Missouri Tigers Stomp Florida– So, Who Is This Team?

“Hey, did you see that score flash up in the ticker there? It said Mizzou won 42-13.”

“42? Eh, must be a typo.”

-Tiger fans who had given up already and didn’t watch Missouri manhandle Florida on Saturday

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42 points.

42 points.

The Missouri Tigers’ offense did everything it needed to take care of the Gators on Saturday. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Let that sink in for a moment.

42 points.

The perplexing Missouri Tigers marched into the sunshine state, still licking their wounds after the 34-0 beatdown at the hands of Georgia last weekend, and scored 42 points, en route to 42-13 victory.

This time the Tigers did the beating down, completely dominating the favored home team Florida Gators from start to finish, in a romp that won’t soon be forgotten in Gainesville.

While Mizzou seemed to be reeling, with absolutely no answers on offense, they suddenly turned on gas and bullied their east division rival in a pivotal game in the SEC championship game race. And suddenly, they’re right back in it.

This game had all kinds of interesting story lines– even if it was a rare SEC game without either team being ranked. Everybody wondered going in if the Tigers could find themselves, while many also had their eyes on Florida, with the presumption that at any moment, the program could show head coach Will Muschamp the door.

Now, the door is wide open.

The Tigers came to play on Saturday, and finally put a legitimate team away convincingly when all looked bleak before kickoff. “Impressive” was a fitting term for it.

Mizzou Who?

Typically, in such a sound, well-rounded victory, (and especially following a poor performance in the game prior) a team answers a lot of questions about who it is and what it can do. But this week, there are more questions than answers.

Missouri has looked both good and bad in 2014. Both impressive and depressing. Both explosive and implosive. Both superior and vulnerable. Both championship worthy and “No. 1 overall draft pick” worthy. Who is this team?

If you give that offense a gun and put the target in the sky, they’d still hit their feet.

Well, we’ll get one thing out of the way. Let’s not beat around the bush here and say the one thing that everyone’s thinking. It’s no secret that this game was just as much about how bad Florida is as it is about how good Missouri is. The truth is, the Gators likely sealed the deal on the Muschamp administration with this one.

But still, Florida is a very formidable defensive powerhouse– and a name brand in the SEC playing in a hostile environment. And the Tigers, who have looked so anemic all season long, managed 42 points on them.

Now, we’ll call a spade a spade. Florida gave Mizzou a short field several times– and 14 points in 88 seconds– simply with bad turnovers. And Missouri returned the opening kick off for a touchdown. That helped matters tremendously. And all the Tigers needed was a so-so, sub-par performance from the offense– a step or two above what it has been rolling out in recent weeks. And by God, they got it.

Mauk only threw one interception (on the opening drive) and the team played exclusively mistake-free offense for the rest of the game, even it didn’t really manage to rack up yards or score but a single touchdown. It was enough.

In effect, Missouri learned something extremely valuable this weekend. You don’t have to win games with the offense. There are other ways to win games, and even totally dominate games. Case in point, they had their hands around the Gators throats at a 42-0 score in this game. And the offense did almost none of that damage.

Markus Golden, Kenay Dennis and Mizzou’s defense had plenty to celebrate about against Florida, including here after Golden scooped-and-scored to put the Tigers up big. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Rays of Gold

The star of the show was that Missouri Tiger defense. While Florida spent much of this game getting in its own way, Missouri must get the credit for shutting Florida down to the degree which it did. We all knew the Gators are well known for shooting themselves in the foot offensively. If you give that offense a gun and put the target in the sky, they’d still hit their feet.

But Mizzou’s defense did what no team has this year, or any other under Muschamp’s watch, in this game. They crushed them like a tin can at a junkyard. Before Florida’s offense came alive down big in garbage time and with the spare tires on the truck for Mizzou, the Tigers held the Gators to just 89 total yards in 48 plays, an abysmal stat for any offense.

MU defensive end Shane Ray was an absolute beast. He, along with counterpart Markus Golden, tore apart the Gator offensive line, forced errant throws when they weren’t catching the two discombobulated Florida quarterbacks and throwing them to the ground.

And, in the second half, when Ray zipped through and forced the first discombobulated quarterback, Jeff Driskell, to put the ball on the carpet, to which Golden then flew in and scooped and scored for the second defensive touchdown in under a minute and a half, it was by far my favorite moment of the night.

ESPN play-by-play announcer Joe Tessitore– the great Joe Tessitore– appropriately called it a “Golden Ray down here in Florida!” Perfection.

And that’s just the kind of night it was for the Tigers’ defense: perfection. If you needed any more proof that this defense was the real deal, you got it on Saturday.

Run, Murphy, Run!

Oct 18, 2014; Gainesville, FL, USA; Florida Gators head coach Will Muschamp walks off the field after the game against the Missouri Tigers at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. The Tigers won 42-13. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Where Missouri still struggled on offense, they still got one timely awesome performance from its running back Marcus Murphy. If you don’t want to crown an MVP from the defensive side, then Murphy was surely the guy to pick. In a game where leading up to it, it seemed as though Missouri had no identity in the running game, Marcus Murphy finally surfaced.

It took a while for a guy who has been swimming in a sea of running back talent since he was the fourth-in-line true freshman, to emerge in a way that can’t really be described in any other way but awesome.

Coming in, Mizzou was looking for something– anything– to produce points. And Murphy was that something. He encored the opening kickoff with a early second half punt return for a touchdown and scored another on the ground. And he– and fellow back Russell Hansbrough– ran the ball with conviction. The motor got going and it didn’t stop. It was refreshing to see a player really have the game in his hands the way Murphy did.

With his punt return, by the way, he became the first Mizzou player to score a touchdown in three different ways since 1976. (Curtis Brown against USC, that takes us wayyyy back, Mizzou Nation.)

“What Did We Learn?”

When trying to figure this team out, it’s still hard to do. But we discovered a few things. This defense is truly a monster– and a lot of fun to watch at that. It alone will keep Missouri in games and keep it in contention this season.

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Secondly, the offense can, in fact, hold its own. While only going for 120 yards total offense, it didn’t need to do anything more. The team just balled up in the fetal position and slowly burned the clock, which is exactly what you’re supposed to do and which would never churn out anything too impressive in the stat sheet any way. It will be interesting to see what it does going forward.

Next, you know the team can put itself in a position to win with Marcus Murphy and special teams. If he runs like he did against Florida, the Tigers will compete in every game, and events like the loss to Georgia will be a thing of the past.

And finally, we learned that this team has heart. The players respond when their backs are against the wall, and they use the emotion positively. I like what the team is building right now, even when its two losses were painful to take in. Mizzou has a lot to feel good about moving forward, even if they do stumble again before this thing ends, which is very possible. (Although, if it happens next week against Vanderbilt on homecoming, you can fire the whole coaching staff.)

This team has something. We don’t know what it is yet, but it’s there. The win against Florida didn’t always look pretty and didn’t always feel right. But even the biggest Mizzou pessimist can admit one thing:

It was a sweet sound to hear the Florida fans chant “Fire Muschamp.” as the final minutes dwindled away.

Those who stuck around at Ben Hill booed Will Muschamp until their hearts’ content. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

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