Mizzou speechless in Texas-sized loss

October 20, 10:22 PMMissouri Tigers ExaminerRyan Faller

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 (AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)

Missouri’s game Saturday in Austin against top-ranked Texas was supposed to be a statement game.  One week after suffering a devastatingly surprising home loss, Gary Pinkel and his team were supposed to validate themselves to the nation as an emerging power all over again and, in the same breath, reaffirm the national championship aspirations of a program that some have labeled the “sleeping giant” of college football.

Alas, the familiar malaise that was supposed to have been lifted from Missouri football with last season’s 12-2 record, Big 12 North Title and Cotton Bowl dominance returned before a sellout crowd of over 98,000 at Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.  If only for a game, the inauspicious feeling that has for so long meticulously halted lofty expectations in Columbia and blanketed the program in a shroud of mediocrity for the better part of half a century reared its ugly head in the form of a nationally televised 56-31 embarrassment.

No statement was made, unless you’re a glass-is-half-full kinda guy.  In that case, Mizzou made quite the argument that it should be placed on a pedestal that towers above the other teams which permanently reside on college football’s mid-level tier.

To be honest, the only thing more embarrassing than the end result Saturday was the clear-as-day fact that the final tally did not even begin to depict how thoroughly Missouri was outmatched, outclassed, out-coached and outplayed in front of a viewing audience prepared to illegitimatize its recent accomplishments at first notice.

It was fun to put up nearly three-fourths of a hundred on Nevada.  And don’t think the convincing performance that exercised the demons in Lincoln against a pathetic Nebraska team will go unappreciated.  But until Mizzou proves it has both the offensive and defensive personnel, as well as the coaching, to beat a truly elite opponent, and do it with some semblance of consistency, genuine national respect will be nothing more than another unattainable pipe dream.

Now, in the aftermath of Saturday night’s lopsided defeat, which featured the Tigers’ 10th-largest halftime deficit (35-3) in the 119-year history of the program, players and coaches are redefining season goals and picking up shattered egos that have proved to be way too fragile to endure the punishment of the nation’s perennial powers.  Meanwhile, faithful are beginning to become wary of the possibility that they may have failed to savor last season’s historic success.

As for the rest of those who bore witness to the massacre?  Well, they’re all still waiting for the giant to awake from its slumber.