College Football 2015 No. 21: Missouri Tigers
By Ty Duffy
Regular Season Records: 10-2, 11-1, 5-7, 7-5
SRS Rankings: 21, 4, 45, 19
Talking Point: No respect. Georgia has the talent. Tennessee has the flash. Florida has the recent vintage success. South Carolina has the HBC. Missouri just wins a lot of football games. The Tigers have gone a quiet 14-2 in the best damn conference in the land the past two seasons. Though, to be fair, losing to Indiana at home non-conference will extinguish your early season fire.
Why To Like Them: Maty Mauk has chutzpah. He is healthy. His offensive line should be better, with four starters returning. Russell Hansbrough (1084 yards and 10 TD on 205 carries) comes back as well. The Tigers should have a solid, veteran back seven on defense.
Why Not To Like Them: Missouri loses its top three receivers, for the second consecutive year. The Tigers’ strength has been excellent defensive line play. But, Shane Ray and Markus Golden depart (23 sacks and 42.5 TFL in 2014). Some senior depth goes with them. Their best returning lineman, Harold Brantley, is out for the season after a car accident.
Schedule: Missouri has about as easy of a schedule as one could ask for in the SEC. BYU, in a de facto home game, is the only reputable non-conference opponent. They miss Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Ole Miss and Texas A&M. They get division games against South Carolina, Florida and Tennessee at home. Two of their road trips are Kentucky and Vanderbilt.
Throwing Darts: Missouri will be good, not great. They won’t need to be great, with their schedule. Beating the teams they should beat should get them into the 9-10 range, which could put them in the mix for a third-straight trip to Atlanta.
Random Alum: Jason Lisk
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