How Mizzou football's defense broke down against Tennessee after holding strong all season

All through the 2022 season, Missouri football’s defense was its strong suit. The Tiger offense struggled mightily in most games, but the defense typically stood its ground.

MU hadn’t won or lost an SEC game by more than a single score. Until Saturday.

Tennessee, fresh off a loss to Georgia, hung 66 points on Missouri.

"We weren’t ourself,” MU head coach Eli Drinkwitz said after the game. “We missed some tackles. Didn’t cover the way we normally cover. We’ll have to go back and look at it.”

More:Missouri football gets crushed by Tennessee. Here are 3 takeaways from the loss

It didn’t start out all bad. Tennessee scored on its first drive, but the Tigers were able to make some key stops after that. With the Volunteers ahead by one touchdown, their head coach, Josh Heupel, decided to go for it on fourth down.

The Tigers broke down the pocket in front of quarterback Hendon Hooker, and defensive lineman DJ Coleman earned a sack to make the stop. When Missouri’s offense took over, the Tigers scored a touchdown and tied the game.

UT and MU were separated by only four points early in the third quarter.

"Up to that point, we had executed on what we wanted to do,” wide receiver Barrett Banister said.

Then, the wheels simply fell off. Missouri gave up 38 unanswered points after its final touchdown.

Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker finished the game with 355 yards and three touchdown passes. He also scored once on the ground and added 50 yards that way.

As it got later in the game, the Tigers simply had no answer for Hooker’s arm and the Volunteer wide receivers. Tennessee racked up a program-record 724 yards of total offense.

“You gotta give credit to Tennessee too, they’re a good football team,” Banister said. “There’s a reason that they’re the No. 5 team in the country. But at the end of the day, I don’t think we did the stuff that we needed execution-wise.”

Banister also noted that he couldn’t speak for the defense. However, his words would have to do, as Missouri did not make any defensive players available for interviews after the 66-24 drubbing.

More:The Mizzou football defense earns a rare poor grade in our postgame report card

To be fair to the defense, the offense did not do enough on Saturday either. Brady Cook played well, finishing with 217 yards passing and two touchdowns, along with 106 yards rushing, which led the team.

However, too many drives stalled and forced punter Jack Stonehouse onto the field for the Tigers to find any real success. The defense seemed to steadily grow more tired as Heupel and company pushed the pace, and the game unraveled quickly.

“In the second half I don’t think anybody on our sideline did a good enough job of just concentrating on the play at hand,” Drinkwitz said. “It felt like it just kept carrying it over to the next play and not really playing the way we had all year.”

Tennessee wasn’t inclined to show any mercy to the Tigers. After losing to Georgia last week, the Volunteers fell just outside the top four teams in the College Football Playoff rankings.

Even after backup quarterback Joe Milton entered the game, Tennessee kept scoring. The Volunteers punched in a touchdown on a 46-yard reception by Ramel Keyton.

After Missouri failed to score, UT took over with 3:06 remaining. Instead of moving slowly to run the clock out, Milton threw deep again.

Following a 58-yard catch by Squirrel White, Dylan Sampson scored a rushing touchdown from MU’s 1-yard line. Those points made Saturday’s drubbing officially worse than last year’s 62-24 affair in Columbia.

After the game, Drinkwitz said he didn’t have a problem with Tennesee continuing to put up points after the game was out of reach.

“He coaches his team, I coach my team,” Drinkwitz said. “It’s our job to defend what they do. He runs his offense the way they’ve always run it. I’ve got no issues with their football team and what they do. It’s up to each individual head coach and he was just running his offense, so I’m good. It’s our job to defend them, it’s our job to stop them and it’s our job to flip the switch. It’s our job to not let that happen.”

Now, the Tigers’ attention will have to quickly turn to the future. Next week, they have New Mexico State at home, which will be followed by a Black Friday tilt with Arkansas.

Missouri will need to win both of them to become bowl eligible. To do that, it will need its defense to get back on track.

“I believe our guys will respond,” Drinkwitz said. “They’ve responded all season long. I think they’ll respond this week too.”

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Mizzou football: defense breaks down in SEC loss to Tennessee