This week's report card looked a lot different than the Week 2 report card against Kansas . After special teams took the only F in Week 2, they posted a team-high in Week 3, while the quarterback and wide receiver groups flipped their grades in the opposite direction.
Here's every positional grade from beat reporter Zach Knox-Doyle following the underwhelming victory.
The only thing keeping Austin Simmons from receiving an F was that he did not throw an interception. Against a Troy secondary that gave up 335 passing yards to Sam Houston , the Tigers accumulated just 91 passing yards in the win. Simmons went 10-for-19 and threw one touchdown in the contest, despite being kept clean and getting pressured on just two attempts.
Simmons earned an A last week for the quarterback position and had been a standout Tiger through the first two weeks. But after 544 combined yards and seven touchdowns in Week 1 and 2, Simmons faltered against Troy, earning the worst grade on the team.
The receiving core for the Tigers was far from perfect as well, with head coach Eli Drinkwitz referencing some lapses from the positional group after the game.
"There was receivers falling down, receivers running routes too deep, quarterback throwing the ball too early," Drinkwitz said.
Although Simmons missed multiple targets by overthrowing them or simply not seeing them, there were multiple occasions where Tigers were simply unable to get open and running routes inneficiently. Four Missouri players ended the contest with a reception and of the wide receiver and tight end group, Cayden Lee , Donovan Olugbode and DaMarion Fowlkes were the only players with a reception.
Missouri averaged its most yards per rush with five yards per carry against Troy and it would have been closer to six if the Tigers didn't run the clock out to end the game. Jamal Roberts had his most balanced game with 22 rushes for 128 yards and a long of 20 yards. He accounted for more than half of the Tigers' total yards on 5.8 yards per carry and was consistently nearing or surpassing that average with each run.
The pass blocking was, once again, strong for the Tigers as the offensive line opened up many opportunities for Simmons and left him untouched with zero sacks allowed. Every lineman received a PFF grade of at least 82 in pass protection, which was far-and-away the top PFF statistic of the night.
The unit's greatest improvement was in the run blocking, giving Roberts much more room to run in the Tigers' third contest. There were times when Roberts would remain untouched for around five yards, instead of getting touched in the backfield like he did against Kansas.
The defensive line earned the second-best grade of the week, backed by an elite pass rush. The Tigers tallied three sacks and nine tackles for loss in the contest, keeping quarterback Goose Crowder on his toes. It's likely their impact caused the quarterback to change his approach in the second half, in which he threw for 36 yards.
The line also contained the Trojans' run game, holding Troy to 93 yards on 40 rushing attempts.
Robert Woodyard had a quieter performance Saturday, but Nicholas Rodriguez picked up the slack, making this group a relative positive. Rodriguez accumulated a team-second 11 total tackles, staying active for nearly the entirety of the contest.
The secondary had two major lapses in this contest, each of which occurred in the first half. On the second play of the game, TK Keyes blew past Santana Banner for a 76-yard touchdown, making the Tigers work from behind for practically the entire first half. Although Banner responded well with a team-high 16 tackles, the mistake reflected a major mishap in the secondary.
The groups second mistake came near the end of the first half as Sione Laulea lost a foot race to Howard Kinchen on a 55-yard score.
"Well, the first one, they were in a stack formation, we had man-to-man coverage, we played outside leverage. They threw basically routes on air (and) our free safety had a terrible angle. He's supposed to be there to tackle it or get it down and didn't. And I mean, it's awful. Bottom line, that's awful defense," Drinkwitz said. "And then at the end of half, they threw a vertical and again, we have no free safety help and we weren't able to get our eyes around and we didn't play through the hands to get the ball down. Not good."
The biggest bright spot for Missouri on Saturday was its special team's success after an "embarrassing" performance against Kansas. The special teams looked practically perfect in punt returns, punts and field goals and extra points.
Fowlkes was the standout player from the group, with a 68-yard punt-return touchdown that tied the game at 10-10. Punter Brunno Reus had seven punts for 324 yards and pinned five of them within 20 yards, while kicker Blake Craig was 2-for-2 on field goals and 3-for-3 on extra points.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/missouri as Mizzou Report Card: Grading Position Groups vs. Troy in Week 3 .
