Mizzou’s hopes crushed by Syracuse. (AP Photo/L.G. Patterson)
Both teams entered the Mizzou v Syracuse game looking to get their sixth win and become bowl eligible. One team stepped up to the plate and claimed their prize while Mizzou let yet another game slip away at home because of poor execution and lack of awareness.
Ironically enough Mizzou had to pay $800,000 to get the Syracuse game to fill out it’s schedule this season. Kind of like paying someone to come to your house and kick you in the nuts and spit on you in front of your wife and kids. I guess Pinkel has a masochistic side which would explain his excitment to move to the SEC in the first place.
Here is what the media is saying about Mizzou’s collapse:
For some reason, Alec Lemon had been open all night. Play after play, Syracuse’s senior wide receiver was finding ways to beat Missouri defenders left and right.
So Syracuse quarterback Ryan Nassib decided to keep going to him — again and again — on the Orange’s final drive of the game. It worked out as Nassib targeted him six times in seven plays, connecting with him four times for 81 yards, but his final catch was the biggest one of the day — and the season.
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The conservative play calling led to an Andrew Baggett field goal with less than two minutes remaining. Syracuse then seemed to just stroll down the field on the Tigers on their game-winning drive.
Mizzou’s defeat is utterly shocking | STL Today: Bryn Burwell
Silence. Stunned, unbelievable, angry silence.
This is not how any Senior Night should ever end. No, nothing ever like this. It can’t end with your stomach in your throat. It can’t end with your heart sinking to the floor. It can’t end with the collective hush of more than 63,000 stunned spectators who thought the game was finally safely in hand, only to see the whole thing slip away like sand through a screen.
Syracuse 31, Mizzou 27.
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The most heartbreaking sight of all was seeing all those Mizzou senior football players who just milled around the middle of the field aimlessly as the gun sounded, knowing that they had been robbed of the tradition of being carried off the field on their teammates shoulders at the final home game of their college careers to the cheers of the home crowd.
So come up with any negative words and they’ll certainly apply. Shock. Anger. Embarrassment. Disgust. In a season already chocked full of hair-pulling setbacks and unsightly disappointments, this may have been the worst unsightly turn of them all.
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There were a half-dozen NFL scouts in the press box on Saturday, probably most of them here to watch (Sheldon) Richardson. But that didn’t happen because he was too selfish to take his proper punishment for missing classes, and hurt his teammates by not being in that very winnable game.
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on the biggest play of the night when the Mizzou defense just had to hold, somehow the most dangerous man on the football field — Syracuse receiver Alec Lemon — was galloping into the end zone for the game-winning score with 20 seconds to go.
And I want you to understand one crazy inexplicable thing about this play.
Lemon was wide open.
I mean WIIIIIIIIIIDE OPEN. Undetected, untouched and cruising into the end zone with no Missouri defender within 10 yards of him.
How does a receiver who already had caught 11 passes for over 200 yards end up THAT wide open?
“It was a mix-up in coverage,” cornerback E.J. Gaines said. “Some of us were in man (coverage). Some of us were in zone.”
So which coverage should you have been in, he was asked.
“Well I’m not really sure to be honest, still.”
Syracuse may give Mizzou more than it expected | STL Today
Mizzou receiver T.J. Moe had his anticipated pregame meltdown in the tunnel, breaking into tears before emerging for his final game at Faurot Field.
There was more emotion when he saw his parents. And Moe said he was still shaky when he bobbled the snap on an early extra point.
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a season that turned sour long ago added another weepy chapter as the Orange rallied for a 31-27 win that left the Tigers (5-6) on the brink of missing a bowl game for the first time in eight years.
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Syracuse receiver Alec Lemon capped a monster night by catching a 17-yard touchdown pass with 20 seconds left to give the Orange their only lead of the game, and the only one that counted.
Lemon had 12 catches for 244 yards and ran free in the Mizzou secondary much of the night. But he was never more open than the final play when the defensive backs became confused about the coverage.
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After Mizzou built its 17-3 lead, the lead was finally wiped out when Syracuse drove 70 yards and tied the game with 14:14 left on a pass from Nassib to Lemon.
Syracuse 31, Mizzou 27: Orange find matchup advantage, surge to win with it | Rock M Nation
Of course, it wasn’t all Lemon-versus-Ponder. Mizzou’s offensive output dried up after the first 25 minutes. With the smallest, quickest defense Mizzou had seen since UCF, Syracuse was constantly able to pierce Mizzou’s offensive line and force losses on first down. Kip Edwards dropped a sure interception in the end zone midway through the fourth quarter (Syracuse scored on the next play). James Franklin suffered a head injury. Et cetera. But kudos to Syracuse for finding a matchup Mizzou could not counter and riding it to victory.—So that’s that then. Mizzou has one last chance to salvage bowl eligibility next week in College Station, but the best, clearest route to six wins has been impeded, and the odds are very good that Mizzou will spending the holidays at home for the first time since 2004.
