| 15 November 2009
Big bounceback victory for the Tigers on Saturday. Say what you will about Gary Pinkel and his coaching staff, but Mizzou always seems to respond after seemingly hitting rock bottom. (See the victories over Colorado in ’08, Texas Tech in ’07 and kU in ’06.) It’s hard to overvalue how critical it is for a coach to be able to keep his team from falling apart after a disheartening loss.
I had to follow most of the game on my Blackberry so I didn’t get a great feel for what went down but here are my impressions after reading over the box score and several of the game stories:
-Not sure what more I can say about Danario Alexander. I’ve read multiple reporters compare him to Randy Moss and that’s not that crazy if you’ve seen some of the plays he’s made. I wrote during the Nevada game that it looked like ‘Nario might be making The Leap and he’s obviously made it. He’s the receiver we always wanted him to become.
To get an idea just how good he’s been check out his numbers from the last three games: 31 receptions, 537 yards and seven touchdowns. That’s a pretty decent season. And not that it really needs to be said, but Danario Alexander >>> Dez Briscoe. I’m just sayin’.
-On that same note, how stupid does it make the NCAA look when Danario can’t even be considered for the Bilentnikoff even though three of the 10 finalists aren’t even playing football right now? Who seriously thought it was a good idea to narrow down the finalists three games into the conference season? There is something you can do about this, though. You can either call or e-mail Steve Winn who is listed as the contact for information regarding the award. Here’s his info: 850-878-3056, e-mail: winnsr@earthlink.net.
-I’m seeing a lot of comparisons between ‘Nario and J-Mac and I think it’s interesting. If we’re talking about who is the more dangerous pass catcher then the edge goes to Alexander. If you were building a WR from scratch you would give him ‘Nario’s body and skills. That said, Maclin was a more valuable weapon. You may not be able to stop Danario but you at least know what to expect. That wasn’t the case with Maclin.
-All of a sudden Blaine Gabbert looks like he’s the best underclassman QB in the Big 12 (something we’ve maintained that he is all season long). Actually, forget best underclassmen QBs, he’s one of the top quarterbacks in the conference this year. Yeah, I went there. He’s got more TD passes than Colt McCoy, Fraud Reesing and Zac Robinson so it’s not at all a stretch to say that. But remember what this column told us, Blaine’s not anything like his predecessors.
-Like I said, I didn’t get to watch the game so I really have no idea how effective the rushing attack was but the numbers look good. I’ll just leave it at that. -Looked like a solid performance by the defense. Dominant against the run and solid against the pass. Hopefully that means the secondary made some major strides last week in practice.
-Only downside of the weekend was getting knocked out of the North race. I think my buddy Max said it best: “Two things you can’t do: count on kansas, and put yourself in position to have to count on kansas.” That pretty much sums it up.
(Side note: Nebraska winning the North actually puts Mizzou in a position to go to a better bowl. So are you cheering for the Nubs or are you OK with going to a slightly better bowl if it means not having to listen to that Husker "RETURN TO GLORY!!!!!!11!!!!!" bullshit for the next seven months?)
But really, I’m not that upset about it. It would have taken a massive collapse by the Longhorns to give Mizzou a real chance. I’m all for maintaining division supremacy but this season really stopped being primarily about winning the North a while ago. It’s about keeping things moving in a positive direction and setting things up so the Tigers can really compete for a Big 12 title the next two years when they’ll have much more experience.
And winning these two remaining regular season games would do just that.
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