by Benjamin Herrold
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Another week, another blowout loss for the Missouri Tigers. This time, 51-14 to Auburn.
This week, Missouri (1-3, 0-2 in SEC play) seemed to show more fight than the previous week’s sleepwalking defeat at the hands of Purdue. But the quality of opponent ratcheted up, and the result was another lopsided defeat, a third straight for the Tigers.
Auburn (3-1, 1-0 in SEC) stood toe-to-toe with defending national champion Clemson in a narrow road defeat to open the season, and the blue-and-orange Tigers had far too much firepower and too much defense for Missouri.
Missouri’s first five drives went punt, interception, punt, punt and fumble. Auburn, meanwhile, hit a deep pass on the first play of the game and raced to a 28-0 lead while Missouri flailed through the aforementioned drives.
Missouri did get a touchdown at that point, but trailed 31-7 at halftime, 48-7 after the third quarter and 51-7 at one point early in the fourth quarter. Missouri tacked on a fourth-quarter touchdown against Auburn’s backup defenders for the 51-14 final score.
Auburn rolled up all those points with running back Kamryn Pettway staying on the sidelines, in uniform, resting his injured ankle.
Missouri turned the ball over four times, against zero for Auburn. The black-and-gold Tigers continued to struggle on offense when they face a defense from a Power 5 conference.
It was a steamy night at Faurot Field, and Missouri coach Barry Odom may have felt the heat in more ways than one. Odom went on a fiery rant after the game, saying he was going to get the program turned around. It felt like a defense of his job. If nothing else, it was a chance to vent after a frustrating first month of the season.
Odom, who played at Missouri in the late 1990s, is now 5-11 in his brief tenure as head coach, including 3-11 against teams from Missouri’s Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). He is 2-10 in SEC games.
It feels like Missouri could use an extra week to regroup, and that’s exactly what they get, as the Tigers have a bye week this Saturday. The squad can rest up and reset. Tiger fans can enjoy watching some other games this weekend, and be reminded how fun and wild and grand college football can be.
After the bye week, the Tigers head out on the road for the season’s first games away from Faurot Field. Missouri plays at Kentucky on Oct. 7 and at Georgia, maybe the best team in the SEC East, on Oct. 14. Then comes probably the two most winnable games left – the homecoming game with Idaho on Oct. 21 and a trip to Connecticut on Oct. 28.
Kentucky is probably wondering how on earth they blew a 13-point fourth quarter lead Saturday to lose to Florida for the 31st straight time. Missouri will have an extra week to find a way to right the ship against those Wildcats.