14-3: Mizzou and Max Q

During my senior year of high school, my head football coach would always refer to "Max Q". Since he was not an aerospace engineer, I'm sure he didn't grasp the concept perfectly, so his usage wasn't exactly correct. The key thing to remember is that max q is the point where the space shuttle underwent the maximum mechanical stress. For the shuttle to not fail, everything must be in perfect working order. So he would stress that our team get to the point where everything was clicking properly. In truth, he was accidentally referring to the maximum mechanical stress that occurs when you take 35 men who have run the option since seventh grade and hand them Mizzou's playbook. Meanly and truthfully, we dubbed his truck the Max Q truck for its ability to carry two lineman sized coaches down the hill to practice. Luckily, for them they now can see their teachings immortalized in a half-assed blog post about the Missouri team they emulated purposely or accidentally.

The Oklahoma game was penciled in as a loss on the calendar. The only ones who didn;t think so either are members of the team or highly delusional Mizzou fans. So when Oklahoma recieved the kickoff, my first thought was: can they improve and grow from this game? After the first Oklahoma possession, it was what the hell just happened. The Tigers defense just held the Sooners to a three and out, despite being essentially the same defense that Brock Osweiler torched from the beginning the Arizona State game. Had this been later in the game, it probably would have been more useful. Three-and-outs are demoralizing as a defense, since you just got off the field, but even worse if you are playing quick snap, no huddle spread offenses. In many regards, this would be the poison administered by Oklahoma during the second and third quarters.

Then, Mizzou did something even more unexpected, they dominated OU on their first possession. They made Oklahoma look just as bad as Western Illinois last week. Henry Josey, perhaps the best third-string running back in the country, tore off chucks of yardage. Interestingly, it was using the zone read which is essentially a single back option attack. The problem with the zone read is that out of the shotgun you have backs moving parallel to the line of scrimmage as opposed to downhill. Josey's speed negates that partially, and when James Franklin is making the correct reads, it is devastating. In the second and third quarter, Franklin missed some reads and thus had some short runs, and Josey was keyed to leading to Franklin getting more carries than he should.

Then, Oklahoma had a good gain on their next possession and the overwhelming feeling was "here we go, they woke up." Landry Jones, perhaps intrigued by the idea of a comeback victory, celebrates the play by throwing the most inexplicable deep ball ever. Not only was the receiver double-covered, Jones under-threw him by ten yards. It was embarrassing, and even outdid the one time where Franklin put some Kurt Warner spin on a pass out of bounds when throwing away and the ball fluttered as if graced with butterfly wings. Mizzou didn't get much on the next drive. They had three negative plays (penalty on 1st-10, -1 on 1st-15, sack on 3rd-5), and they punted. Oklahoma looked better and easily drove the field (slightly aided by penalty), but Mizzou's defense held and forced a field goal.

So Mizzou had the ball again, here's where the young man makes his first pressure mistake. (We are pessimists by nature of course) Nope, he passes for 29 yards to TJ Moe, and then Josey runs for two yards to the Oklahoma 45. About this time, Brett Venables caught wind of Jones inspiring idea and called a free safety blitz against a spread team. No, let's clarify a spread team whose quarterback is clearly more comfortable throwing vertically than horizontally. If anything, taking away the middle of the field and forcing those tough sideline passes is a must, but perhaps he thought Gabbert was still there throwing 35 yard bullets to the far sidelines. Venables leaves his defensive backs in man coverage with no safety help, which means if one slips when the receiver cuts they're smoked. And that is exactly what happened. In the old Madden games, this was called the Monster Blitz, and it always caught you eye. All of your DB's on islands, and you throwing the kitchen sink at an opponent. No good opponent has ever been sacked or even harried by a Monster Blitz.

That was Max Q, that was a team firing on all cylinders up against extreme pressure showing their potential. The score showed Missouri 14-Oklahoma 3. Then, reality set in. Oklahoma is one of the better teams in the nation. For two quarters, they pummeled the Tigers and scored twenty eight unanswered points. That was perhaps more indicative of the wide spread between a veteran Oklahoma team and a Missouri team dominated by sophomores. Then, Venables became bored again and decided to call defenses that essentially said "Henry Josey, you suck." When Josey punched him in the mouth for such a juvenile and epically poor insult, the game was out of reach but Oklahoma had to make sure and score once again to make the Vegas odds-makers feel better about the ridiculous spread of the game (An act of pointlessness given the Tigers next drive for a TD).

So here we stand, clearly a Missouri team on its best night can beat anyone in the Big XII X IX except Oklahoma on the road. However, to do that they must perform at a level equivalent to the first and fourth quarters, which they won 28-10. Doesn't that look so much better; it almost makes you forget that Ryan Broyles is still at Oklahoma. After watching the other teams play earlier, Missouri can beat Oklahoma State, if they don't beat themselves and Texas A&M is a less intimidating road environment than their two road games so far. As for the Texas and Kansas State, I have no idea how those teams will play on a week-to-week basis. Iowa State hasn't truly beat anyone, but they have played well. Henry Josey might set a single-game school record against Kansas. Texas Tech will somehow beat us, or beat themselves. Baylor has Hot Tub Griffin and he right now is the best quarterback in college football. Let's see how he fares with conference play, but I think that game is potentially the scariest.

So let's avoid any more pessimism, and look at the broad picture. At this rate, James Franklin will be unstoppable by the season's end. At some point, he has to stop looking better with each game. Arizona State just destroyed a USC team, that while on probation has a great deal of talent still. Oklahoma will not have another home game this year where the opponent will hit them like that first quarter. Grant Ressel will hit field goals again. Most importantly, when your team is starting a true sophomore who is only used to mop-up duty, they are not likely to go undefeated and win a national championship. However, they are going to show some flashes of what the future could hold, and given the results so far, this team is going to be amazing to watch both this year and the next two. Although, the pessimist says there's a chance the defense never learns ball skills. How can a Mizzou fan be optimistic after all these years really?