(Photo courtesy Jonathan Brownfield, MUTigers.com)
Well, I'm absolutely soaked after the floods came on the walk back to the car after Mizzou's 69-17 thrashing of Nevada, so I'll go ahead and open up this thread for postgame reaction while I head off to take a shower.
The postgame podcast should be posted sometime soon, and Good, Bad, and Indifferent will be available after the jump on this post later in the day.
UPDATE, by rptgwb at 5:37 p.m.: Good, Bad, Indifferent now after the jump.
And, just a quick note, take anything "Bad" with a grain of salt. I do indeed realize that it was a 69-17 win over a very formidable non-BCS team.
GOOD
- The Mizzou offense... Here's my thorough, in-depth analysis: They're really, really good. Three minutes into the game, Mizzou was on pace for over 3,100 yards of offense. We'll break it down a bit further:
- Chase "Golden Watermelon Balls of Fury/Booger" Daniel: Hey, remember what "Heisman candidate" Graham Harrell did to Nevada? Chase Daniel laughs at you, sir. 23-of-28 for 405 yards and 4 TDs in a performance that broke the school record for career passing yardage? That would get you in the "Great" category, if it existed.
- D-Wash: His 59-yard touchdown run on the first possession completely changed the complexity of the game. Nevada figured out early it had to respect the run, and that opened up the offense to have the numerical explosion it did.
- Jeremy "Cheat Code" Maclin: It is sad that, outside of his long touchdown reception on the second drive, I though he was contained for most of the day? I come back to the stats and see that "contained" apparently means 239 all-purpose yards and 3 touchdowns.
- Chase Coffman: Thrust the Nunchuck Upwards failed to get his trademark hurdle in this game, but he represented Aaron O'Neal's No. 25 jersey well, finishing with six receptions, 127 yards and a touchdown. Plus, he gave us in Tiger's Lair the thrill of counting his FIVE stiff arms on one play during a video replay. Looks like Thrust Nunchuck Upward learned how to Punch Nunchuck Forward.
- Jared Perry: A quiet six catches for 98 yards and a touchdown (not including one called back for holding), but most importantly for Perry, no drops, when it looked like several passes could have eluded his grip.
- The "other" corners: Carl Gettis locked down his half of the field, and Kevin Rutland and Tru Vaughns looked much improved today, with both making several plays on the ball at its highest point. And, although not a corner, Del Howard made a few solid plays today after being questionable at best recently.
- The Salute to America: The crowd was DEAD until the B-2 flew over Faurot. Plus, the tribute to Mizzou linebacker and Iraq veteran Zach Milligan (pictured above the jump), was an awesome moment.
BAD
- Conventional Wisdom: All we ever hear is about how much Pinkel hates running up the score. What should we make of the fake field goal? Everything I know has been turned upside down. What's next? War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength? Pinkel blew my mind in Orwellian fashion.
- Blaine "Matthew Stafford" Gabbert: Anyone else getting concerned about his inability to back down his throws?
- The Hail Mary: Mizzou seems to love giving up points on the last play of the half. I'm interested to know who was responsible for Marko Mitchell streaking down the sideline with NO ONE near him when everyone in the stadium knew what was coming.
- Dap is due: This isn't a true "bad," but can we give some major love to Colin Kaepernick? As discussed in the podcast, those playfakes were absurd. Seeing the triple option out of the Pistol formation is a sight to behold.
- Penalties: The stat sheet only shows 50 yards lost to penalties, but considering the plays they called back, they were worth a lot more. And a few holds ruined what was a very productive day of downfield blocking.
INDIFFERENT
- The tenants of The Zou: The 54,000-plus attendance figure wasn't very impressive, but given the horrible weather, I can't rail on it too much.
- The blueprint is established: If you watch enough tape on Mizzou, the blueprint of how to exploit the Mizzou D is beginning to emerge. When Mizzou blitzes up the gut, exploit the soft zone with hooks. When Mizzou blitzes outside or runs a base D, run either a screen or draw. The Mizzou D-Line has been EXTREMELY prone to getting upfield too fast at the expense of filling gaps (Kansas could kill MU with the shovel pass all day long in November).
- What to do?: Where do we go from here with William Moore? I've got to believe he needs to start backing off the line of scrimmage. He's yet to come up with any huge plays on the blitz, and his presence up front leaves Garrett and Howard hanging out to dry. Granted, I'm not in practice every day, but wouldn't it make more sense to have the hard-hitting but air-vulnerable Garret on the LOS and put the ball-hawking Moore back in coverage?
- The O-line: It didn't seem like a great day, but I can't find anyone or anything to single out and complain about. It's nice to be an O-lineman when Chase distributes the ball as quickly as he does when he sees a blitz coming.
- Kickoffs: Wolfert had me scared earlier with subpar kickoffs early in the game, but he was launching them by game's end. Plus, as Beef noted in the podcast, the coverage was outstanding, led by Team Velodrome: Gachkar and Ebner (with some help from Lambert).
The comments are open... What am I missing?