Bowl breakdown: 1st of 13 SEC teams in postseason hits the field Wednesday

Mike Hugueninby:Mike Huguenin•12/22/21•

MikeHuguenin

The first SEC team takes the field in the postseason in Wednesday’s Armed Forces Bowl, with Missouri the first of the league’s NCAA-record 13 bowl teams to play.

Appropriately enough, the Tigers’ opponent in the Armed Forces Bowl is Army, which fell to Navy in its regular-season finale on December 11. Mizzou hasn’t played since losing to Arkansas on November 26.

While this is just the 10th bowl in Army history — the academy didn’t play in bowls until 1984 because of a school policy — it’s the fifth bowl in the past six seasons for the Black Knights and the third appearance in that span in the Armed Forces Bowl.

Armed Forces Bowl

Army vs. Missouri

Time/TV: 8 p.m., ESPN (Tiffany Greene play-by-play, Jay Walker analyst)
Venue: Amon G. Carter Stadium, in Fort Worth, Texas (capacity of 45,000)
On3 bowl ranking: 30th (of 42)
Team records: Army 8-4; Missouri 6-6
Records vs. bowl teams: Army 5-3; Missouri 4-6
All-time bowl records: Army 6-3; Missouri 15-18
Key stats: Army is second nationally in rush offense at 286.9 yards per game and leads the nation with 44 rush TDs. Missouri is 124th nationally in rush defense, surrendering 229.3 yards per game; the Tigers have allowed 30 rushing touchdowns, 12th-most nationally and fifth-most in the Power 5 ranks. Ten of Mizzou’s 12 foes have rushed for at least 160 yards and six have rushed for at least 250.
The line: Army by 4
The buzz: There’s not much mystery to this one. Can Mizzou stop Army’s triple-option rushing attack? That seems unlikely. Mizzou RB Tyler Badie, third nationally in rushing at 133.7 yards per game, will not play. While Badie was a one-man show for Missouri, Army has five guys with between 347 and 603 rushing yards. Defensively, Army OLB Andre Carter II is second nationally with 14.5 sacks. In two games against Power 5 teams this season (Wake Forest and Wisconsin, both losses), Carter had one sack. Missouri hasn’t done much with its passing attack in the second half of the season — the Tigers didn’t throw for more than 230 yards in any of their final seven games and five times didn’t throw for more than 180 — but teams that made it a priority to throw on Army had success.