Will Mizzou unveil its ‘best ball’ in rivalry game against K-State?

By Eli Hoff Special to the Post-Dispatch

COLUMBIA, Mo. — The early portion of each college football season is a seminar on the art of extrapolation. It’s less about comparing apples to oranges and more about comparing two apples that handily beat regional, smaller oranges. It’s a coefficient-guessing exercise over how stats translate to tougher opponents, an estimation challenge over how much coaches are flashing the contents of their playbooks.

True to that pattern, Missouri’s first two games of the 2023 season have raised plenty of questions and hypotheticals.

Can the offense actually generate more explosive plays? Can the defense actually generate more turnovers? Will coaches return to an aggressive play-calling approach or dictate a more conservative approach? What does an all-out, ceiling-level performance look like?

For better or for worse, encouraging or discouraging, answers to those questions will arrive over the course of Saturday’s game against No. 15 Kansas State.

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The 2-0 Wildcats, fresh off a Big 12-winning season, have been the target opponent for Mizzou’s early-season extrapolation. Drumming through the Tigers’ wins over South Dakota and Middle Tennessee State has been a steady rhythm of “will it work against K-State” ponderings.

Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz is well aware of the test he and his team will face at 11 a.m. with the backdrop of the first Faurot Field sellout since 2019.

“Any time you’re taking on a defending conference champion and a team that’s ranked in the top 20,” he said this week, “you’re going to have to play your best ball.”

The Tigers have yet to demonstrate what their best ball looks like. South Dakota, a Football Championship Subdivision program, is no real basis for analysis, particularly because Drinkwitz was still entertaining the idea of a quarterback competition through that game. The late-game chaos and conservative play-calling against Middle Tennessee don’t fit the conventional definition of best ball.

Drinkwitz has suggested a schematic shift will be coming this weekend. He expressed frustration with play-calling splits after new coordinator Kirby Moore’s offense ran the ball 46 times and passed just 19 times against Middle Tennessee.

Regardless of how Drinkwitz wants his team to play in the long term, a shift away from the run likely will be necessary against Kansas State. Like Mizzou, the Wildcats have played an FCS team and a smaller program.

Through those two games, K-State has the nation’s best run defense, having allowed a meager 76 yards on the ground so far. The Tigers are ranked No. 7 in the country in rush yardage allowed.

While Mizzou is in the middle of the national pack as far as rushing offense is concerned, K-State sits at No. 46.

Whether the Tigers’ run defense can remain sound, then, is a key to Saturday’s game.

“We’re gonna have to do a better job than we did last year defending the run,” Drinkwitz said. “We put our defense in a lot of bad situations in last year’s game, but we gotta limit the explosive plays in the run game.”

The coach is referring to last year’s Mizzou-Kansas State clash in Manhattan, Kansas, which the Wildcats won 40-12. In that game, K-State ran for 235 yards and an average of 5.5 yards per rush.

Three Kansas State rushing touchdowns — from 16, 24 and 28 yards out — punctuated the lopsided result.

“We gotta stop the run,” graduate linebacker Chuck Hicks said. “We can’t let them get no explosive plays. That’s it.”

The Wildcats have turned over a handful of key players from last year’s game, meaning the Tigers will see a different quarterback, backfield and defensive threats.

Saturday’s game between former Big 12 rivals separated by three-and-a-half hours of Interstate 70 will bring its own intensity, regardless of national rankings or chances to raise ceilings.

“I don’t think there’s anything better than college football regional rivalries and fan bases that share a city, that have bragging rights,” Drinkwitz said.

“You’re talking about guys who grew up watching both teams and I think it means a lot,” he added. “There’ll be the water cooler conversation. There’ll be the people this summer flying their flags at the lakes and talking trash.”

Even without any talk of wearing hats and sunglasses in interviews, the game is likely to have an edge to it.

“We feel like it’s a rivalry,” K-State linebacker Daniel Green told reporters this week. “And we are taking it real personal this week.”

Mizzou football coach Eli Drinkwitz on Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023, gives an overview of Kansas State and how his team is preparing to play. Video by Mizzou Network, used with permission of Mizzou Athletics; edited by Beth O’Malley

Beth O’Malley

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