A Look to the Past May Help Solve Current Mizzou Football Woes

The similarities between the 2023 and 2024 Missouri Football team are beginning to stack up. The Tigers need to look back to last season for answers.

Sep 21, 2024; Columbia, Missouri, USA; Missouri Tigers fans react after a punt during the second half against the Vanderbilt Commodores at Faurot Field at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images / Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images

Fans broke the barrier between the stands and the field, storming onto the field to support the then unranked Missouri Tigers who just earned a last-second win over No. 15 Kansas State. A field goal had just decided their fate in what would become a turning point for the entire season. 

Before the SEC record-breaking 62-yard field goal from Harrison Mevis, fans had booed quarterback Brady Cook when his name was announced in the pregame starting lineup. 

Just the week before that, the Tigers’ matchup with Middle Tennessee State ended far closer than it should have for the three-touchdown favorites. Missouri still took a 23-19 win in Week 2 over Middle Tennessee, but it had left fans worried about the rest of the season. When the Week 3 game against K-State started to look like it might be their first loss of the season, fans began to worry. But, Missouri walked away with yet another narrow win.

“Last year, there were games where we just had to find a way to win,” Missouri quarterback Brady Cook said while reflecting on 2023. “Middle Tennessee, Memphis was a close game, and all those games, four-quarter games, we just found a way, I think that's important.”

History may have begun to repeat itself. The Tigers’ season is just a few weeks in but the offense has again been booed at times, they had back-to-back wins that were far closer than expected and fans are beginning to worry.

“I don't think (comparing the Vanderbilt game to the Middle Tennessee game is) too far off,” Cook said after the 2024 win over Vanderbilt. “Everybody knows we can be a lot better. We need to put ourselves in better situations. At the end of the day, we just need to execute the game plan and score more points.” 

Head coach Eli Drinkwitz has insisted that the 2024 team is not the same team as 2023, however. It will be up to the ‘new’ Missouri Tigers to determine the outcome this time around. 

"This is a new thing,” Drinkwitz said. “This is a new team. We've got 46 new players, we've got new guys on the defensive staff and we don't want to be compared to last year. We want to be compared to this year. We want to be our team, this team."

Despite winning over Vanderbilt the Tigers were not satisfied and were quite critical of themselves. They expressed the desire and need to perform better. If Missouri had a similarly underwhelming performance early on in 2023, concern around the team would’ve grown wider. The win over Kansas State was a much-needed, galvanizing moment for the team.

“We are held to a different standard,” Cook said after the 2024 win over Vanderbilt. “Our standards are higher. We expect more. I expect more. That's just kind of where we're at. We are not settling for anything this year.”

In the 2023 preseason polls, the Tigers were tagged with the expectation of finishing 13th in the SEC. They jumped half the conference for the 2024 season and were predicted to place 6th this season. The 2024 Missouri Tigers team is being taxed with these higher expectations.  

“When we're not playing to that standard that we have set, that we all agreed upon, that we know we can play to,” Cook said,“It's a little disappointing.”

Production hasn’t really been the issue in the last couple games. The Tigers have been able to get the ball down the field, but they haven’t been able to do much when they are in the position to score. They have had far too many drives end in field goal attempts. 

"We gotta go take a hard look at the Missouri Tigers," Drinkwitz said of Missouri's plan during the bye week. "We’ve got to figure out why we're not executing the third downs in the red area, why we're not kicking field goals, why we're missing tackles, why we're busting assignments.”

The bye week came at the perfect time for Missouri to turn the mirror to themselves and reflect on the changes they need to make as they descend farther into SEC play and face more difficult teams. 

"It's really important for our team to understand the accountability that they need for improvement this week," Drinkwitz said. "We can't be satisfied with where we're at in really any phase of the game."

They will need a jump start similar to the one they saw following the walk-off field goal from last season. Missouri and its fans can hope that this near loss to an unranked team serves as an awakening for the offense. The pressure is on for them to be better and live up to the expectations set forth.

“I feel like we have to get back to our fundamentals and just do the simple things right,” running back Nate Noel said. “Just go back to the drawing board, see where you messed up, and just fix those in practice. I don't think it's really too many big errors, but definitely detailed mistakes.”

Read more Missouri Tigers news:

'It's Not Good Enough': Cook-led Offense Struggles in Vanderbilt Win

Why the Mizzou Offense Will Improve After Early Struggles

Most Telling Statistics for Mizzou's 2024 Season Up to Week 4