Unforced Errors Sink Mizzou Offense Against Ole Miss

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It was one of those days for the Mizzou offense.

“Self-inflicted wounds,” quarterback Austin Simmons said, “We’ve just got to finish drives and really make sure that we put ourselves in the right position to score.”

The Tigers put three points on the board Saturday against Ole Miss on the way to a 28-point defeat in Oxford.

Just about everything that could go wrong for Mizzou did go wrong against the Rebels.

The first warning sign for the struggles to come emerged during MU’s opening drive. Simmons connected with Caleb Goodie Sr. for a 22-yard gain, setting the Tigers up with a first-and-goal at the Ole Miss 10 yard-line and putting them on the precipice of a 7-0 lead.

Then center Dominick Giudice was called for a false start, pushing Mizzou back to the 15. But two plays later, it looked like Simmons put the Tigers on the board when he found Naeshaun Montgomery in the end zone.

Montgomery dropped the pass, the first of several key drops and close calls between Simmons and his receivers.

“I think everybody was off today, and I didn’t see it coming. But, I mean, it’s just obvious we were off,” head coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “We had a couple of deep balls that were just kind of close, but weren’t there for whatever reason. That’s on me to figure out those inches that we need in order to be successful.”

Blake Craig salvaged three points with a 27-yard field goal, putting MU on the board for the first time. It also turned out to be the only time, despite three trips to the red zone.

The Tigers’ second trip arrived in the second quarter after Xai’Shaun Edwards powered forward for 10 yards to the Rebels’ 3 yard-line. That gave Mizzou a first-and-goal and a prime scoring opportunity when trailing 14-3.

Two runs that went backwards and an incompletion later, Drinkwitz sent Craig back out on the field for what appeared to be another gimme. He missed from 23 yards out.

“If you make it, it’s a one possession game. If you don’t get it, you’re still in a two possession game,” Drinkwitz said, “I felt like we worked really hard to get down there, so we needed just to come away with points. Obviously, that was a deflating moment of the game.”

Ole Miss tacked on another touchdown on the ensuing possession. Instead of heading to the locker room down by one score and getting the ball to begin the third quarter, the Tigers trailed 21-3.

It was a hole MU largely dug for itself, and one it could not find its way out of.

“You’ve got to score in the red zone and get everybody settled down. We were never able to just get settled into the rhythm of the game,” Drinkwitz said, “I thought the defense settled in the third quarter and gave us chances. But offensively, we were just pressing.”

Penalties also took their toll. Death Row Defense put up a shutout in the third quarter, leaving the door slightly open for a late-game charge.

Simmons connected with Cayden Lee for a 16-yard completion midway just over five minutes after the half that would have put the Tigers just outside the red zone. But the play was wiped away by a chop block on Tristan Wilson, leading to a 2nd-and-21 before the drive ended in a turnover on downs.

Mizzou ended up with almost as many penalty yards on offense (30) as rushing yards (39), the result of four flags — two of which came in Rebels territory.

“We’ve just got to start better up front and eliminate those penalties,” Giudice said, “We can’t have us beating ourselves when we’re playing SEC games, good teams.”

The Tigers cobbled enough chunk plays together to consistently approach scoring territory. Eight of Mizzou’s 11 drives reached at least its own 45 yard-line, and six of those crossed midfield.

MU averaged just 0.5 points when reaching Ole Miss territory, though.

“Once we have the momentum, once we cross that 50, we’ve just got to be able to keep that momentum going — really lean on the guys that we’re playing against — and make that come out with a touchdown,” Giudice said.

The drive most emblematic of the Tigers’ game-long struggles was their last. Mizzou marched its way into the red zone and reached the Rebels’ 4 yard-line with just over a minute remaining.

Simmons was unable to connect with Lee on third down, leading to another fourth down try. He never saw Landon Barnes in coverage, who intercepted the ball and was tackled at the 4 yard-line before sprinting all the way to the other end zone with his teammates in celebration.

“We kind of summed up that entire game in that last drive: get it down to the 10 [yard-line] and don’t get any points. That happened three times,” Drinkwitz said. “So we’ve got to go back and look at that and figure that out.”

It was another deflating moment in a game that featured plenty for Chip Lindsey’s offense, sending MU into the bye week on a sour note.

The silver lining for the Tigers: it was one of those days for a lot of other SEC teams, too.

Texas dropped its second straight matchup, also boosting Florida’s resume (and, by proxy, Mizzou’s) in the process. Alabama followed up a heartbreaking loss to Georgia with a backbreaking loss to Tennessee in Knoxville.

Georgia failed to avoid the increasingly frequent 2026 SEC hangover, dropping its matchup to Auburn — in Athens, no less. And Mississippi State was missing both Kamario Taylor and Fluff Bothwell in a 31-0 loss to LSU that made it clear just how important that pairing is to the Bulldogs’ success.

Just about anything seems to be possible this year in the SEC, and the conference now seems poised to send at least one three-loss team (if not multiple) to the College Football Playoff.

Reaching the upper tier of the conference this year seems to be more about riding out the chaos while collecting some solid wins than anything else, and Mizzou has several chances to become a chaos agent itself with quality opponents piling up in the back half of the team’s schedule.

But if the Tigers have another loss like the one they were handed in Oxford, that’s all a big win would be: not a statement win; not a key point on a playoff resume; simply more chaos in the chaotic world of college football.

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