Taking stock of Tigers: Let’s assess Mizzou football through season’s 1st third

The Missouri Tigers are coming off the open date in their 2024 college football schedule — commonly referred to as the bye week — with a game against Texas A&M looming Saturday in College Station, Texas.

Before Mizzou takes its next snap, now is a good time to assess what we’ve seen so for from coach Eli Drinkwitz’s Tigers. For the record, the Aggies opened as a 3-point favorite in the early betting odds.

Bringing back the deep ball

Missouri’s offense has had a slower-than-expected start to the 2024 season, and its biggest challenge awaits Saturday against a ranked team of Aggies.

After running back Cody Schrader’s departure to the NFL, it was hard to imagine how Drinkwitz would replace Schrader’s productivity. But the running-back-by-committee approach, highlighted by Nate Noel, has been the offense’s greatest weapon this season. Missouri has 160 carries for 826 yards so far this season, with Noel leading the team with 69 rushes for 441 yards, ranking No. 3 heading into Saturday’s action for the most rushing yards accumulated in the Southeastern Conference.

“Nate Noel has been as productive at this point in the season as Cody Schrader was last year, and I’m shocked by that,” Brandon Kiley of 101 ESPN St. Louis said. “I didn’t see it coming. ... So far, not only have they acquitted themselves well, (but) in some ways, the running game is actually better overall this year than it was last season because you have more options beyond just the one guy.”

The deep balls that can lead to explosive plays by the Tigers’ talented receiving corps are missing in action thus far. Quarterback Brady Cook has seemed off, something that has shown through the team’s narrow, double-overtime home victory over Vanderbilt and win against then-ranked opponent Boston College.

But Cook, who has a history of being criticized by the Missouri fan base, seems to look fine when you look at the stats. Entering Saturday, he ranked No. 5 among SEC quarterbacks in passing yards, completing 92 of 134 attempts for 946 yards. In fact, Missouri’s offense has statistically performed better than it did to this point in 2023.

Four games into the 2024 season (compared to four games into the 2023 season), the Tigers have scored 146 points (122), amassed 1,889 total yards (1,735), thrown for 1,063 (1,127) and rushed for 826 (608).

“I think it’s hard for a lot of fans, I suppose I get this to a degree, to change their perspective on what is required to have a special caliber of season,” Kiley said. “Because now the baseline is, can you get to a College Football Playoff that used to require being top four in the country?

“Now it’s top 12, and if you go over time and look at the teams that finished in the top 12, there’s a lot of Brady Cooks that were quarterbacking those teams, and I believe that Brady Cook is going to be just fine by the end of the year. ... They’re certainly not going to make the change at quarterback, so it’s kind of wasted breath to suggest that they should.”

Defense remains dominant through changes

Some doubted MU’s ability to produce a defensive unit as good as the one the Tigers had in 2023. Through a third of the 2024 season, many of those doubts have been answered.

Missouri finds itself ranked 12th in the nation entering Week 5 in opposing points per game. The Tigers are allowing just 12, on average, through four contests. That’s markedly better than last year’s figure (20.8), which was still good for 25th in the nation at season’s close.

Missouri is also seventh in the nation in total yards allowed per game (219.0). The defense’s early-season success was on display most notably in their first two contests, in which Missouri pitched back-to-back shutouts for the first time since 1966.

As it turns out, Missouri has had more consistency in its defensive play than some might have assumed in the offseason. New defensive coordinator Corey Batoon runs a 4-2-5 scheme identical to what the Tigers have run in years past under Blake Baker, and, despite several key changes in personnel, the scheme has remained effective.

At cornerback, the loss of starters Ennis Rakestraw and Kris Abrams-Draine to the NFL has hardly hamstrung the team’s secondary. Both replacement corners, Dreyden Norwood and Toriano Pride Jr., have played to the standards set by their predecessors, and both already boast interceptions on the year.

Missouri’s safeties, meanwhile, have been arguably the best unit on the team as a whole through four games. Sophomore Marvin Burks Jr. leads the team in tackles and has an interception of his own, as does fellow ballhawk Tre’Vez Johnson. STAR Daylan Carnell leads the Tigers in passes defended and has a dozen tackles of his own, and all of this is to say nothing of Sidney Williams and Joseph Charleston, who have both been impressive in limited time on the field.

The backfield has been effective to the tune of allowing opponents to complete a just 50% of their passes this season. Heading into Saturday’s game, Missouri was tied with Oregon for seventh in the nation in that stat. Comparatively, in 2023, Missouri allowed completions on 61.6% of opposing passes thrown.

The Tigers’ front seven has also vastly exceeded expectations to this point in the season. Florida transfer Chris McClellan and Miami transfer Corey Flagg Jr. have filled the shoes of former first-round edge rusher Darius Robinson and third-round linebacker Ty’Ron Hopper exceptionally well. Flagg finds himself second on the team in tackles through four weeks, and McClellan lands in third.

As a team, Missouri is allowing only 2.8 yards per rush and 91.8 per game; the Tigers entered Saturday ranked 19th in the nation in both statistics.

While it should be pointed out that Missouri’s strength of schedule through the first third of the year isn’t exactly stellar — ranked 57th nationally, per College Football Network — the Tigers are taking care of business.

“They have done what they needed to do,” Kiley said. “Ultimately, they are 4-0, and that’s the best you can ask of them.”

Up-and-down start for Craig

The Tigers are four games into the post-Harrison Mevis era, and while he has been far from perfect, freshman kicker Blake Craig has proved to be a capable predecessor to the “Thiccer Kicker.”

Missouri has not eased the redshirt freshman — who before this season had never attempted a collegiate field gold — into action. The stalling Tigers offense has called upon Craig 16 times through four games, four of them from at least 50 yards.

Craig is 3-for-4 from 50-plus yards, including a career-long 56-yarder against Boston College. In Missouri’s 27-21 win over the Eagles, he went 4-for-4 on field goals and converted his only extra-point attempt, winning the SEC Special Teams Player of the Week award.

Interestingly enough, the problems for Craig come from closer range. He is 0-for-3 on field goal attempts between 40-49 yards and 3-for-4 on attempts between 20-29 yards.

Craig was tied for first in the country alongside Eastern Michigan’s Jesus Gomez and SMU’s Collin Rogers with 11 made field goals, but fans are more concerned with the five misses. The real issue, though, is that Missouri’s offense has relied on Craig more than any other team has relied on its kicker.

Craig’s nation-high 16 attempts entering the weekend were three more than the next-closest kicker. Craig also led the country in attempts from 39 yards or less. In Mizzou’s 20 trips to the red zone, six of them have ended with made field goals, the second-most in the country.

Craig’s missed field goals have been a problem, and if the Tigers have their sights set on a playoff bid, he will have to be better. But his problem is not the main one for an MU offense that has left a lot to be desired in the red zone.

“I don’t know how you fix it, but it’s a freshman kicker,” Kiley said. “Just gotta start making your kicks, and if you do that, you’re feeling pretty good about where you are. But I think it’s pretty clear where their deficiencies are, so it is really good timing for them to have a bye week.”

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