3 storylines to watch as Missouri football plays crucial game against unbeaten Texas A&M
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Missouri football has a mountain to climb.
Scale it successfully, and an already fascinating season will add another layer of intrigue.
No. 17/19-ranked Missouri football will take on No. 3/3 Texas A&M on Saturday in Columbia, Missouri, in a game that will determine whether or not the Tigers can remain relevant in the College Football Playoff conversation.
Mizzou (6-2, 2-2 SEC) is coming off of an idle week after a road loss at Vanderbilt that cost the Tigers their margin for error for the remainder of the season and starting quarterback Beau Pribula’s availability for the foreseeable future.
Texas A&M (8-0, 5-0) was ranked No. 3 in the CFP committee’s first set of rankings Tuesday, which is the best mark among SEC teams. The Aggies are a frontrunner for an SEC title-game berth in Year 2 under head coach Mike Elko.
Has Missouri got what it takes to stage an upset in front of a sold-out crowd in Columbia?
Here are the major storylines you need to know as the Tigers take on Texas A&M:
Missouri QB Matt Zollers vs the moment
Naturally, the biggest storyline in Columbia this week is the new starting quarterback. Matt Zollers will become the first true freshman to start at QB for Mizzou since Drew Lock.
Man, oh man — what an opponent for this opportunity to come against. We’ll get to what make some of Texas A&M’s defense so difficult to gameplan for, but first, the bigger picture.
This is a massive moment on a national stage for a 19 year old. The Tribune wrote about Zollers’ upbringing and story this week, and the poise he showed in emergency duty at Vanderbilt seems to be pretty much par for the course. His old teammate affectionately called him a bit of an “airhead,” which he described as a positive because of Zollers’ ability to not let the stage get too big.
He’ll need every bit of that. The talent and the arm are there for all to see. The eye test tells us that this kid can play the quarterback position.
Now, he has to do it under lights that don’t get much brighter.
How do Kirby Moore, Eli Drinkwitz adjust to Mike Elko game plan?
Texas A&M has the nation’s best third-down defense. If your team faces a third down against the Aggies, the stats tell us that it has about a one-in-five chance of moving the sticks.
Good grief! That number should send a shiver down your spine.
Drinkwitz gave a fascinating answer about why Texas A&M coach Mike Elko, a former defensive coordinator, is so good at designing disruptive third-down packages, saying that Aggies’ head man has a good feel for when to throw in wrinkles that have never showed up on tape.
“He’s always had a really good third-down package that starts with attacking protections,” Drinkwitz said. “Now, he’s going to try to get a five-up presentation, where you as an offense have to dictate — we’re either going to man this or slide this. And what happens is, during the course of the game, whatever you practiced is usually what you stay with through the course of the game.
“And he, in my opinion, the first one, he tests you. Sends one out there, and then, now that he has the iPad, he goes up there, and he’s super smart, and he realizes, ‘OK, their plan was four-man slide. So this is the beater.’ And he’ll call ‘Okie Sword,’ or he’ll realize that, ‘hey, they’re sliding,’ or ‘oh wait, they’re manning it, so here’s the man-beater. We’ll bring two to this side.’”
Drinkwitz called it a cat-and-mouse game. It’s up to offensive coordinator Kirby Moore and the head coach to find a way to stay a step ahead of Elko.
Above all else, that means finding a way to be productive on first and second down. Mizzou can’t get backed up against the Aggies or they’ll spend a lot of time punting.
Zollers is a somewhat different quarterback stylistically to Pribula, so let’s see how that changes the gameplan with two weeks of game preparation.
How much does Mizzou attack Marcel Reed?
Another week, another mobile quarterback.
The challenges are all the same at this point, and Missouri has been among the most effective defenses in the country at stopping QBs from picking up yards with their legs. The Tigers shouldn’t rush past Reed. They have to be disciplined in the secondary to make sure receivers like KC Concepcion and Mario Craver don’t take the top off. The same rules and requirements for MU on defense are in effect.
And Missouri has been excellent at stopping scramblers.
Between LaNorris Sellers, Jalon Daniels, Jackson Arnold and Diego Pavia to a combined 31 rushing yards.
So, there’s an element of not-broke, don’t-fix at play here. If Missouri is stopping QBs from moving the chains with the legs, why switch anything up?
But … there’s an argument that Mizzou might want to force the issue a little bit more here. Instead of containing Reed, the Tigers might want to try and create as many negative-yardage plays and hurried decisions with an aggressive front. The risk is higher, but the reward might be worth the chase.
Reed has faced the second-fewest pressures among SEC quarterbacks this season and has taken the fewest sacks. The protection in front of him has been exemplary. Nobody has really managed to rough him up, and that’s a big part of why the Aggies are undefeated.
The counter: Reed can be turnover-prone even when he’s in a perfect pocket. All six of his picks this season have been from a clean pocket, per Pro Football Focus.
It’s a call Missouri has to make: Disrupt or contain.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: These are storylines to know as Missouri football takes on Texas A&M
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