Analysis: Inside Missouri's fourth-quarter comeback

Thursday will mark exactly one year since Eli Drinkwitz was hired as the 33rd head football coach at Missouri. 

In that time, he's faced tough challenges such as navigating the coronavirus pandemic and all the constant changes that go along with the fluid nature of 2020. 

Two of his lesser-remembered yet completed vital tasks proved to help the Tigers to a 50-48 win over Arkansas in front of a socially distant crowd of 11,738 at Faurot Field in Southeastern Conference action. 

One was his first priority task after signing his six-year, $24 million contract. Drinkwitz had eight days to retain as many Class of 2020 recruits as possible. One of them: Harrison Mevis. 

The Warsaw, Indiana, native went 5-for-5, including the game-winning 32-yard kick as time expired. 

The other of those tasks took place during the pandemic when Drinkwitz evaluated his roster and identified areas of immediate concern. One of them: MU needed more touchdown-makers. 

While graduate transfer wide receivers Keke Chism and Damon Hazelton didn't score against the Razorbacks, both had their best games yet in Columbia. 

Hazelton, who came west after a stint at Virginia Tech, caught two passes for first downs on the final drive of the game and had five catches for 98 yards on six targets. 

Chism, a Division II transfer from Angelo State, had six catches for 113 yards, becoming the first MU receiver to eclipse the 100-yard mark in a single game since Johnathon Johnson against Mississippi last October. 

"This is why you come to the SEC, you want to play in big games," Chism said of his and Hazelton's performances. "And for us, it's just always staying locked in and capitalizing on the opportunities. We were brought here to make plays and I think today we did a great job of that."

The 27-point outburst in the final 15 minutes had plenty of standout characters, such as redshirt freshman quarterback Connor Bazelak, who completed 30 or more passes for more than 300 yards, but no passing touchdowns, for the second straight week. 

Mentioning Bazelak's zero in the passing touchdown category isn't meant as a negative. He's not worried about his own stats, but just steers the Missouri ship without crashing. 

"I was just trying to stay calm as always," Bazelak said. "One thing I like to remember is, in the quarterback room, we have a list of kind-of quarterback commandments and one of them says, 'We don't need a celebrity quarterback. We need a battlefield commander.' So I kind of like that and just thought about that. Doesn't matter about the stats or anything. I just needed 40 seconds, three timeouts to go downfield, get a field goal, win the game."

The task for Missouri was of high difficulty: eliminate a 14-point hole in the game's final 13 minutes. 

The Tigers had to do so when their offense hadn't scored a touchdown in 24 minutes of game time and the MU defense was without team captain and junior linebacker Nick Bolton, who was ejected in the second quarter for a targeting penalty. 

A quick strike from Tyler Badie on a 46-yard touchdown run put Missouri within a touchdown.

After an Arkansas punt, Larry Rountree found the end zone for the third time in the game to tie the game at 40 with under eight minutes left. Rountree finished the game with 185 rushing yards. 

Missouri's defense stepped up once more to force a punt before Badie found the end zone again to give Missouri its first lead since the middle of the second quarter. 

The Razorbacks' offense was dormant only for so long, as a methodical drive led to the game-threatening 14-yard touchdown catch by Mike Woods with 43 seconds left. 

Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman made the decision to go for the 2-point conversion, a pass play that resulted in another Woods catch, only after the ball hit the hands of MU linebacker Jamal Brooks, one of the replacements for Bolton. 

Even for a high-powered offense, getting down the field in under a minute is a tall task. Against Barry Odom's Razorback defense, the Tigers carved apart the coverage schemes of their former coach to put Mevis in position for the game-winner. 

A double ice didn't rattle Mevis, who's used to pestering from Drinkwitz, coining the nickname "Jani-miss-ski" as tribute to longtime NFL kicker Sebastian Janikowski. 

Mevis delivered the game-winning boot and handed Missouri its fifth straight win over the Razorbacks, its fifth win of the 2020 season, its third straight win and the humongous Battle Line Rivalry Trophy. 

Could you imagine the pop from the crowd in a full Arrowhead Stadium when Mevis' final kick sailed through the uprights as originally intended for this game when the Kansas City Sports Commission & Foundation signed on to host it at the home of the Chiefs in August 2019?

"What a tribute to our seniors on senior day, to the toughness and tenacity that our program is showing and continuing to learn how to win," Drinkwitz said. "And a really nice job of our guys fighting in the second half. I told them at halftime, 'No great story is fun unless you have a little adversity.'"

Heading into next week's matchup against No. 9 Georgia, Missouri will look into the rear-view mirror at the largest fourth-quarter comeback in program history. 

It's another opportunity to build the program, and those inside the Tigers' walls know that all too well. 

On day No. 362 of his Missouri tenure, Drinkwitz led the Tigers to another cornerstone victory. 

"We got a lot more to do. And, (I) appreciate the administration believing in me and believing in our staff and continuing to push forward," Drinkwitz said to end his postgame press conference. "I know Mizzou nation is getting excited about what we're doing, recruits are taking notice.

"And we're not done yet."

eblum@columbiatribune.com

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