Mizzou football still has one game remaining in the 2018 season, but it’s never too early to gear up for next season! Let’s take a look at the Tigers’ 2019 schedule.
After going 8-4, the Missouri Tigers earned a berth in the Liberty Bowl, which is taking place on New Year’s Eve. It’ll be the final game of the season for MU, but there’s a lot of hope and expectations for 2019 thanks to the transfer of quarterback Kelly Bryant.
Bryant and the Tigers have a pretty favorable schedule in 2019. Here’s what next season has in store for Mizzou football:
- August 31 – at Wyoming
- September 7 – West Virginia
- September 14 – Southeast Missouri
- September 21 – South Carolina
- October 5 – Troy
- October 12 – Ole Miss
- October 19 – at Vanderbilt
- October 26 – at Kentucky
- November 9 – at Georgia
- November 16 – Florida
- November 23 – Tennessee
- November 30 – at Arkansas
The thing that stands out the most about the 2019 schedule is that Missouri goes on the road for their season opener, but then has five straight home games. After traveling to Wyoming in week one, the Tigers won’t have another away game until nearly two months later.
The bad part about that, however, is that after they host Ole Miss in week six, MU won’t play in Columbia again for another month. That stretch won’t be easy either, as the Tigers will face Vanderbilt, Kentucky, and Georgia on the road. Two of those three teams finished 2018 in the top 25 rankings.
Missouri also finished the year off in the top 25 and with Kelly Bryant transferring in, there’s no reason to believe they won’t be ranked to start the 2019 season.
Looking at the first half of the schedule, it’s entirely possible that the Tigers go 6-0 or 5-1 to start the year. The toughest opponent in those first six games is West Virginia, who blew the doors off Mizzou in Morgantown a few years ago. This time, Mizzou gets the Mountaineers at home, so that should hopefully result in the Tigers getting the last laugh.
Troy has a potential to be a trap game, as they knocked the Tigers off their perch a few years ago and most recently were able to beat both LSU and Nebraska in back to back seasons (and on their home turfs). The Trojans might be a Sun Belt school, but they’ll put up a fight.
All in all, this is a very favorable schedule for Missouri to work with next year. They’ll have a good chance to be a top 25 team all season and could even compete for a top tier bowl game.
MU’s problem over the Barry Odom years has been that they can’t beat good teams and they’ll have a few chances to prove they can do so in 2019. Hopefully they can take advantage of their somewhat easy schedule to start the year and gain momentum as the season continues on.