Mizzou football: Penalties doom Tigers against inspired Vandy

Mizzou football could have gotten out of Nashville with a win. The Tigers needed to play sound football, but they did not.

Signs pointed early to a Mizzou football upset. And that’s what happened in Nashville on Saturday.

Vanderbilt was pumped up and ready to play, and the Commodores picked up the victory in their homecoming game 21-14. Too bad it came at the expense of the No. 22-ranked Mizzou football team.

The Tigers never looked like the better team. They should have been considering Vanderbilt was 1-5 coming in and just lost to UNLV. Meanwhile, Mizzou was 5-1 entering their contest and was on a five-game winning streak. The Tigers had beaten SEC teams that were trending up in South Carolina and Ole Miss, and to think Vanderbilt could stop them seemed like a stretch. It wasn’t.

Mizzou trailed Vanderbilt 14-7 at halftime, and the Tigers never led in this game. Mizzou tied the game at 14 on a Larry Rountree III 6-yard TD run at the end of the third quarter.

But Vanderbilt regrouped and scored on a Riley Neal 21-yard touchdown connection to Cam Johnson. That score capped a seven-play, 65-yard drive that gave Vanderbilt the victory.

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Neal was the backup in this game, as coach Derek Mason decided to start Hasan. That proved to be the spark they needed in Nashville. But Hasan was injured in the third quarter on a nasty hit from safety Tyree Gillespie, who was ejected. And Neal scored the game-winning TD.

Vandy played well for its head coach. Mason faced a lot of criticism this week, and there was talk of him getting fired, perhaps.

This could have been a statement win for Mizzou, win the games you should and keep first place in the SEC East. Instead, it was a great win for Vanderbilt.

The Mizzou offense never had much energy in this one, and it stalled out on its final drive with a Tucker McCann missed field goal — his third of the day, though one was negated because of a penalty. Whatever reason coach Barry Odom had for giving McCann a shot at a 48-yard attempt down seven points doesn’t matter at this point. He missed it and the Tigers never got the ball back.

Third-down efficient was bad for the Tigers, but it also was bad for Vanderbilt. Total yards were nearly the same — the Commodores outgunned the Tigers by just 22 total. Each team had a turnover and Vanderbilt beat Mizzou’s time of possession by just more than 5 minutes — pretty much the final drive.

So what was the difference? Penalties.

Mizzou had 12 for 120 yards. And it was the timing of them.

The Tigers had a hands-to-the-face call by offensive linemen Tre’Vour Simms-Wallace that pushed them back with no chance at a field goal to end the first half.

Mizzou had an unsportsmanlike penalty from defensive linemen Markell Utsey with the game tied at 14 in the fourth quarter. That helped put Vanderbilt near the red zone, which it ultimately scored the game-winning TD a few plays later.

And then Mizzou was flagged twice in a three-play period for offsides on Jordan Elliott, who was having an outstanding game. But that secured the win for Vanderbilt, as it gave the Commodores a first down and they were able to run out the clock.

Penalties could be an excuse, I guess. Kelly Bryant and Co. couldn’t get into a rhythm, but it sure felt like the flags kept coming, and kept killing any momentum this team had Saturday.

It’s hard to find positives in an upset like this, but Nick Bolton looks really good. Elliott played well too, and the defense as a whole continues to show up when it’s asked. Albert Okwuegbunam caught a nice touchdown, and Bryant looked far better as a runner than he had in previous games. But way too many negatives came out of this game.

This one is hard to explain, as is the case with some other Mizzou losses, in particular this season. Mizzou is 5-0 at home and 0-2 on the road. The Tigers need to get things fixed quickly, as they have two more road games in a row before they return to CoMo.

For now, this will sting. And it will until Mizzou plays better football, hopefully next week at Kentucky.