Missouri 2018 Preview: Will Drew Lock light up the offense?
Midway through the 2017 season, Missouri was the Titanic. The ship was leaky, the wide receivers were dropping catches like there was no tomorrow, and everything was bad. After the Tigers were slapped by Auburn, head coach Barry Odom became the laughing stock of the SEC – and college football – by giving a sermon. But after they rattled off six games in a row at the end of the season (before they lost to Texas in the Texas Bowl), there is a degree of confidence for Missouri. And that’s been heightened by the decision by quarterback Drew Lock to stay.
The press doesn’t believe it. They believe that Missouri will finish 4th in the SEC East. The Mizzodcast – one of the best college football podcasts in the SEC – might have different things to say.
But right now, it’s our time.
OFFENSE
Drew Lock, Drew Lock, Drew Lock. He’s going to be the key for the Missouri offense. After ripping 3,964 yards and 44 TDs last season, he’s been talked about as a potential NFL Top-5 pick. He’ll be getting a lot of focus next season from the media.
The problem for Lock is that he’s going to be missing his kick-ass OC Josh Heupel, who’s going to take the head coaching job at UCF. He’s been replaced by Derek Dooley, who was heard of as the wide receivers coach at the Dallas Cowboys. His last college job was as a terrible head coach at Tennessee. Some people weren’t too pleased with the hiring. But that issue should be assuaged a little by the fact that Missouri’s bringing back all five of their offensive linesmen (ranking 5th in the ‘most fearsome offensive lines for 2018 by 24-7).
Anyway, Lock’s got weapons for his passing arsenal. While Missouri might miss top wide receiver J’Mon Moore, they won’t miss his drops. Emanuel Hall (817 yards, 8 TDs) and Johnathon Johnson (724 yards, 6 TDs) will be required to take up the slack. The team has an amazing tight end in 6-5 Albert Okwuegbunam, who had 415 yards and 11 TDs and will prove a challenge to any defense.
Running the ball will be Damerea Crockett and Larry Roundtree III, taking over from Ish Witter, who had a 1,000 yard season last year but no NFL offers come draft time. Anyway, it will be interesting.
DEFENSE
Thanks to the poverty of the teams that Missouri played in the second half of the year, Missouri were 83rd in total defense in the country. Thanks? Had any of the offenses that the Tigers played in last 6 games had any shape of a coherent bunch of tackles, this number could easily have been in the 100s. They were that bad.
There will be hope that Terry Beckner Jr can anchor the defensive tackle position if he stays healthy, and there is excitement that Jordan Elliott will do similar things on the other side. But while there is HOPE that the DE position is going to be serviceable, the linebacking corps is set, with top tackler Cale Garrett (99 tackles, 3 TDs), Terez Hall (80 tackles, 1 TD, 3 Passes defended), and Brandon Lee (4 PD) all set to cause some damage. The big issue for the Tigers will be when they get thrown at. If you look at the schedule, this could happen a lot — especially as we don’t know where the Tigers has improved from a team that gave up more than 254 yards per game and 20 TDs. And as we may have mentioned, we reckon the terrible 2017 standing (107th in the country) could have been even worse had the back end of the schedule had any sort of throwing game.
SCHEDULE
Sept.1 UT Martin
Sept. 8 Wyoming
Sept. 15 at Purdue
Sept. 22 Georgia
Sept. 29 OPEN DATE
Oct. 6 at South Carolina
Oct. 13 at Alabama
Oct. 20 Memphis
Oct. 27 Kentucky
Nov. 3 at Florida
Nov. 10 Vanderbilt
Nov. 17 at Tennessee
Nov. 24 Arkansas
The more we look at the schedule, the more we like it. We can see the Tigers ring off three wins to start the year (UT-Martin, Wyoming, Purdue), before losing three straight to Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina respectively. Wins over Memphis and Kentucky should get the team near the Bowl Threshold, and although we think they’ll lose at Florida, they’ll beat Vandy, Tennessee and Arkansas.
PREDICTION: A not-unrespectable 8-4