Mizzou was who they needed to be for nine minutes

It was a blowout, just like we expected, which really is a good thing.

By Sam Snelling@SamTSnelling Sep 15, 2019, 5:00am CDT

NCAA Football: SE Missouri State at Missouri

The first nine minutes of the game is all Missouri needed to began preparing for next week’s game against South Carolina.

Southeast Missouri State came in overmatched, and still elected to defer the opening kick to the Tigers, which ultimately proved to be a poor decision. Maybe they were as interested in getting this game over with as most Missouri fans were. Here’s how those nine minutes went:

MIZZ: 7 plays, 75 yards, Larry Rountree III TD — 7 - 0
SEMO: 3 plays, -6 yards, Cale Garrett INT returned for TD — 13 - 0
SEMO: 3 plays, 0 yards, PUNT
MIZZ: 3 plays, 60 yards, Albert Okwuegbunam TD — 20 - 0
SEMO: 5 plays, 8 yards, Richaud Floyd PUNT returned for TD — 27 - 0

Nine Minutes into the game, Mizzou was up 27-0.

At that point it was time for SEMO to tap out and call it a game. They stuck around and fought a little, but the only thing that kept the game interesting was Missouri’s penchant for penalties, which seemed to extend more drives than SEMO’s offensive play-calling did. And sure enough, Dave Matter had the stat:

Missouri penalty yards: 79
SEMO rushing yards: 40
SEMO passing yards: 54
— Dave Matter (@Dave_Matter) September 15, 2019

I’m honestly not sure what you expect to take away from this game... I honestly hate the annual FCS game at Missouri. Under Barry Odom, the Tigers have scored an average of 63 points against their FCS competition and only given up 14.25 points. Considering one of those was a 43-point letdown to Missouri State, you can see this exercise is mostly a waste of time.

I get the reasoning for playing these games, and I see the benefit for the FCS schools— it’s a nice check you get to cash, which pays for a lot of things. But overall, the games are largely uninteresting.

Don’t get me wrong, I love watching blowouts. I love blowing out Tennessee and Florida; even West Virginia was cathartic. At some point, I start to feel bad for the Southeast Missouri States or the Delaware States of the world. Missouri isn’t the only program with the FCS plan; in fact, LSU beat the pants off Northwestern State in their game on Saturday night. At this point it feels unavoidable, and at least for today the game is over with and out of the way. And Missouri is healthy and ready to take on South Carolina.

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