, not one that does your quarterback a lot of favors. That’s a long windup to me saying that forcing Mississippi State to throw doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to win, it just means you’re moving them to a higher variance option where they more likely to connect for big plays but also much more frequently to biff the drive and punt. And I’ll take those odds. Defeat the elite-tier name Fluff Bothwell and his friend Davon Booth, and force Blake Shapen to generate big plays. Let’s set the goal at a 40% rushing success rate.
PRESSURE
Marcel Reed has one of the quickest releases in the sport, with not even 2 seconds taken from snap to pass. That left Zion Young and Damon Wilson as very sad boys who didn’t get to pressure the quarterback all that often. Both Shapen and Taylor are slower than Reed and the offensive line is prone to leaks at a higher clip than A&M’s line. Also, Shapen loves to get hit. He’s getting pressured on 32% of his drop backs and sacked on 10% of them, both of which are toward the bottom in the nation. Let’s let our beautiful edge rushers feast once again. I’m looking for at least 3 sacks on the day.
Conclusion
Football is a simple sport. It’s about blocking and tackling. Missouri’s defense is good at tackling. Really good. And Missouri’s offense is better at blocking when it’s running the ball.
Let’s not force Matt Zollers to be something he’s not ready to be. Insulate him in a game plan that’s simple to know and easy to execute and, yes, MAYBE even a little predictable! BUT! Do so in a manner that features your best players so that it doesn’t matter if a run is coming at them for the eighth-straight time: they’re still not good enough to stop it.
And then be good at defense and stuff. See? Football is easy.
