If this keeps up, Missouri Coach Gary Pinkel will wake up one morning with hundreds of "For Sale" signs on his lawn. His Tigers lost at home to New Mexico, 45-35, and the heat is on. Registration required, but if you're lazy, click on the comments tab below. The story is posted there.
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Tiger Tale: Pinkel on the Hot Seat
If this keeps up, Missouri Coach Gary Pinkel will wake up one morning with hundreds of "For Sale" signs on his lawn. His Tigers lost at home to New Mexico, 45-35, and the heat is on. Registration required, but if you're lazy, click on the comments tab below. The story is posted there.
Just let the playmakers make plays
ReplyDeleteJason Whitlock
Kansas City Star
COLUMBIA — You have to give Missouri football coach Gary Pinkel credit. He’s figured out how to get the most out of quarterback Brad Smith.
Unfortunately, at Smith’s current pace, there’s absolutely no way he’ll finish the season in one piece, and there’s absolutely no way the Tigers will win more games than they lose.
The Tigers spread the field, push the pace, confuse the opposition with motion and place Smith in position to be a natural playmaker on every snap.
You can’t deny those obvious facts if you were inside Faurot Field on Saturday night watching Smith dance around and through New Mexico Lobos. When Smith wasn’t galloping and juking, he was tossing short arrows to tight ends Martin Rucker and Chase Coffman. Smith still struggles with the long ball, but Saturday night he was as complete a quarterback as he’s ever been.
He ran for 165 yards and three touchdowns in the Tigers’ 45-35 loss. He completed 32 of 55 passes for 248 yards. Watching Smith work the Lobos and checking the Big 12 scoreboard throughout the day made you think the Tigers are capable of making noise in the conference.
So why did the Tigers lose to a Mountain West foe and trail for most of the evening? Why did you leave Faurot Field feeling like offensive coordinator Dave Christensen still has a lot of work to do and defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus is clueless?
Because even though Smith was clearly the best player on the field, and even though Rucker and Coffman and running backs Marcus Woods and Tony Temple are more talented than New Mexico’s group of playmakers, Lobos coach Rocky Long made better use of his offense than Pinkel did his. And because there’s no justification for Mizzou’s defense allowing 38 points (New Mexico returned a Smith fumble for one touchdown) at home.
The Tigers were outcoached. I’m not saying that to beat up on Pinkel and his staff. They’ve made progress. Missouri’s offense is light years ahead of where it was last season.
But the fact remains that a good team with inferior talent came into Mizzou’s stadium and controlled the action pretty much from start to finish.
“We made a lot of mistakes, and hell, I’m responsible for them,” Pinkel said.
Yes, he is. When will he stop making mistakes he’s responsible for is the question on the minds of most Mizzou fans.
Based on what we’ve seen across the Big 12 in the first two weeks of the season, conference games are going to be decided by coaching. The Texas Longhorns are a powerhouse. Every other team in the Big 12 is just about even and extremely beatable.
The league is wide open. The Tigers, with Brad Smith dancing, have enough talent to contend. If Pinkel and Christensen can figure out how to best utilize their other playmakers, the Tigers might be able to outscore everybody but Texas.
An offense that places three and sometimes four receivers on the field all at once needs to figure out how to get Rucker and Coffman on the field together. They own Mizzou’s softest, most reliable hands. At 6 feet 5 and 6-7, respectively, they’re remarkably tough matchups for linebackers or defensive backs. Given Smith’s inability to accurately throw the long ball, the Tigers should toss as many intermediate passes to Rucker and Coffman as possible.
Missouri’s wide receivers are not as good as their tight ends. The Tigers’ receivers dropped too many catchable balls. Yes, Smith overthrew several receivers running down the middle of the field. That’s going to happen. What can’t happen is Missouri receivers dropping skinny post routes and slants. It happened too often on Saturday.
The Tigers need to force feed the ball to Rucker and Coffman the same way New Mexico forced the ball to receiver Hank Baskett (10 catches for 209 yards and three TDs). The Tigers had no answer for Baskett. Mizzou’s D also didn’t have answers for New Mexico other feature playmakers — running back DonTrell Moore and receiver Marcus Smith.
New Mexico had a plan. The Lobos were determined to let Baskett, Moore, Smith and quarterback Kole McKamey decide the game. Mizzou didn’t muster much of a pass rush, and McKamey picked apart MU’s very soft zone.
I’d like to see the Tigers show similar determination in letting Smith, Rucker, Coffman, Woods and Temple decide games. Woods and Temple, who evenly split 20 carries, need a few more opportunities to run the football. They both have big-play capability. It’s silly to have Smith throw 50 passes. You’re tempting disaster, begging Smith to make the sort of critical mistakes that cost MU on Saturday, begging MU’s average receiving corps to make plays.
Look, if Peyton Manning drops to pass 55 times and runs the football 29 times, he’s going to make the kind of errors Smith did. His workload was just too heavy. Smith’s late-game interception ended Mizzou’s comeback hopes. His early third-quarter fumble, which New Mexico ran in for a score, restored the Lobos’ momentum.
Blame Smith? No way. You have to blame a coaching staff that has had five years to figure out how to properly use Smith.