Mizzou Football Uses Second Bye Week to Bounce Back and Refocus

For the second time, Missouri's bye week could not have come at a better time for a Tigers squad searching for answers.

Sep 7, 2024; Columbia, Missouri, USA; Missouri Tigers defensive tackle Chris McClellan (7) celebrates with defensive tackle Kristian Williams (5) after a play against the Buffalo Bulls during the game at Faurot Field at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-Imagn Images / Denny Medley-Imagn Images

As the No. 24 Missouri Tigers approach its matchup with the Oklahoma Sooners, they have a week of rest under its belt after a much-needed bye week.

That bye week came at an important time, following its demoralizing loss on the road against the Alabama Crimson Tide. Everything in the second half of that game went wrong, leaving the Tigers searching and giving them plenty to learn from. Head coach Eli Drinkwitz was at the helm of the loss and the helm of the Tigers bye week, which appears to have gone well.

“I thought our team had an excellent bye week,” Drinkwitz said. “Accomplish the things that we wanted to accomplish, not only working on ourselves, in finding areas that we can improve but also working on upcoming opponents.”

Both sides of the ball struggled against Alabama, to an extent. Offensively, there was never any rhythm, regardless of who was in at the quarterback spot. Brady Cook struggled in his limited time in the first half, as did Drew Pyne for the remainder of the game. The Tiger's slow start on offense set them back from the get-go, making it hard to claw back into the game regardless of how the defense played.

“I think for us, just starting fast and scoring touchdowns in the red zone is because most SEC games come down to one score,” wide receiver Theo Wease said. “So those raise our opportunities.”

Slow starts have been an issue all season for the Tigers on offense and mastering how to get points on the board early could fix some of the problems on the offensive side of the ball. What needs to be done, however, to fix those issues remains to be determined.

On defense, Alabama exposed the unit in the second half. Maybe they were tired or maybe just demoralized, but the Tigers allowed the majority of the points scored in that game in the second half. Quarterback Jalen Milroe began to run wherever he wanted, as did the running back duo of Jam Miller and Justice Haynes. Senior defensive tackle and captain Kristian Williams attributed the errors to communication and misspeaking, not necessarily the play of the defense as a whole.

“All of our mistakes came from communication areas, just trying to overemphasize and vocalize more, be louder with what we say and then read what we see and take it even better,” Williams said.

The mentality of the Tigers is unique coming off its second bye week, as well. For Williams, the Tiger defense and the rest of the tea, shifting the focus to what is going on in the present and not the team they play next is important. Building off previous errors also falls into that category.

“Just not so much looking forward to the next opponent, but just trying to capitalize on what we did,” Williams said. 

With the bye week, the Tigers also got time to do extra scouting. The extra scouting not only allows the coaching staff to acknowledge what they need to improve on based on prior games, but also looking ahead to the Sooners.

“We self-scout every Sunday night, but this one was able for us to get a little bit more in-depth on both sides of the ball and it identified some patterns and people attacking us or us being attacked and on both sides of the ball,” Drinkwitz said.

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