KANSAS CITY, Mo. — While Missouri is busy anointing quarterback Chase Daniel as the greatest thing to come out of that school since Brad Pitt, the Tigers’ overlooked defense is what will make or break their national title hopes.
Missouri. National championship. Football. Sounds odd? It won’t for long if Mizzou, now first in the Bowl Championship Series rankings, keeps defending as it did in Saturday night’s 36-28 victory against Kansas.
Keep in mind the Missouri “D” that crushed Colorado 55-10 and held the Buffaloes to 196 yards Nov. 3 was a statistical aberration. Missouri (11-1, 7-1 Big 12) is only 60th nationally in total defense (380.8 yards per game) and has been gouged for 534 yards by Mississippi and 406 by Kansas State. Even NCAA Football Championship Subdivision team (I-AA) Illinois State rang up 397.
Don’t let that fool you, though. This defense, under coordinator Matt Eberflus, who has been with head coach Gary Pinkel since he played for him at Toledo in 1991, is resilient. While 60th in yards given up, it’s 39th in points allowed at 23.4 points per game.
Kansas (11-1, 7-1), the eighth-ranked offense in the country, didn’t score until halfway through the third quarter. It gained all of 42 yards on its first three possessions, and in three straight trips to the red zone missed two field goals and allowed an interception. Soon it was 21-0, and a late rally wasn’t enough.
Oh, yes. Did we mention safety William Moore’s interception in the second quarter? It was Todd Reesing’s first in 213 attempts, or the first since before the leaves changed.
“I thought we did play great red-zone defense,” Pinkel said. “The turnovers were huge.”
A sieve against the run a year ago, Missouri’s defense was left for dead last month when senior strong safety Pig Brown, already a two-time Big 12 defensive player of the week, ruptured his Achilles tendon against Iowa State. But junior college transfer Justin Garrett, who had two interceptions as a reserve, has stepped up in his place.
Moore’s pick was his seventh, the most at Missouri since Roger Wehrli in 1968.
“He’s become a high-level Big 12 player,” Pinkel said of Moore. “I think (Brown) is a great influence on him, and the great thing about it is that he played good all year, but he’s played his best games since Pig went down.”
Missouri’s defense thoroughly exposed Kansas’ overrated running attack, holding it to 42 yards on 22 carries. That includes two sacks, one coming for the clinching safety that epitomized what this defense has become.
“The whole sideline erupted,” receiver Jeremy Maclin said. “I thought we were going to get a sideline penalty.”
This elastic defense can’t afford to break now. Saturday in the Big 12 title game in San Antonio, it faces a ninth-ranked Oklahoma team (10-2, 6-2) that rolled up 384 yards in a 41-31 win over visiting Missouri on Oct. 13. Forget quarterback Sam Bradford staying woozy. He recovered from his concussion to throw for four touchdowns in Saturday’s 49-17 rout of Oklahoma State for an NCAA freshman-record 32.
Bradford leads the nation in pass efficiency and directs the third-highest scoring team in the nation, at 43.8 points a game. If Missouri survives Oklahoma, it likely will meet second-ranked West Virginia, No. 8 in scoring (41.6), in the BCS championship Jan. 7 in New Orleans.
“This is great,” tight end Chase Coffman said. “There’s no other feeling like it.”
