Yikes!
Mizzou came into Oxford with a Top 15 match up on the line and a real chance to put a shot in the arm of their College Football Playoff hopes.
Now, they'll head into the bye week off the back of a 31-3 loss and those CFP hopes dangling by a thread. Here are your five takeaways.
Austin Simmons' first Homecoming as a Mizzou Tiger was the stuff of dreams. His own homecoming to Ole Miss was the stuff of… well, you know.
After a week of narrative build-up — the former Ole Miss starter against the guy who took his place — the competition between Simmons and Heisman contender Trinidad Chambliss was a dud. While Chambliss accounted for four total scores in what still looked to be an off day, Simmons had a performance to forget. He went 25-for-44 through the air with 339 mostly empty yards and a bad interception to cap the game. He missed wide open receivers, put the ball in danger, and largely failing to display the three-level accuracy that has made him such a threat.
Simmons may have an NFL future ahead of him. But his disappointing performance in the 'Sip will probably quiet any talk of the 2027 NFL Draft for now.
This is a Mizzou website, but I'd be failing my duties to accurately analyze this game without talking about the Rebel QB, who may very well be headed toward a Heisman trophy this season.
Mizzou's defense has rightfully received a lot of praise over the past few weeks, but their secondary was quietly still an issue. Kamario Taylor shone a light on it a few weeks ago, and Chambliss completely exposed it on Saturday afternoon. Even on a day when he missed a few open receivers, Chambliss hit on three touchdown passes in the first half, walked a fourth in toward the end of the game, and generally looked like a signal-caller in complete control of the field in front of him.
For any defense in the country, going from Aaron Philo and Marcel Reed to Trinidad Chambliss was going to be a big adjustment. It was too big of one for the Tiger defense to make.
However…
We've already covered Austin Simmons' struggles, but he alone can't account for such a moribund performance. Ole Miss came into this game with one of the Power Two's worst rushing defenses, yet they held the Tigers to 1.5 yards per carry. Their secondary was banged up, but they largely controlled Cayden Lee and let Donovan Olugbode's 110-yard performance go to waste. The play-calling was shockingly conservative for a Top 15 road matchup, and Chip Lindsey had no answers for a unit that stalled in the end zone during its first drive then failed to put up points for the remainder of the game.
We've seen enough of the Tigers to know this sort of performance is likely a negative outlier. But it sure was a let down for a game with this much hype.
Eli Drinkwitz has made Mizzou a better program in almost every way. And before folks start talking about the Tigers getting "exposed," let's look across the college football landscape and decide how much week-to-week chaos should inform our analysis.
With that out of the way, an obvious hole remains in his resume – a signature road win. Drinkwitz has found a way to beat good teams from the comforts of Memorial Stadium. But for whatever reason, Mizzou teams can't find a way to get over the hump on the road. The execution isn't as tight, penalties become a bigger problem, the approach gets stale, etc.
None of these things are unique to Mizzou; playing on the road is hard! But if Drink wants to get his program to that next level – from challenger to contender – he needs to push the Tigers over that mountain at some point.
Mizzou responded to their first loss of the season by, as Eli Drinkwitz reminded us often, "getting better." With a bye week up next, Mizzou now has to focus on getting healthy. They came into Oxford with a full injury report, and are leaving with more than a few more to add.
Now they'll have two weeks to get some key guys rest. Do that, improve on the tape, and let the college football chaos continue… who knows. Mizzou's CFP hopes might look very different come Halloween.
Head over to Rock M+ for some bonus takeaways (and some speculation on who may or may not return against Arkansas.)
