“Show Me My Opponent” is back once more and for the first time with bowl eligibility in sight. Last week’s somewhat controversial SMMO guided the Wildcats to a win over Mississippi State as six-point underdogs. This one, I hope, will lead them to victory in Columbia for the fourth win in conference play. Let’s go.
UNIVERSITY of MISSOURI
The University of Missouri is a lovely Big 12 school in the Midwestern United States that somehow snuck its way into the Southeastern Conference in 2012.
A public land-grant research university in Columbia, Mo., its research includes studies such as the one that made news just recently, when university researchers purposely blinded and killed six adorable beagle puppies. The university said the killings were necessary to find the effects of topical hyaluronic acid to heal eye damage in dogs.
Aside from first-degree puppy-murdering, the University of Missouri, which is simply known as “Mizzou,” might be kind of racist. Just ask the university president and chancellor, who each resigned last November, following strikes and protests over racism.
More fun Mizzou and Columbia facts:
— The University of Missouri was the first university in Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson’s original tombstone is located on Mizzou’s campus.
— The entire Mizzou campus is maintained as a botanical garden. (A botanical garden is an establishment where plants are grown for display to the public and often for scientific study.)
— Columbia was an early stagecoach stop on the Oregon Trail. It was outside Columbia where Mary died of dysentery and you were snakebitten while hunting buffalo. You should’ve been the doctor!
— It is illegal to dry clothes on a line in Columbia. Antennas are also illegal.
MISSOURI TRADITIONS AND STUFF
— The tradition of homecoming was said to have begun at Missouri. As the story goes, it began in 1911 when former athletic director Chester Brewer called for alumni to “come home” for the annual football game against Kansas. Today it is the university’s most-cherished tradition.
— Truman the Tiger, Mizzou’s beloved mascot, is named after Harry S Truman, the 33rd president of the United States, who was from Independence, Missouri.
— Founded in 1908, Missouri’s School of Journalism was the first of its kind in the United States, and the first in the world behind the Ecole Superieure de Journalisme in Paris, France.
— On campus, students rub a statue of former governor David R. Francis prior to taking a test. It is believed that when a student rubs David R. Francis’ nose they’ll get an A on their next exam. The nose has been replaced several times due to this tradition’s popularity.
— At a staggering nine-feet wide, Mizzou has the biggest bass drum in college football:
NOTABLE MISSOURI PEOPLE
Brad Pitt: Hollywood actor and producer; father to Maddox, Zahara, Shiloh, Pax, Knox and Vivienne Pitt-Jolie; two-time People Magazine‘s “Most Sexiest Man Alive” winner; dropped out of Mizzou and moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting career, two weeks before his graduation
Jon Hamm: Don Draper from AMC’s Mad Men; avid St. Louis Cardinals fan; Salon.com‘s “Sexiest Man Living” in 2007; 1993 Mizzou graduate with a bachelor’s in English
Sheryl Crow: She put your picture away; wondered where you’ve been; she can’t look at you, while lyin’ next to him; received a bachelor’s degree in music composition, performance, and education, and later awarded honorary doctorate
Sam Walton: Founder of Wal-Mart; one of Time‘s “100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century”; the richest person in the United States from 1982 to 1988; voted “permanent president” of his 1940 Missouri class, whatever that means
Pat Forde: John Calipari hater; Rick Pitino apologist and bestie; major has-been in sports journalism
INSTAGRAM SCOUTING REPORT
Sooooooo… We should go to Missouri, right?
2016 SCHEDULE/RESULTS
SO WHO’S THE HEAD COACH?
The head coach of the Missouri Tigers football team is…
(Hang on. I need to Google it.)
Barry Odom. It is someone named Barry Odom.
According to his Wikipedia page, Odom is a former Missouri linebacker from 1996-99 and defensive coordinator in 2015. He was also on the Tiger staff in some form from 2003 to 2011, before serving as Memphis’ defensive coordinator from 2012-14.
Odom replaced Gary Pinkel this past offseason after Pinkel retired due to health related issues following 15 seasons in Columbia.
Odom also looks like the Before picture in Bosley Hair Restoration commercials.
THREE PLAYERS TO WATCH
#30 | MICHAEL SCHERER | LB | Senior (RS)
Scherer, Mizzou’s senior defensive leader, is the team’s play-caller on that side of the ball. He has made 33 consecutive starts at linebacker and currently leads the team in tackles with 53 in seven games.
Suffered torn ACL against Middle Tennessee State — out for the season.
#79 | TERRY BECKNER JR. | DT | Sophomore
Terry Beckner Jr. is a young star on Mizzou’s defensive line and, with Scherer, is one of the four or five best defenders for the Tigers. A 2015 1st-Team Freshman All-American and First Team Freshman All-SEC player, Beckner has a very promising future as an interior lineman.
Suffered torn ACL against Middle Tennessee State — out for the season.
#3 | DREW LOCK | QB | Sophomore
Missouri quarterback Drew Lock currently ranks third in the conference in passing with 1,995 yards through the air, with a second-best 16 touchdowns.
The product of Lee’s Summit, Mo. — which, if you’re ever there and get a sweet tooth, go to Custard’s Last Stand for a concrete — played in all 12 games as a true freshman last season, including starts in the final eight games of the year. #MatyMaukProblems
I completely lost my train of thought thinking about those concretes.
LAST TIME WE MET
Kentucky gots its first conference win over Missouri last season in Commonwealth Stadium. Missouri had won the three previous meetings since joining the SEC’s East Division in 2012.
Patrick Towles threw for 249 yards and two touchdowns against the 25th-ranked Tigers to end Kentucky’s 18-game losing streak to ranked opponents. It was also UK’s first win over a ranked opponent in five years.
Towles’ 22-for-27 night was a follow-up to the worst of his career, against Florida, one week earlier.
GAME PREDICTION
Here’s the deal. Missouri is better than its 2-5 overall record states. It has one of the SEC’s top offenses, powered by a good quarterback in Lock and a dangerous young running back in Damarea Crockett.
But Kentucky’s found a way to win ball games, and that’s exactly what will happen Saturday afternoon. Kentucky will win the ball game, as it has done in its last four winnable games, because Alabama does not count. Nick Saban’s team is too good for college football.
So here’s how it’ll go down: Boom Williams, JoJo Kemp and Benny Snell will combine for 250+ yards rushing on the ground, which will keep Kentucky in control of the clock and of the game. Missouri will score some points, but its inability to stop the run will be the difference maker. Stephen Johnson will do just enough at quarterback and he WILL NOT FUMBLE in his fifth victory as the Cats’ QB.
After the game, the handful of Kentucky fans that made the trip for an 11 am local time kickoff will terrorize the streets of Columbia. C-A-T-S CATS CATS CATS! will ring out on Broadway, or wherever people go in that town.
Then, those same Kentucky fans who celebrated long into the night on the Tigers’ home turf, will make the seemingly never-ending drive across the empty state of Missouri, back into the Bluegrass. But they’ll do it with a smile, knowing their team is going bowling.
Cats win. Bowl ticket punched (unofficially).