End of season notes
After finishing the regular season with a roar, Missouri ended 2009 with a whimper.
Navy’s convincing 35-13 win over Missouri was its worst loss in bowl history. After the game, coach Gary Pinkel said it was the worst performance in a bowl by a team he coached.
Indeed, things weren’t exactly pretty as guys like wide receiver Danario Alexander, linebacker Sean Weatherspoon and offensive lineman Kurtis Gregory wrapped up their decorated careers as Tigers. Still, this senior class racked up more wins than any other in MU history.
Here are some notes and thoughts in a post-mortem recap of the Texas Bowl:
-Alexander set Missouri’s all-time record for receiving yards with an 11-yard catch in the first quarter. The senior from Marlin, Texas finished his career at Missouri with 2,778 yards on 191 receptions, surpassing current Tennessee Titan Justin Gage as the all-time receiving leader.
The impressiveness of these numbers is multiplied when you realize that Alexander only started for one full season. He played in 13 games as a freshman but came off the bench in each of them. Due to injuries, he only started three games in his sophomore and junior years combined. Prior to this season the most receiving yards he had in a season was 417, a figure he nearly exceeded against Baylor and Kansas State in consecutive games (414 combined receiving yards).
As he did so many times in 2009, Alexander showed his explosive skills by completing a touchdown catch on the second play of the game against Navy. Faced with heavy coverage in the backfield, however, Alexander struggled to get more yards the rest of the game. He still finished with 137 yards receiving, right on par with his nation-leading average heading into the Texas Bowl.
-One of the real bright spots of the Missouri defense is redshirt freshman defensive end Aldon Smith.
His second quarter sack of Navy junior quarterback Ricky Dobbs pushed him past Justin Smith (no relation) as Missouri’s single-season sack king. The Big 12 Defensive Freshman of the Year finished with 11.5 sacks this season and could be a major force on the Missouri defensive line these next few seasons.
His best two-game performance was against Texas and Colorado in late October. Smith picked up two sacks against the Longhorns and then three more against the Buffaloes in a game Missouri desperately needed to win.
-Sophomore quarterback Blaine Gabbert had a more than respectable season as a first-year starter, but he just couldn’t get into a rhythm against Navy. The Midshipmen continually cluttered the backfield with defenders, clogging up Gabbert’s passing lanes and intercepting him twice (his first interceptions since Colorado on Oct. 31).
While it was a forgettable end to the season for Gabbert, he will come back as one of the best quarterbacks in the Big 12 in 2010. His first season at quarterback had plenty of experiences from which he can glean valuable knowledge.
Including an impressive coming out party against Illinois in the season opener, Gabbert led Missouri to a 4-0 record to start the year. Against Nebraska on Oct. 8, he was intercepted for the first two times this season and also suffered an injured ankle. But he kept going. Gabbert didn’t miss a start and went on to lead Missouri to wins in four of its last five regular season games.
That tenacity can only bolster Missouri fans’ hopes that Gabbert can be the guy to get MU back to the top of the Big 12 North.
-Lastly, I want to bring up the attendance at Reliant Stadium for the bowl game. Though the crowd was
announced as 69,441, there were almost as many empty seats as filled ones in the 71,500 capacity stadium.
The empty seats couldn’t have helped Missouri, who is trying to attract better bowl games despite, at times, lackluster attendance in bowls. One wonders how much lower the attendance would have been if Navy (whose fans travel very well to bowls) wasn’t playing in the game.
At the end of the day, you can do a lot of worse than 8-5 in a rebuilding year. Missouri and its fans have a lot to look forward to with a team that had a lot of talent at the sophomore and junior levels this season. This season ending on a sour note may be the main source of motivation for the Tigers as they head into the offseason.