POLL! What’s the biggest key to a victory over South Carolina?

Happy game day, Tiger fans! With the bye week officially over, we won’t have to endure a Saturday without football for a while. Let’s celebrate by looking at social media, shall we?

For our weekly Thursday poll, we asked y’all about the game against South Carolina. Namely, what’s the biggest thing Mizzou can do to walk away with a win? Now, usually y’all are pretty harmonious with each other, sending us off with a runaway winner.

But this time? This time, you couldn’t agree.

That, friends, is a close race. Of course, we didn’t know before running the poll that Bentley would likely not start, so that option may have received even more votes. But, ultimately, the offense wins out, with a top-tier performance from Drew Lock (and a return to health for Emanuel Hall) marked as the biggest keys to victory.

Of course, as is befitting a tight group, not everyone agreed with the results.

There are some good points here. Lock didn’t perform all that poorly against one of the country’s better defenses, and he was certainly hampered by not having his number one target at top speed.

But is that the only reason Lock struggled against Georgia. David had an enlightening piece this week centering around Lock’s split numbers against all different types of competition. None of it is to say Lock hasn’t improved and isn’t currently the best version of himself. But there’s also no denying that Lock hasn’t been his best self against the best competition so far in his career. A big performance against the Gamecocks could certainly change that, though.

Don’t remind me.

Having been at that game, let me tell you: it was deflating.

We’re about to find out, aren’t we? With Bentley seemingly too hurt to start, South Carolina will have to rely on its run a little more. That is, unless Michael Scarnecchia discovers his inner David Blough.

Luckily, Missouri’s run defense has been pretty stout this year. So that’s probably something Coach Walters would welcome.

This guy’s got the right idea.

So tell us what you think while there’s still time. What’s the biggest key to victory over South Carolina?