Mizzou got the win, but questions remain

As Sam and Pete pointed out early this week, it always feels better to walk away with a win. No matter your team — unless you’re someone like Alabama — style points don’t count on Sunday morning. What matter is whether or not you put the W or the L in its respective column.

Mizzou was able to take care of business against Vanderbilt, despite looking pretty rough doing so (for the most part). But while the lessons can be taken with a spoonful of sugar this week, Alex Schiffer at the KC Star points out that Vanderbilt may have found a weakness in Missouri’s armor.

[Linebacker Cale] Garrett said the game was a wake-up call for Missouri because Vanderbilt capitalized on the Tigers’ defensive style. Missouri’s defense tends to attack downhill and sells out to the run when it sees movement in the backfield.

Vaughn anticipated pressure coming from a certain direction and waited for an opening before taking off. Missouri was used to running backs picking a spot and sticking with it.

It definitely felt like Vaughn had Missouri’s number for most of the day, though credit them for making several big stands toward the end of the game when they needed it most. And while Schiffer does point out Tennessee’s preferred style is through the air — which is problematic in its own right — we’re definitely back to a point where it looks like Mizzou will have to outscore a lot of teams.

It feels like Saturday’s game in Knoxville will be more of a dog fight than we originally anticipated. Missouri is the better team, and should walk away with a win if they play a solid game. But we’ve just seen them topple a Top 15 opponent on the road before turning around and almost dropping a home game against a sub-.500 team. There’s still no telling which Mizzou will show up. We can certainly hope it won’t be the team that played Vanderbilt.

Some other football notes:

• Freshman defensive end offensive lineman tight end Daniel Parker Jr. won SEC Freshman of the Week honors for his all-around solid performance filling in for Albert Okwuegbunam.

• Monday is always a good day on PowerMizzou, as they are packed with content on football, football recruiting, Gabe’s Monday thoughts and Q&A and lots of other goodies ($$.)
• Barry Odom’s biggest recruiting target has set his final visit and commitment date:

It’s probably safe to tag Missouri as a long shot in this race, but they’re certainly not out of it after Bryant’s visit apparently went so well. A winning streak showing off those flashy offensive weapons couldn’t hurt.

Mizzou ready for home opener against Missouri State

The Missouri women’s basketball team is 1-0 after an easy first week of the season. The coaches seem to like the breaks between games. The players? Not so much.

“It’s kind of like the first game is a tease, like you get one time to go out there and then you have to wait another week,” [senior Lauren] Aldridge said. “Maybe it was good for us to have a week to get the fundamentals shored up, watch some film from Western Illinois and figure out what we need to improve. ... Maybe we don’t like it necessarily, but I’m sure the coaches love it.”

The team will have their home opener tonight against Missouri State at Mizzou Arena. Go support your Tigers as they look to keep a strong start to the season.

In case the opportunity to watch Sophie Cunningham in her senior season wasn’t enough to draw you, you can also go for the freshmen impact players like Akira Levy and Grace Berg. Levy was the focus of an ABC 17 story this week.

Yesterday at Rock M

• Missouri-Vanderbilt snap counts: Tigers have fun with the power run
• The Watch: Mid-majors rise up, and a national title rematch looms

More Links:

• CBS Sports has a familiar name atop its Stock List for 2019 quarterbacks.
• In case you’re following the saga of Tua Tagovailoa and Alabama, Nick Saban says he’ll play this week against The Citadel. Also, does Alabama play them every year, or is it just me?
• Here’s a fun piece from SB Nation about this wild and crazy year in college football, and if you think it’s boring (the year, not the story) then, well actually you’re the boring one!
• A student reporter at KOMU detailed how a few former Mizzou athletes are trying to connect people in their community to make storage a little easier (because there’s obviously never enough of it.)
• Finally, here’s a few eye-catching photos of campus covered in snow: