COLUMBIA, Mo. — Is another landslide win coming?
No. 9 Missouri is once again heavily favored in its second game of the season, a Saturday duel against Buffalo.
The Bulls of the Mid-American Conference have played the Tigers just once before — a 2008 Mizzou victory — and are a lower-end Football Bowl Subdivision program working through a rebuild.
MU, for its part, handled business tidily in the season opener against Murray State, though the Tigers’ coaches weren’t handing out any laurels to rest upon in practice.
If Saturday’s matchup gets out of hand, depth players could once again see some action, but there will be eyes on Mizzou’s starters as well. From how the first-team offense cleans up last week’s missed opportunities to another packed stadium, here are three things to watch for in Missouri-Buffalo at 6 p.m. Saturday.
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Deep throws and third downs
Any rosiness granted by the season-opening 51-0 scoreline faded once the Tigers returned to practice over Labor Day weekend. While MU coaches were generally pleased with how the team handled themselves against inferior competition, the early season goal of “eliminating bad football” meant there was work to be done.
“We do need to be more consistent in the throw game,” coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “The third downs that we missed were concerning for me.”
It may be a bit nitpicky of Drinkwitz, but he evidently has noticed something in the numbers when it comes to third downs. Missouri faced 13 third downs against Murray State and converted on eight of them — a 61.5% rate. The average distance to go on those third downs was 4.8 yards. Seven of the third downs counted as third and short.
The Tigers ran the ball on six third downs and moved the chains on five of those attempts. When taking to the air, they converted four of seven tries.
That seems to be connected to a bumpy start to Mizzou’s passing attack — and the other point of emphasis in this week’s practices. Quarterback Brady Cook was 3 for 10 on throws to targets 10 or more yards downfield and 0 for 4 on deep passes.
So, in practice, Cook and MU’s wideouts worked on the timing of deep routes without any defenders present, getting back to the basics of throw placement and route running.
“It starts with fundamentals: route depth, timing, the quarterback setting his feet when he makes throws, not drifting after he throws the ball, ready to go do a celebration,” Drinkwitz said.
Another sellout on the way
Memorial Stadium won’t be emptying out anytime soon.
Mizzou’s streak of consecutive sold-out home games is set to reach eight, with Saturday’s tangle with Buffalo extending the run.
Exhausting the ticket supply was among Drinkwitz’s priorities for the week, given his prior challenge to the Missouri fanbase and praise following an early-arriving crowd at the home opener.
"We’re working toward, and hopefully extending, the streak of sellouts,” he said.
The Tigers got there, with the Buffalo game officially declared a sellout by the athletics department Thursday morning. It will be the seventh in a row, while MU’s Sept. 14 home game against Boston College has already sold out, guaranteeing that the streak reaches eight.
Because Mizzou’s Oct. 19 homecoming game against Auburn and Nov. 9 game against Oklahoma are also sold out, a sellout of its Sept. 21 Southeastern Conference opener against Vanderbilt would push the streak to 11 games.
Buffalo reunion for Stephens
Missouri has seen Buffalo’s head coach and starting quarterback before through games against their past schools, but there’s another bit of familiarity that will unfold Saturday night: a reunion between MU tight end Tyler Stephens and his former team.
He started his career at Buffalo in 2021, catching 15 passes for 157 yards and a touchdown in that season. Stephens transferred to Mizzou ahead of the 2022 campaign but is excited to see some of his former teammates on the field.
“I got so many guys on that team still,” he said during preseason camp. “We still talk every day, so it’s crazy. I was just on the (college football video) game with them last night and we talk our crap every single day. Just going out there on that field, when we run out there or even in warm-ups and I see those guys again, man it’s going to be such a humble feeling, such a blessing that God has put me in this position to meet all these people.”
Stephens could be in line for a bigger role than his usual second-string duties if starter Brett Norfleet — who left the opener with an injury and was not at practice Tuesday — is scratched.