It's official: Mizzou is headed to Nashville.
Missouri football will play in the Music City Bowl on Dec. 30 in Nashville, Tennessee, where the Tigers will take on Iowa. The game will kick off at 1:30 p.m. at Nissan Stadium and will air on ESPN.
Looking at the College Football Playoff field, which was announced Sunday, it doesn't take too lengthy a leap to assume Missouri was a win away from seriously contending to be one of the 12 teams. Every team with two losses or fewer in the Big Ten and SEC this season is going to play a CFP game in December.
So, what will it take for the Tigers to go a step further in 2025?
More: On revenue sharing and NIL, Missouri football coach Eli Drinkwitz is adapting again
More: Missouri transfer portal history: Players Eli Drinkwitz has landed, what it means for 2025
On Wednesday, the SEC is expected to announce the specific dates for the Tigers' 2025 schedule. As a reminder, Mizzou will play each of the SEC teams it played this year, but in the opposite stadiums. So, Missouri will play Vanderbilt, Auburn , Arkansas and Oklahoma on the road, and Mizzou will host Alabama , Texas A&M , South Carolina and Mississippi State.
Mizzou faces Central Arkansas (Aug. 30), Louisiana (Oct. 4), UMass (Oct. 18) and renews its Border War rivalry on the gridiron with Kansas on Sept. 6.
MU has 20 wins since the beginning of the 2023 season. With a win in Nashville over Iowa , the Tigers will have back-to-back double-digit win seasons for just the third time in program history . The proof of concept is there.
So, here is how we think Mizzou can take a step forward in the offseason and make the CFP in 2025:
Let's not beat around the bush: Missouri needs an experienced quarterback.
The next starter could very well be in-house, with Sam Horn and Drew Pyne among the expected returners. But Mizzou absolutely must acquire a top-end quarterback out of the transfer portal to create competition once Brady Cook exhausts his eligibility.
The Tigers reportedly are hosting USC transfer quarterback Miller Moss on campus this week. There are some intriguing names already out there, including Tulane's Darian Mensah , North Texas' Chandler Morris; and Oklahoma's Jackson Arnold .
Time will tell who the Tigers contact. Moss appears to be a top candidate in the infant stages of this window.
Whoever it is: Making a CFP run in 2025 hinges on getting this choice right.
No matter who starts at QB next season, Mizzou needs to keep him clean. It's time that Missouri's recruiting paid dividends with the big men up front.
Mizzou has to replace three starting offensive linemen. Right tackle Armand Membou is declaring for the 2025 NFL Draft as a junior, while left tackle Marcus Bryant and right guard Cam'Ron Johnson are going to run out of eligibility. Oft-used sixth man Mitchell Walters and backup center Drake Heismeyer also will graduate at the end of the season.
The Tigers almost certainly will turn to the portal and sign multiple players to come in and compete, but beware the portaled line. If Mizzou's 2024 reserves can take a step forward and be starters next year, that's an encouraging development in terms of consistency and cohesion.
Redshirt freshman offensive lineman Logan Reichert spent the 2024 season on the two-deep at a guard spot, as did Tristan Wilson, Curtis Peagler and Jayven Richardson. These players have been repping together on the second-team in practice. Now's the time to step up.
If there is a spot the Tigers need to hit hard in the portal, it's across the secondary. The Tigers are losing three safeties to eligibility and had some inconsistent performances at cornerback this year. Like quarterback, linebacker and the offensive line, defensive backs is a position you can expect the Tigers to seek out reinforcements over the course of the upcoming month.
The coverage busts have to stop. There's no team in the country that will completely shut down opposing passing offenses, but the midfield-crossing passing TDs are backbreaking.
Experience here ought to help — both from returners and whoever MU signs to bolster the defense — but some of this falls on the coaches and scheme, too.
There's no reason Blake Craig can't be Missouri's kicker next season, but competition is warranted.
Craig was 22-of-32 on field-goal attempts in the regular season. He particularly struggled between 40-49 yards, going 1-of-7 from that distance. Craig made four kicks from 50 yards or further.
With all of MU's backups from 2024 poised to enter the portal, Mizzou will bring in a player to push Craig. That should create some healthy — and necessary — competition.
Even if Missouri had held on late at South Carolina this season and finished the year 10-2, the Tigers likely still would have been on the playoff bubble. Mizzou lost by 30 or more points at both Texas A&M and Alabama. That won't fly.
Both of the blowouts had something in common: The Tigers didn't make much look easy on offense.
Against Texas A&M, the Tigers strayed too far away from the run game early in favor of trying to hit the deep shot, which really wasn't working. Against Alabama, albeit with a banged-up quarterback to start the game and a backup in an unenviable spot in relief at Bryant-Denny Stadium, the Tigers couldn't get much going on the ground or through the air.
Losing Luther Burden III and Theo Wease Jr. makes this a taller task. But if Mizzou is going to knock off a fellow CFP contender in 2025 — something it failed to do this year — then it has to have something it does easily in those elevated matchups.
That could be pounding the outside zone with running backs Jamal Roberts or Kewan Lacy. That can be easy-access passes with pass-catchers Joshua Manning or Brett Norfleet . Anything, as long as there's a failsafe and something that's second-nature when the competition gets stern.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Here is how Missouri football can reach College Football Playoff in 2025
