Missouri clinches bowl eligibility, visits Tennessee
With its 33-28 win over Vanderbilt last Saturday, Missouri is bowl for the second time in as many seasons and has won three of its last four to get there.
The Tigers used a 4th-and-goal stop while trailing by two points in the fourth quarter and a 14-play, 99-yard touchdown drive to pull off their second-straight conference victory after an 0-4 start, defeating the Commodores for the second straight year.
Now, Missouri faces its final road test of the season at Tennessee, which has won two straight after knocking off then-11th-ranked Kentucky last Saturday.
“They’ve got great speed,” Missouri coach Barry Odom said of Tennessee. “They run the ball the right way, and they utilize the skills that they have all over the board on that side of the ball. You better be able to defend the power run game, you better be able to defend the vertical pass game, and really everything in between, because they’re kind of throwing it all at you. It’ll be a great challenge for us in a lot of areas.”
Last season, the Tigers rallied back from a 1-5 start to become bowl eligible, winning six in a row to close the season before eventually losing 33-16 to Texas in the Texas Bowl. Now bowl eligible in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 2013-14, Missouri quarterback Drew Lock said reaching a bowl was a standard the team held itself to despite a rough patch in conference play.
“We expected ourselves to get to six wins and get to a bowl game,” Lock said. “And now, our best opportunity to get to the best bowl game is just to be 8-4 … If we don’t get to 8-4 (bowl eligibility) won’t feel as good as it should’ve been.”
Even with a bowl bid in hand, Missouri is focused on defeating a formidable and familiar opponent in a hostile environment.
Tennessee head coach Jeremy Pruitt served as Alabama’s defensive coordinator from 2016-17 following the departure of Kirby Smart for Georgia, which defeated Missouri 43-29 Sept. 22.
Having also lost to Alabama 39-10 Oct. 13, Odom discussed the similarities in scheme of coaches from the Nick Saban coaching tree.
“There’s some carryover,” Odom said. “There is, and I think you get that within the tree of who you worked with before. There’s enough that you can see the flavor of it … but it’s also got its own spin on it too. They’re playing well.”