When you play one of the oldest football rivalries in the sport on a Friday night it means that amount of the college football zeitgeist is paying attention to your game. That can be great if you win and bad if you lose. But it is nice to have a good amount of eyeballs paying attention to something you (Missouri fan, kansas fan) value highly as you get to share your little corner of the college football world with everyone else.
It also means that there is extra attention to not only the game but
the messaging around it. Which is why Eli Drinkwitz’s comments at the end caught so much flak.
When it comes to the Border War you can either embrace the Civil War roots or eschew them. For their part, kansas has been very consistent in their approach of tapping the lore: wearing red pants to last year’s game in honor of the Jayhawk regiment that famously donned crimson britches, wearing a full red uniform in this year’s matchup, and embracing John Brown’s militant abolitionism as a call to support their crappy football team. It makes sense; the kansans largely fought for the Union, which won the war, and were openly anti-slavery. Those are simple, easy ideals to get behind and log easy points against your neighbor, whose Civil War activities were much more complicated.
Missouri was a slave state that technically remained loyal to the Union, although there was a splinter government that pledged loyalty (and was recognized by) the Confederacy. The larger metro areas tended to be pro-Union while the more rural communities leaned Confederate but there certainly wasn’t some blanket sentiment for the entire state. Obviously we all know that the Columbia Tigers were organized to keep out both Union and Confederate raiders and were mostly on the side of “don’t loot our shit”. But that’s complicated and hard to understand! It’s easier to just point to “Missouri was a slave state” and “kansas was Union” and, voila, easy points.
Which is why it makes sense that, leading up to the game, Eli was critical of kansas’ open embracing of the Civil War lore and calling for unity of the people and a more fun approach to the football rivalry. That’s a stance that’s fine to make and easy to understand! And when he doubled down on that sentiment in his post-game comments – as clunky as they were – it was easy to understand and I don’t think anyone really cared.
But then he had to throw in “we left kansas bleeding again”.
And that’s how you lose your credibility.
Again, outsiders watching this don’t care to know the nuance! But they know the big “good vs. evil” stuff and the main points from what each side did to the other. So to cite that as your closer means you’re referencing the bad guys and correlating your team with them! Not great!
Anyway.
The game itself was a sloppy affair but one where Missouri really had no chance of losing. Yes, the 1st Quarter was not as dominant as Mizzou fans would like, and, yes, the run game continues to be an issue. But between the haovc-filled, turnover-producing defense and a dazzling passing game, Mizzou finished the game with a 99% post-game win expectancy. On the road. Against a power program. In Week 2.
These are good things.
Here’s the advanced box score:
Thanks to two back-to-back turnover possessions, both teams got to 13 possessions on the game, one of the highest of this new “no clock stoppage on 1st down” era. But you can see the dominance on display here: Missouri outgained kansas by 2.7 yards on a per play basis, averaged 16.4 more yards per possession, created 3 more scoring opportunities, averaged 1.2 more points per opportunity, and had an averaged starting field position of their 43.1, compared to kansas’ own 28.2. Throw in a +2 turnover margin and you can see why the PGWE was 99%.
When Missouri Has the Ball
Thanks to four drops Austin Simmons was not nearly as efficient as he was against this year’s FCS opponent. But he still managed to carry a 65% completion percentage with over 10 yards per attempt, finishing with 292 yards, 3 touchdowns, and zero interceptions or sacks. I’m not going to trick myself into thinking Missouri has a Heisman candidate or #1 NFL Draft Pick (yet), but Simmons is making throws that we haven’t seen in Columbia since 2018, and he has two receivers that rank in the Top 20 of yardage on the year. That’s rad.
What’s not rad is the running game, or specifically, Jamal Roberts. Whether it’s the o-line or Roberts himself, handing him the ball on Friday was a losing proposition. Yes, he did rip off the 64-yard touchdown run which was tremendous. But counting that run he had a 14% success rate when running the ball. 14%! I can’t find another instance of an Eli Drinkwitz running back have that low of a success rate over that many carries! And, hey, maybe it was just a bad day. Or maybe he’s always been a more explosive type of guy than an efficiency guy. But Xai’Shaun Edwards had a 50% success rate at a legitimate 4.5 yards per carry, so maybe we should be sending him some more carries going forward?
Run to Win
Goal: 47% rushing success rate
Actual: 22% rushing success rate
Winner: kansas
Create Explosive Plays Through The Air
Goal: 9
Actual: 7
Winner: kansas
Maintain Possession
Goal: 60% 3rd-down conversion rate
Actual: 44% 3rd-down conversion rate
Winner: kansas (guess my offensive keys to the game were not really needed, huh?)
When Those Dirty Sons of Bitches Have The Ball
Seven tackles for loss, 4 sacks, 1 forced fumble, 6 passes broken up, 2 interceptions, and a 36.4% havoc rate. Yeah, that’s more like it!
For all of the movement and shifts and funky formations and hero-ball-shit that Isaiah Marshall was pulling off, it all amounted to a 31% success rate on the ground and a 29% success rate through the air.
All noise, no funk.
HAVOC!
Goal: 28% havoc rate
Actual: 36.4% havoc rate
Winner: Missouri
TURN THEM OVER
Goal: +2 in turnovers
Actual: +2 in turnovers
Winner: Missouri
The Little Things
This is the root of the “sloppy” claim about this game. There were seven fumbles in the game – 3 for Mizzou, 4 for kansas – and each side lost one. Two three-and-outs for Missouri, three for kansas, two blocked field goals for Missouri, plus 23 penalties and 7 dropped passes shared between the two sides. M-E-S-S-Y.
Extra Points
The game never went to garbage time so everything counts towards SP+ calculations. Both offense became more efficienct as the game went on but neither were particularly impressive. kansas relied heavily on explosive plays – 6 passes for 126 yards and a 24-yard run – to generate 59% of their total yards with very little efficiency to back it up. Missouri has 9 explosive plays account for 276 yards – an equal 59% of total yards but managed to throw in a tad more efficiency than their counterparts.
Missouri was not super creative in its approach to run-pass balance. If it was 1st-down, they ran, 2nd-down was a little more balanced, and then 3rd-down was almost exclusively pass, with two of those runs being scramble from Austin Simmons. Simmons is a good quarterback and can find holes even if the defense is expecting a throw, but it seems like kansas quickly figured out when the runs were happening and the Tiger line and backs couldn’t do much for it. For kansas, I’m obviously not a football coach, but in my opinion it’s not great to average 2.7 yards per play on 3rd- and 4th-down.
Even yardage total in Q1, big explosion of yards for Mizzou in Q2, then heavy advantage for the Tigers in Q3 and Q4. The Missouri defense really locked in after halftime.
I never thought I’d see this for an Eli Drinkwitz team: over two games, Drink’s offense is throwing the ball to convert 1st-downs much better than running the ball. Olugbode and Lee combined for 8 1st-downs generated via the forward pass, while Jamal Roberts created one. In fact, on the year, Roberts has only one more first down generated via run than Matt Zollers, who has ran the ball a mere 6 times! Against kU, 11 of the 14 1st-downs generated were done so by throwing the ball. Wild times, man.
Conclusion
Missouri played confidently and aggressively and weathered a sleepy opening stretch to win comfortably by 17 (and it should have been more). The first emotional hurdle of the year is cleared, and now the Tigers get a tricky non-con test by a 2025 divisional champ Sun Belt squad before hitting the second road test of the year against Mississippi State.
