Florida will probably score somewhere between zero and 50 points against Missouri

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Here are today's Mizzou Links.

By Bill Connelly@SBN_BillC Oct 11, 2016, 5:00am CDT

During last week’s meeting, Cross found common ground in his players’ challenge.

Four years ago he joined Gary Patterson’s defensive staff at Texas Christian University, where Patterson’s trademark 4-2-5 defense had been imbedded in the program for more than a decade.

The system was foreign to Cross. He invested and, in time, adjusted.

"Cross said, ‘You know, you guys are right. When I first went to TCU from Iowa State, I had no idea what everyone was saying,’" Scherer recalled. "I had to catch up. Now you guys are the ones having to catch up to me. I know what position you’re in. I know how it is.’

-- Post-Dispatch: Mizzou struggling with new defensive coordinator’s system

"I see a lot of that," defensive tackle Rickey Hatley said. "D-Line sometimes, you know you’ve got to be in your gap, but when you’re trying to make plays, then you’re in somebody else’s gap then you’ve got two guys in the same gap and the running back creases for a touchdown or a big run. That’s a lot of the problem I see."

-- PowerMizzou: Defense Simplified: Do Your Job

As referenced in detail in Ron Davis' story last night, Missouri's biggest problem this year has been getting everybody on the same page. We saw in the second half against Georgia what can happen when everybody's dialed in, and we saw in most of the LSU game what happens when they're not.

That makes it damn near impossible to know what to expect moving forward. It could mean the Tigers allow 14 points in Gainesville on Saturday. It could mean they allow 40.

Missouri is going to struggle to score against Florida in Gainesville this weekend because the Gator defense is fantastic (especially against the pass). But Florida scored just 13 points against Vanderbilt, and while the return of quarterback Luke Del Rio should help, the Gators haven't shown nearly the big-play potential in the run game that LSU had. (And despite LSU's other issues, we knew far in advance about the big-play potential.) Florida's primary offensive goal is not moving backwards. They do it pretty well, and their defense takes it from there.

If Missouri's defense can keep the Gators from moving forward too quickly, the Tigers should be able to hang around pretty easily. And if they play high-level run defense, that is an achievable goal. If, if, if. Meanwhile ... if not ...

"I want the high school coaches to be able to be high school coaches, and I think that’s important that we don’t take out the importance of kids being able to be kids," Odom said, adding that if these signing day periods were implemented, high school players would check out prior to their senior seasons.