Quietly, Missouri’s SEC East reign might have ended in Lexington

Saturday night, while the nation was stunned by the blowouts which emerged in the Pac-12’s stack of showcase games, and we all wondered how “Utah 62, Oregon 20,” could possibly happen, something else happened.

This event should have a significant effect on the workings of a conference. It should also change how we view week five and — in good time — the bowl layout.

Yes, while Utah was destroying Oregon and UCLA was laying waste to Arizona, the Kentucky team which lost at home to Florida got off the mat and handled Missouri. The Wildcats, limited to nine points by the Gators, looked dramatically different against the Tigers.

As a result, the SEC East looks dramatically different… though recent history tells us to withhold that verdict for the time being.

*

What does that last sentence mean, especially “withhold that verdict for the time being”? Very simply, Missouri has endured losses (ugly ones with no real silver linings or cosmetic value) in the early to middle sections of its past two seasons, only to rebound and not lose another SEC game, especially not in the month of November. The Tigers, as we wrote after their shaky win over Connecticut,  have possessed a knack for looking clumsy early in the season but then straightening things out as they go along.

You could make the argument that the Tigers will be able to do the same thing.

You could say that this is the team’s annual wake-up call.

You could be wrong… and the feeling here is that you probably will be if you trust Missouri in 2015, based on what happened in Lexington on Saturday.

The third time does not appear to be the charm for Gary Pinkel, who has to wonder why his quarterback, though blessed with experience and abundant quantities of pressure-cooker snaps, hasn’t been able to become a steadier performer this year.

Maty Mauk, for much of his Missouri career, has been the kind of quarterback who slumbers for the first half, gets enough done in the first three quarters of the game to keep his team in a decent-enough position, and then comes alive in the fourth quarter, when the outcome hangs in the balance. Often better at making the improvisational play than the standard dropback pass, Mauk has been an exasperating artist-as-athlete, but you couldn’t knock his results in 2013 or 2014. Missouri lost only two regularly-scheduled SEC games in that two-year span (one each year) and won two SEC East titles. Entering 2015, the program was aware of Mauk’s limitations, but it hoped that an even better version would show up this season.

Saturday in Lexington, the reality of playing a conference game one week after a bad performance in a non-conference clash gave Mauk the perfect forum in which to make a loud statement about his SEC credentials.

Instead, Mauk served up his usual fare over the first three quarters… this time, without the fourth-quarter flourish which has made his career in Columbia.

“Well,” you might reply if you still trust Mizzou, “Mauk didn’t show up against Georgia last year, and yet the Tigers still ironed things out over the next several games. History shows they’re not done.”

They’re not done, no. Yet, a few additional details lend credence to the notion that Missouri will not be able to finish 7-1 in the SEC this time.

The Tigers — without longtime defensive coordinator Dave Steckel (now the coach at Missouri State in the FCS) — don’t have quite the same leadership mixture on their coaching staff. Against an SEC opponent, Missouri’s defense didn’t help Mauk on Saturday.

Kentucky quarterback Patrick Towles, who struggled against Florida, hit 22 of 27 passes and played one of the finest games of his UK career. Kentucky went 9 of 14 on third downs, gaining both added time of possession and improved field position. It’s definitely true that:

A) this game says a lot about Kentucky’s ability to handle one week’s wrenching loss and overcome it the next week — that’s a sign of a growing program;

and

B) while Kentucky had to rise to a much higher level of performance in order to claim this triumph, Missouri had to remain sluggish in order for this result to happen as well.

The 9-6 win over Connecticut needed to be a cold splash of water for Mizzou, but this follow-up in Lexington points to a level of instability which just didn’t exist in 2013 or 2014. When you realize that the 2013 team played a marvelous offensive game on the road against Georgia (that result was the linchpin of that SEC championship season for the Tigers), and that Mizzou has to go Between the Hedges in the coming weeks, Pinkel’s pupils really are up against a wall in ways that didn’t apply two years ago.

Moreover, in briefly turning to week five, should Georgia knock off Alabama, the Bulldogs would give themselves a great deal of leverage in the SEC East. Even if they were to lose to Missouri, they could absorb that setback and still win the East if the Tigers slipped up at any other remaining point on the slate.

*

Sure, withhold the final and definitive pronouncements about Missouri’s demise. There’s nothing wrong with that, and the show of restraint can’t hurt.

Just be honest with yourself, though: Don’t think the Tigers are likely to stay on the high wire the way they did in the second halves of both the 2013 and 2014 seasons. There’s likely to be a new SEC East champion after this past Saturday’s events in Lexington, Kentucky.

About Matt Zemek

Editor, @TrojansWire | CFB writer since 2001 |

Quantcast