Mizzou’s offense can achieve history on Saturday

Did you know Mizzou’s offense is approaching historic levels of ineptitude?

I know it’s felt that way for the last month. But now we have numbers to prove it! Yay for research!

Mizzou has failed to score more than 14 points in 4-straight games. If the Tigers fail to score more than 14 points again on Saturday, it will be the first time since 1989 that the Tigers have failed to do so in 5-straight games.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Pinkel’s teams never did this. Larry Smith never did this. Bob Stull’s teams did it once - in 1989 - his first year after he took over Woody’s Wagon.

Speaking of Woody Widenhofer, his teams won a combined 12 games in his four seasons as the head coach at Missouri. Never once did his program have a stretch of 5-straight games scoring 14 points or less.

This is a new level of bad for MU’s offense. And it’s so disheartening.

I continue referencing the 2015 season because it’s the only time in recent memory Missouri’s gone through this kind of extended offensive futility. That 2015 team failed to score more than 14 points in eight of its 12 games. But they found a way to put an end to those streaks before they got this long.

That 2015 offense scored 24 points against South Carolina in Drew Lock’s first career start, and they scored 20 points against BYU in the last hurrah for Gary Pinkel after he announced 2015 would be his final year as Missouri’s head coach.

That offense found a way to scratch together performances that showed signs of life. It’s well past time for this team to do the same.

Mizzou’s offense doesn’t lack talent. We’ve seen what it looks like when they’re clicking. Sure, Kelly Bryant has struggled of late. But he’s not as bad as he’s shown in recent weeks.

Larry Rountree III and Tyler Badie have formed a formidable duo in the backfield in the past. We’ve seen flashes from Jalen Knox and Kam Scott. Johnathon Johnson is sixth all-time in receiving yards at Missouri. Albert Okwuegbunam was supposed to be an All-SEC tight end. This offensive line was supposed to be among the best in the conference.

This is the same offensive personnel that scored at least 31 points in each of the first six games of the season. They’ve scored a combined 27 points over the last four games.

It doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense.

This shouldn’t be an offense that’s mentioned with the likes of 2015. It shouldn’t be in the same conversation with Bob Stull’s 1989 team that finished the season 2-9 with the 97th ranked offense in the country (out of 106 teams). But that’s the company they’ll keep if they fail to score more than 14 points.

Again.

For the fifth straight week.

At this point I’m not asking for much from this offense. I’m just asking them not to do something that no other Mizzou offense has done in the last 30 years.