Corn Flakes: Rocking the Monday

I really had not heard of that before, interesting.

as to what point you’re trying to make, are you saying that Mizzou’s D is better, or that Texas’s D is better?

Your going to use high school star ratings as a diagnostic tool on now college kids? Wow. To begin with, he said MU’s defense is closer to Texas’ than to OSU which is undeniable. I mean use your brain, OSU is giving up almost 31 pts a game in spite of playing WashSt, Troy, Tulsa, and LaLaf!!! Their schedule is good for the 61st toughest! Missouri, on the other hand, is allowing like 13pts per game while playing the country’s 30th toughest schedule. So that part of the argument is settled. As far as MU/UT and your star rating nonsense. Danario Alexander was a three star, Aldon Smith got three stars, it doesn’t mean anything…it’s all about how well you recruit talent. It plainly obvious this year, that MU’s defensive line is one of the best in the country, if you want to pretend it’s not suit yourself.

This game against Nebraska has been seen all year as the most important game of the season just going to give my 2 cents for what it’s worth. Our D has been THE reason that we are in the position that we’ve been this year, no way around it. It all starts with our D-coordinator, Dave Steckel. Last year was his first year, and was just trying to get the players to buy into his system, and have them get confidence in themselves really. Over the years, all of our fans have been complaining about our defense giving opposing offenses way, way waaaaaay too much cushion on defense, and finally this year, we have a couple experienced corners who he’s allowing to play some press coverage, and our D-line has really stepped up and been getting to the quarterback, allowing us to have 11 INT’s, 3 more than last year. I will say this though, the games where we struggled, we have played against experienced offensive lines (ie: SDSU who allowed their first sack of the season to us). To have a chance to win, we need our D-Line to step up. We really haven’t played anyone who employs a similar offensive attack along the lines of Nebraska in regards to a legit power rushing attack. Sheelhasse from Illinois ran wild on our D in the first half, but nothing in the second half, but that was once we loaded up the box, threw out a 4 DE line because we realized that he has no arm/one their starting receivers had to switch to defense a week before the season due to injuries. While Martinez is also a freshman, he can throw, major difference. Plus he has way more playmakers around him and a much better O-Line(3 Sr compared to only 1 Sr for UI). Johnson at aTm is probably the closest thing we’ve seen to T-Magic really, but more along the lines of JJ last season. He throws the epitome of a lame duck, and with an extremely weak O-Line (7 sacks in our game), any time he saw anyone remotely near him he threw the ball away or no joke fell to the ground like he had given up. Unlike Martinez, Johnson has lost “the edge” that makes players take it to the next level and lead their teams to successful campaigns (ie: Robert Griffen III). I don’t know if we have the DT’s to stuff runs down our throat to be honest. We lost our best DT, as was mentioned above, and they had to date been our one weak spot for our entire defense. If we cannot stop the Nebraska attack at the line, forcing linebackers to play closer to the line, we will probably get burned by some crossing routes. To date, we haven’t had our entire first string D on the field at the same time, and now it won’t happen until at least near the end of the season, if at all. Our LB’s group doesn’t really have one complete player, but they have contrasting traits that have combined to work with the system. Ebner is the hard hitter (as well as backup Andrew Wilson but as a RSFr has limited snaps) and after missing a sizeable chunk of the season due to a DUI is starting to resemble what the reports out of camp initially stated. Zavier Gooden is probably the most well-rounded LB we’ve got, and his combine stats from the beginning of summer football camp were off the charts. This is his first year really getting significant playing time, and with some of the injuries/suspensions throughout the year has pretty much become a starter and steadying force for our LB core. He’s still only a Sophomore, and has made some youthful mistakes, but overall has been the D’s most consistent player. The concern with the linebackers, is that if they are the ones constantly making the stops from the runs up the middle rather than the D-Line it will really wear them out, and combining that with the observation from above about having to play closer to the line, your WR’s would be able to get some more separation. Especially considering that we have to respect your run game and wouldn’t be able to just load the field with DBs to stop the pass.
As has been mentioned in tons of articles throughout the season, Mizzou’s use of sports psychologists has really been crucial to helping our players. Corny, I know. But this team has been able to maintain focus, and has come back from deficits 3 times this year. Teams even as recently as the Chase Daniel era were never able to do that. If they were unable to score at will/weren’t clicking on offense, that was it, game over man, game over. After such a tumultuous offseason, with the media fire that came down with so many arrests and the negative attention it brought to our program (especially that whole D-Wash situation), the team didn’t get caught up, and played through it. While we did get a couple big program wins (when you have 36 wins against a team you’ve been playing for 100 year and that period of 20+ years of losing it’s big) against Nebraska in ‘07 and ’08, those were against Bill Callahan in a very down year, and Bo Pelini who was in his first year and was still playing with mostly Callahan’s players.
I see this game as a complete toss up, and wouldn’t be surprised to see the game go either way. I would love to see the Victory Bell come back to Mizzou’s campus for it’s resting place for a while, but this will be our biggest test of the year, and one of the most important games played between these two teams in its 103 game history. This game will most likely decide the last ever Big XII North Title, as well as who will represent the North in the last Big XII Title game ever. At the start of the year, I guarantee this would’ve been the game that any Mizzou fan would’ve circled at the must win game of the season, and would probably have never guessed the ramification this game would hold for us. I can only hope for the best from my Missouri Tigers, and am looking forward to the dogfight this Saturday. I am sad that this rivalry is coming to an end, and it really is a true shame, but hey, how can I blame you for jumping to the Big 10. Hell, Mizzou would’ve accepted the offer in a heartbeat, and when the Big XII meets its demise in the very near future, I can only hope that we will rejoin you in the Big 10 to rekindle this century year old rivalry. I have never really posted on any other teams’ blogs on SBNation besides Mizzou’s RockMNation, but who knows when I’ll get another chance to interact with Husker fans besides my buddies who moved from STL to Omaha (who go to the Naval Academy and ND and if anyone knows them from HS in Omaha, they’re twins, and it’s a small, small world). I wish Husker Nation all the best of luck (excluding this Saturday at 1:30, joking) and hoping you will run train on the Big 10 teams (Ohio State has had it coming for quite some time now). You’ve got some great fans who show up for better or worse, and will so until there is no more football to be played. It’s a shame that now Mizzou is fielding some respectable teams we may never get a chance to see the full potential of this rivalry hit full stride. Hopefully we will see you again shortly in the Big 10 (not holding our breath after seeing how everything that transpired this offseason) but put in a good word for us so we can beat up on the Big 10 together.
F-Texas. F-OU. Yeah Turner Gill.