The 2018 season came to a close for Mizzou football in the Liberty Bowl this past Monday. Let’s take a look back at the season that was for the Missouri Tigers.
There was a lot of hype for Mizzou football heading into the 2018 season. Most of it surrounded quarterback Drew Lock and for good reason.
Lock ended up having a great season, throwing for 3,498 yards, 28 touchdowns, and eight interceptions. The Tigers finished the year with an 8-4 record in the regular season, good enough to qualify for a bowl game.
MU landed in the Liberty Bowl, squaring off against old Big 8 and Big 12 foe Oklahoma State, who finished at 6-6. It appeared to be a game that Missouri would win in by quite a bit, but the defense sputtered, the offense came up just short, and the Tigers lost their final game of the season by a score of 38-32.
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While the final game was disappointing, the rest of the season went okay. They got off to an impressive 3-0 start and went toe-to-toe with Georgia for a good chunk of that game. The Bulldogs took advantage of MU’s turnovers, however, and won by two scores.
Not beating top opponents is something that has plagued this program since Barry Odom took over and it mostly continued to be an issue in 2018. The Tigers did destroy Florida, however, who was ranked 11th in the country at that point in time. It was a big win for Mizzou.
Looking back at the 2018 campaign years from now, fans will wonder how this team didn’t achieve more. They had Drew Lock, who is an eventual first round pick, a solid run game, and a really good defense down the stretch (though that didn’t show in the bowl game).
Were it not for last second losses to South Carolina and Kentucky, the Tigers very well could have finished the year ranked in the top ten. Beating Kentucky would have likely been enough to give MU what ended up being the Wildcats’ spot in the Citrus Bowl and that would have been a much more intriguing event than the Liberty Bowl.
Losing those two games came back to bite MU in the butt and fans knew at the time that they’d be costly. While an 8-5 record is still an accomplished season, the Missouri Tigers could have been destined for so much more in the SEC this year and it’s a bummer that it didn’t go the way that many fans had hoped it would.
Kelly Bryant is taking over the quarterbacking duties in 2019 and the hopes are high once again that the Missouri Tigers will partake in a New Year’s Day bowl game.