And there was one.
“Demoralizing” is probably too strong of a word to put on this specific Mizzou Football season. After all, there’s still a very real possibility that the Tigers end up winning 9 games, including a bowl, which would’ve been a better-than-average year under Gary Pinkel and would’ve beaten even the best year under Barry Odom. Standards have risen to such heights under Eli Drinkwitz that Tiger fans expect to finish in the Top 25 of everything in any given season. Your bad years should
end up near 25, while your good years should end up near the top 10. That’s quite a place to be for those rooting for black and gold.
Then again, there’s also a chance that this season could get much, much worse. Mizzou travels to Arkansas this Saturday for the annual Battle Line rivalry, a game the Tigers have dominated in the recent past albeit in ways that are rarely very fun. The Razorbacks are an enigma this season, currently riding a nine-game losing streak and yet playing teams like Texas A&M, Ole Miss, and Tennessee to within an inch of their lives. And yet, they’ve also dropped games against LSU, Mississippi State, and Auburn. So who’s to say which version of the piggies will show up this weekend? If the Hogs put one over on their northern rivals, Mizzou suddenly drops to 7-5 with an outside shot of going 7-6 in a year where they were supposed to compete for the College Football Playoff. And then what happens if Eli Drinkwitz decides to cut ties? All of the sudden, things are feeling pretty dire around Columbia.
Two weeks ago when the Tigers came off a deflating loss to Texas A&M, a game against Mississippi State offered a chance to stop the bleeding and regain some positivity in the dressing room. This team, to their credit, responded with a thrashing of the Bulldogs in a game that never really felt out of control. That team is much better than this Arkansas squad (at least in cohesion), so one would expect Missouri to take care of business on the road. Do so, get a solid bowl game, get to nine wins, retain your head coach and 2025 starts to look like a transition year.
But you can’t do any of that without first dispatching the hogs.
SEC games to watch in Week 14:
- No. 6 Ole Miss (-7.5) at Mississippi State, O/U 63.5
- No. 4 Georgia (-13.5) at No. 23 Georgia Tech, O/U 58.5
- No. 3 Texas A&M (-3.5) at No. 16 Texas, O/U 51.5
- Kentucky at Louisville (-3.5), O/U 47.5
- Clemson at South Carolina (-2.5), O/U 47.5
- LSU at No. 8 Oklahoma (-10.5), O/U 38.5
- Mizzou (-2.5) at Arkansas, O/U 58.5
- No. 12 Vanderbilt at No. 18 Tennessee (-3.5), O/U 64.5
- Florida State at Florida (-4.5), O/U 52.5
- No. 10 Alabama (-3.5) at Auburn, O/U 48.5
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