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Another week, another wild early SEC game.
Somehow, Mizzou pulled off a 21-17 victory after it trailed by double digits entering the 4th quarter.
Mizzou was on the right end of that thanks to a furious late comeback wherein Auburn couldn’t find the defensive answers once Brady Cook returned to action. Of course, Auburn also couldn’t find the right offensive answers after scoring a pair of touchdowns early in the second half, only to put up a goose egg in the 4th quarter.
Here are 3 takeaways from Saturday’s thriller in Columbia:
1. Banged-up Brady Cook is apparently the best Brady Cook
The Mizzou quarterback appeared to injure his ankle on a quarterback run on Mizzou’s first series, but it wasn’t until he attempted to scramble a few plays later that he was forced to leave the game. In his absence, Drew Pyne struggled to move the ball downfield. Cook returned late in the third quarter of a 17-6 game.
As it turned out, that was the best version of Cook. He led a pair of touchdown drives for 18 unanswered points, 15 of which were Cook’s doing. Remarkable.
Was it the best version of Cook? It certainly wasn’t the most mobile version of Cook, but in order to avoid that dreaded 2nd loss, that was the type of grit Mizzou needed.
2. Auburn found a way … to blow another double-digit lead late
Stop me if you’ve heard this before. Auburn blew a double-digit lead in the 4th quarter in a winnable SEC game.
Stunning? Not at this point. Stunning was that Hugh Freeze had a 17-6 lead with 1st-and-goal from the Mizzou 10-yard line, and he opted for consecutive passing plays. That resulted in an incompletion and a Payton Thorne sack for -12 yards. Then Towns McGough continued his struggles in the kicking game by shanking a 30-yarder, which opened the floodgates.
Mind you, the broadcast noted that Auburn was 105-1 when leading by 14-plus in the second half in the last 20 years. This team continues to make history.
But on the bright side for Auburn, it probably wins that game the next 9 times if they play 10 times.
3. Mizzou just had to avoid that before going to Alabama
Now, that game will have some significant stakes with Mizzou clinging to just 1 loss. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Mizzou’s offense didn’t exactly look like a unit that had things figured out well enough to suddenly go on the road and beat quality SEC opponents, especially if Luther Burden III continues to be banged up like he was after his final grab of the day.
Time will tell if that’ll be the case. For now, though, that’s all Eli Drinkwitz could’ve hoped for.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
