All season long, we’ve seen Tyler Badie behind this offensive line gash teams on what really amounts to a few plays. Outside Zone, Inside Power Read and Inside Zone. There’s not really anything too fancy about it, but it’s what Missouri does best. Although it’s not flashy, it’s been effective. Those three concepts alone account for close to 1/3rd of Missouri’s total yardage on the year.

Against South Carolina, though, they really hammered the Gamecocks when running their power read series. That was their bread and butter and their most successful play on the day. They ran it 11 times with a success rate of just under 73%.

I want to look at a few examples of how impressive some of those runs were and how timely they were as well.

Inside Power Read

Here are a couple examples of the power read that Missouri ran against South Carolina. Notice how they can run this out of different formations and attach motions to it as well.

What makes this work so well is a combination of blockers getting to the right spot at the right time and a running back with the vision and agility to hit cutback lanes and create more yards than what are actually blocked.

When the going got tough…

This final drive reminded me a lot of the Vanderbilt game in a way. Here Missouri is, with the ball in hand and and a game that is closer than it should be, needing to get a few first downs to kill the clock and win the game.

Everybody knows who the ball is going to, and Missouri has run this same power read multiple times to this point, but it simply does not matter. Unlike the two examples above, this time the left side is pulling over, but each does just enough to occupy their man for Badie to find the hole burst through. Mind you, this is with a myriad of backups along the offensive line.

Conclusion

THIS is who the 2021 Missouri Tigers are at their best. They’re a smash mouth football team, who runs the ball and tries to get downhill with their best player. They use misdirection and movement to confuse the defense and isolate individual players, and they pepper in a few downfield shots to keep the defense honest. If Missouri can play to their strengths and limit mistakes on offense, they can really put themselves in a good position to finish this year strong, and get into a bowl game.

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