| 13 September 2009
So that was pretty close, huh? Fortunately, Blaine Gabbert’s stomach held up a lot better than mine did once the game got tight. I’d rather not go into details about what I mean by that…Anyways, a lot to get to. Anytime you need a major late second half rally to beat Bowling Green at home there are going to be some areas of concern. But there were actually some things to like in this one, too.
- First off, the biggest reason the offense sputtered was definitely the offensive line. I’m not sure why but the offensive line, which I thought would be this team’s biggest strength, played poorly through the first 6 and 2/3 quarters of this season. The running game never got going against Illinois (although the pass protection was decent) and it took until the third quarter to get D-Wash and Kendial Lawrence going against Bowling Green. And the pass protection last night was awful in the first half. But honestly, I thought after Blaine Gabbert got knocked down a couple of times he started panicking at the first sign of a pass rush. You saw him really start shuffling his feet before he actually had to. Lets hope that’s not a consistent problem. As we saw with Chase Daniel, you can be an amazing quarterback and win a lot of big games but if you can’t handle a solid pass rush it’s going to be very difficult to compete with the Texases and OUs of the college football world. My guess is that the O-line issues sort themselves out once they develop a little more quickly. It’s obviously not an issue with talent because these guys are pretty proven. The concern is whether they’ll have them worked out by the time Nebraska comes to town in a few weeks.
- Major props are due to OC David Yost for sticking with the running game. Big Head predicted in last week’s podcast that D-Wash would break out in this game since the Falcons are dealing with basically an all-new front seven. And he eventually did, it just took him a little longer than we had hoped. With the Tigers down 20-6 it was probably tempting to abandon the run and air it out to try to get back in the game, but Yost was persistent and kept getting D-Wash and K-Law their carries and it eventually paid off big time.
- And how about Kendial Lawrence? I know the guys over at Rock M have had a man-crush on this kid for a while now and I’m joining the club. Seven yards per carry? Yes please! And he had one giant touchdown run called back on a holding penalty. I’d say we know who D-Wash’s heir apparent is going to be. And while we’re at it, I’m going to go ahead and say with D-Wash, K-Law and De’Vion Moore, Missouri has its most talented backfield at least in my lifetime (22 years).
- We touched on Gabbert a bit but he really struggled early on. Looked very similar to Chase against Okie State last year. His struggles culminated when he forced that throw in the end zone to a double-covered Wes Kemp when Jerrell Jackson was wide open just a few feet in front of Kemp. From Jackson’s reaction he was none to pleased with getting overlooked.
- But a major plus is that even though Blaine struggled, he didn’t turn the ball over. (Although if he makes many more throws like that one to Kemp then he eventually will have plenty of INTs on his statline.) I hate to keep comparing him to Chase but it’s going to happen so I might as well get over it, but at least to this point it looks like he doesn’t force things (or Farve it, as I like to say) quite as much as Chase. He knows when to just throw the ball away. That could end up leading to less big plays but at least for now it looks like a positive attribute. Bottom line, credit the kid for some ballsy forth quarter play. That game-tying touchdown pass to Kemp on the option pass was perfectly executed by everyone from the coaches to Blaine to Wes to the O-line, ect.
- In my opinion the Tiger that has been the most impressive this year has been my boy Aldon Smith. Dude is all over the place. Even when he doesn’t get to the quarterback he makes the guy blocking him work his ass of. I’ll make the early comparison to Jevon Kearse. Their measurables are very comparable. Smith: 6-5 255 lbs. Kearse: 6-4 265 lbs. And he plays with that same freakish athletic ability that Kearse played with early in his career. I’m gonna make another fearless prediction here, if Agent Smith stays all four years and stays relatively healthy he ends up as Mizzou’s all-time sacks leader. Count it.
- Kicking game was damn good once again. Jake Harry IV booted a sick 69-yard (heh, 69) boot and Grant Ressel was incredibly solid. I’m not saying another word about Ressel because I don’t want to jinx this thing.
- Shakespeare’s Pizza Playa of the Game: Derrick Washington. Nine carries for 42 yards and the go-ahead touchdown in the forth quarter. Finishes with 23 carries for 120. Go grab a slice. I recommend the Canadian bacon and pineapple.
- As I wrote about last week, I always love evaluating the team’s pre-game intro video and I was kinda disappointed with what I saw on Saturday. Sounded like they used the Terminator 2 theme music, which I’m cool with. But the highlights were pretty simple. If you cut some decent highlights and throw in some cool pump-up music then you’re going to have a solid video that gets the fans jacked. And this one does the trick but it’s pretty status quo. I was hoping for more. Overall, I was pretty pleased with the new big screen and sound system. Music definitely sounds louder on that thing and the picture didn’t just blow me away it’s still a major step up from what we’ve had in the past.
- Furman next week. Hopefully, this week serves as a bit of a wake-up call and we don’t need 59 minutes to put away the Paladins. By the way, what the fuck is a Paladin?
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