If I had to bet (and thankfully, I don’t), we’re going to see a pretty angry Missouri team on Saturday night against Auburn. We talk a lot about Big Things and Little Things, and while Missouri has been pretty bad at the Little Things of late (remember last week, when I was talking about how Missouri had outgained six of the last eight opponents but won only three of those games?), Saturday against Purdue was a Big Things loss, the first since last year’s trip to Florida.
Mizzou players have had their customary post-dud players-only meeting, and my guess is that the Tigers will respond relatively well. They aren’t as bad as they showed last Saturday — at least, they weren’t that bad; they now have to prove that’s not the new normal — and they get a chance to prove that against an Auburn team that has its own share of fragility issues this year.
Unfortunately, most of those fragility issues come on the offensive side of the ball. The Tigers couldn’t even pretend to protect quarterback Jarrett Stidham against Clemson and couldn’t stop fumbling last week against Mercer.
We’ll talk about the AU offense tomorrow. For now, we’re going to talk about the unit Mizzou will absolutely have to crack at least a few times to have a chance at turning newfound passion into an actual victory.
Auburn’s defense forces you to make tough plays — break tackles, make catches in traffic, etc. That’s not something Mizzou’s done since last November.
(I’m including a new measure below — defender success rate. It’s basically the offensive success rate of the plays the defender has been involved in. The lower it is, the closer the guy typically stays to the line of scrimmage. So, linemen will have low success rate, and DBs will have much higher ones. I’m not sure if I like this measure or not, but I’m playing with it to see what it might say.)
Buck
Jeff Holland (6’2, 249, Jr.) — 9.5 tackles, 3.5 TFL (1.5 sacks), 1 PBU, 1 FF, 9% SR
Paul James III (6’3, 260, Jr.) — 2.0 tackles, 0% SR
T.D. Moultry (6’2, 240, Fr.) — 2.0 tackles, 1 TFL, 0% SR
DT
Dontavius Russell (6’3, 310, Jr.) — 4.5 tackles, 1 TFL, 0% SR
Tyrone Truesdell (6’2, 338, Fr.) — 1.0 tackles, 0% SR
DT
Derrick Brown (6’5, 316, So.) — 9.5 tackles, 3.5 TFL (2 sacks), 1 PBU, 8% SR
Andrew Williams (6’4, 286, Jr.) — 4.5 tackles, 14% SR
DE
Marlon Davidson (6’3, 282, So.) — 6.0 tackles, 3 TFL (2 sacks), 1 FF, 29% SR
Nick Coe (6’5, 270, RSFr.) — 5.0 tackles, 1.5 TFL (0.5 sacks), 0% SR
Big Kat Bryant (6’5, 224, Fr.) — 1.5 tackles, 0.5 TFL, 0%
AU head coach Gus Malzahn has been careful with sophomore star Marlon Davidson. He suffered a knee injury in fall camp and sat out the Mercer game to get some extra rest for it. But when he’s played, he’s looked 100 percent. (Meanwhile, the high success rate on his tackles suggests he’s been pretty good at pursuing plays downfield, too.)
Davidson and Holland, the OLB/DE hybrid in Kevin Steele’s defense, have more than lived up to their blue-chip recruiting rankings. For that matter, so have tackles Dontavius Russell and Derrick Brown. Steele has performed far better than most (including I) expected, and a lot of his success has come from getting four- and five-star recruits to play like it.
Perhaps one of the keys to Mizzou’s chances, then, will simply be how close Damarea Crockett is to 100 percent. He was obviously nowhere near it against Purdue. He did well against blue-chip defenders last year, and he’s easily Missouri’s best creator, maybe the one guy who can create something without help from scheme. If he can’t do it, I’m not sure anyone can.
SAM
Darrell Williams (6’2, 244, Jr.) — 10.5 tackles, 2.5 TFL (0.5 sacks), 29% SR
Richard McBryde (6’1, 237, So.)
MIKE
Deshaun Davis (5’11, 246, Jr.) — 7.5 tackles, 1 PBU, 38% SR
K.J. Britt (6’0, 239, Fr.)
WILL
Tre’ Williams (6’2, 225, Sr.) — 19.0 tackles, 2.5 TFLs (2 sacks), 25% SR
Montavious Atkinson (6’1, 218, Jr.) — 6.0 tackles, 3 TFL (2 sacks), 1 FF, 29% SR
Auburn currently ranks ninth in the country in rushing success rate allowed because not only is the blue-chip line living up to its billing, but there’s an experienced, athletic receiving corps behind it making plays. The two Williamses will spend a lot of time at or behind the line of scrimmage, so technically any play that gets past the line could go a decent distance. But this front seven is tough to beat.
That’s a problem because I think the front seven will be easier for Missouri to beat than the secondary.
CB
Javaris Davis (5’10, 186, So.) — 8.0 tackles, 1 TFL, 25% SR
Jamel Dean (6’2, 215, So.) — 6.0 tackles, 1 TFL, 1 PBU, 50% SR
John Broussard Jr. (5’11, 172, So.) — 2.0 tackles, 100% SR
FS
Tray Matthews (6’1, 209, Sr.) — 9.5 tackles, 50% SR
Nick Ruffin (6’0, 202, Sr.) — 2.0 tackles, 33% SR
SS
Stephen Roberts (5’11, 189, Sr.) — 8.5 tackles, 4 TFL, 20% SR
Jason Smith (6’1, 186, Sr.)
CB
Carlton Davis (6’1, 203, Jr.) — 13.0 tackles, 3 PBU, 91% SR
Traivon Leonard (6’0, 191, Fr.)
NB
Daniel Thomas (5’11, 203, So.) — 4.0 tackles, 1 INT, 1 PBU, 60% SR
Jeremiah Dinson (6’0, 186, So.) — 7.5 tackles, 0.5 TFL, 1 PBU, 56% SR
Jordyn Peters (6’1, 185, Fr.) — 2.0 tackles, 33% SR
Here’s where success rate can be revealing: it tells us pretty clearly how close Stephen Roberts tends to be near the line of scrimmage. He’s also taken part in four run stuffs. He’s basically a fourth/fifth linebacker.
Steele can afford to use Roberts like this because his cornerbacks are tremendous. They never left the back pocket of Clemson’s well-seasoned receivers two weeks ago and basically allowed any sort of successful passing on two drives all game.
Clemson asked its receivers to catch lobs in traffic and make tough, short catches while getting hit. It only worked briefly. And to say the least, the Clemson WRs have been in a lot more successful battles than Missouri’s have through the years.
Mizzou clearly has potential in this regard. We’ve seen J’Mon Moore do amazing things before, and Emanuel Hall has long had potential in terms of making catches downfield. The problem is that they are a senior and junior, respectively, and we’re still talking mostly about potential.
After five straight tremendous games dating back to last season, Moore has once again pulled a disappearing act, catching just six of 13 passes for 90 yards in his last two games and having a touchdown pass ripped out of his hands last week (by a member of a Purdue secondary that has far less to offer than Auburn’s).
After Crockett, the most important thing for this Missouri offense is to have Good J’Mon show up. And needless to say, there’s reason to doubt that will happen.
Auburn’s defense basically forces you to beat a man with your man. The Tigers are too fast and physical to be outschemed. Missouri only has a couple of players who have potential to straight-up beat them — one’s hurt, and one’s vanished.
Special Teams
K
Daniel Carlson (6’4, 223, Sr.) — 8-8 PAT, 5-8 FG (4-5 under 40); 16 kickoffs, 14 touchbacks
P
Ian Shannon (6’3, 222, So.) — 11 punts, 39.9 average, 56% success rate (73rd)
KR
Kerryon Johnson (6’0, 212, Jr.)
Javaris Davis (5’10, 186, So.) — 1 KR, 29 yards
Devan Barrett (6’0, 185, Fr.)
Noah Igbinoghene (5’11, 186, Fr.) — 1 KR, 16 yards
PR
Stephen Roberts (5’11, 189, Sr.) — 6 PR, 10.3 average
Ryan Davis (5’9, 175, Jr.) — 1 PR, 16 yards
Daniel Carlson is experienced and steady; it’s all but certain that Mizzou won’t have any kickoffs to return, no matter how many Auburn attempts. But if this becomes a punting battle — if both offenses are struggling to generate consistency — then that favors Mizzou a bit. Ian Shannon is inferior to Corey Fatony, and Auburn’s punt returns have been explosive but inconsistent.
So uh, to summarize: Mizzou has the most high-tempo offense in the country, but the best chance the Tigers have at an upset is to turn the game into a punt fest. Fun.