GatewayRedbirds.com

But worst of all, on the biggest play of the night when the Mizzou defense just had to hold, somehow the most dangerous man on the football field — Syracuse receiver Alec Lemon — was galloping into the end zone for the game-winning score with 20 seconds to go.

And I want you to understand one crazy inexplicable thing about this play.

Lemon was wide open.

I mean WIIIIIIIIIIDE OPEN. Undetected, untouched and cruising into the end zone with no Missouri defender within 10 yards of him.

How does a receiver who already had caught 11 passes for over 200 yards end up THAT wide open?

“It was a mix-up in coverage,” cornerback E.J. Gaines said. “Some of us were in man (coverage). Some of us were in zone.”

So which coverage should you have been in, he was asked.

“Well I’m not really sure to be honest, still.”

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/ ... e66d6.html


That is a problem. A coaching problem.

Lots of nm messages there (nm).

@Dave_Matter: Pinkel: If Missouri's 2007 team had the injuries this team has had, it would've won 7 or 8 games instead of 12

In early August, Mizzou had a pretty clear top 6 offensive linemen that would shake out positionally in some combination based on performance. Of the 66 potential games those 6 could have played in, they have received about half of that. Also, their returning starter at QB has either been out with injury or slightly hampered with injury for the majority of the season. Making Mizzou's season a referendum on their coaching or their place in the conference is silly. There isn't a team in the country that can withstand literally losing half their offensive line and then their QB for a huge chunk of the season and still expect to excel. It simply doesn't happen.

Transmogrified Tiger wrote:

@Dave_Matter: Pinkel: If Missouri's 2007 team had the injuries this team has had, it would've won 7 or 8 games instead of 12

In early August, Mizzou had a pretty clear top 6 offensive linemen that would shake out positionally in some combination based on performance. Of the 66 potential games those 6 could have played in, they have received about half of that. Also, their returning starter at QB has either been out with injury or slightly hampered with injury for the majority of the season. Making Mizzou's season a referendum on their coaching or their place in the conference is silly. There isn't a team in the country that can withstand literally losing half their offensive line and then their QB for a huge chunk of the season and still expect to excel. It simply doesn't happen.

You simply can't expect undersized linemen that are going to be overmatched time and again to stay healthy for an entire season. Hell you can't expect linemen to stay healthy anyway.

Again, going back to the 2007 season, I wonder how many games that team would have won if it had to match up against bigger lines, like oklahoma's or nebraska's, every week. It's always been their achilles under Pinkel and now it's going to be exposed worse than ever.

I really like Pinkel; I think we'd get along great and he seems like a genuine person. He shouldn't be coaching Mizzou going forward though. And, if he is still the coach, I very much hope he makes adjustments and gets some depth for his linemen as well as get a few bigger ones.

Size had nothing at all to do with a dropped punt in the end zone against Vanderbilt or a flurry of bad snaps, including one that cost them an extra point in that same game. Size had nothing to do with the awful coverage at the end of the Syracuse game. Size sure didn't hurt them when they moved the ball down the field against Florida as well as anyone in the SEC not named Tennessee. Nor did size prevent them from putting up 51 points against Tennessee, who has two mammoth DL's, one that will surely be playing on Sundays.

Pointing to OL size as the reason that this season went south is like looking at the Titanic and blaming the quality of the food they were serving.

I don't think you understand just how much of an anomaly the volume of OL injuries they've had this year really is. Some injuries are to be expected. Not this many. Not even close, undersized or otherwise. And a lot of those injuries have happened during the week, in practice. Not in game time against other teams.

JL21 wrote:Size had nothing at all to do with a dropped punt in the end zone against Vanderbilt or a flurry of bad snaps, including one that cost them an extra point in that same game. Size had nothing to do with the awful coverage at the end of the Syracuse game. Size sure didn't hurt them when they moved the ball down the field against Florida as well as anyone in the SEC not named Tennessee. Nor did size prevent them from putting up 51 points against Tennessee, who has two mammoth DL's, one that will surely be playing on Sundays.

Pointing to OL size as the reason that this season went south is like looking at the Titanic and blaming the quality of the food they were serving.

I don't think you understand just how much of an anomaly the volume of OL injuries they've had this year really is. Some injuries are to be expected. Not this many. Not even close, undersized or otherwise. And a lot of those injuries have happened during the week, in practice. Not in game time against other teams.

Yeah, I'd blame the season going south more on the system and the architect than the performance of players and the injuries. Hypothetically speaking, let's say no one was hurt and every player on Mizzou stayed healthy all season long. What is their record then? 7-4? 8-3? Lose to aTm and they'd be 8-4 at the end of the year? So, living in a dream world, where everything breaks Mizzou's way in a season with a team returning the majority of its talent from the year before, they're 8-4. Color me unimpressed.

I guess this is up for debate, but will next years team even be as good talent wise as this years? Richardson is gone. Franklin's been so bad this season that there are hopes Mauk can replace him. So, people are hoping for a first year QB....Moe gone.....etc

And, more to your points, they put up 28 against a lost TN team during the regular game and 23 in OT....so, it's kind of disingenuous to say it they way you did. Hell Vandy just put up 41 against them in 4 quarters. They didn't exactly light up Florida either although you'd have to say that was their best game of the season. And, again, yeah, it's not so much the size as the style of play. They try to execute a finesse filled, timing based, precise offensive attack against defenses that are capable of lining up, punching them in the mouth and by doing so throw a wrench into the timing and precision. It's just not going to work, imho. Hope I'm wrong.

How much of this season did you even watch? It's like you have some pre-set narrative and you're trying to cram it into a space where it clearly doesn't fit.

JL21 wrote:How much of this season did you even watch? It's like you have some pre-set narrative and you're trying to cram it into a space where it clearly doesn't fit.

? I've watched pretty much every game. It clearly fits. And, fwiw, it's not a pre-set narrative, I don't think anyone was as high on Mizzou as I was coming into the year because I thought their style would work. It didn't when it mattered most. I think we both agree on that. The difference is you blame the injuries and I blame the gameplan...

I blame execution just as much, although part of that was caused by playing inexperienced- but plenty talented- players before they were ready, due to injuries.

The game plan didn't drop punts in the end zone, the game plan didn't mess up a billion snaps, the game plan didn't fail to block, the game plan didn't call for a woefully inexperienced QB to play half the season and a gimpy-as-hell QB to play the other half.

And I'll concede that plenty of that is a coaching issue. But Pinkel has more than earned the right to not get fired for one bad year. Poor execution hasn't been an issue throughout his run here.

If Franklin plays all of the Vandy and Syracuse games, I have no doubts at all that they're 7-4 right now, even despite the injuries, even despite returning only 13 starters from last year's team, even despite executing like crap. Going 7-4 (with a likely loss to A&M) in the SEC, in a year where everything goes wrong, would have been quite an accomplishment. We wouldn't even be having this conversation.