Mizzou running game rolls to 49-27 win on Senior Night
Run, run and run some more.
That’s what the Missouri Tigers did on their way to a 49-27 win against Mississippi State as the Mizzou seniors got carried off the field with their rocks.
The primary beneficiary of the potent Tiger rushing attack was Ahmad Hardy. The sophomore posted a career game with 25 attempts for 300 yards and three touchdowns.
“Obviously, Ahmad Hardy had a career game,” Mizzou coach Eliah Drinkwitz said. “Only the second time in school history to have a 300-yard rusher.”
The Tigers ended with 326 rushing yards as a team, helping take the pressure off true freshman quarterback Matt Zollers, who Mizzou asked to throw just 15 times. He completed eight attempts for 112 yards and two touchdowns, while throwing one interception.
“Really proud of Matt Zollers for the way he played tonight,” Drinkwitz said. “Obviously started really fast and the bounced back after the interception.”
Hardy
Mizzou’s true sophomore running back from Lawrence County, Mississippi, ran wild right from the start.
His first rushing attempt went 34 yards, On the Tigers’ next drive, he broke a 22-yard run.
Both explosive plays set up passing touchdowns for Zollers. The true freshman found his classmate Donovan Olugbode for a 26-yard score on the first drive and Joshua Manning on a 34-yard touchdown on the second.
The pass to Olugbode came on a free play where a defender jumped offsides and Zollers tossed it up with faith Olugbode would bring it down.
“Pre-sap, I kind of knew if they were to jump offsides, I was gonna go to Donovan,” Zollers said. “Just, one-on-one, I have a lot of confidence in him to go up and get it.”
The pass to Manning came on a stop where the junior wideout made a few defenders miss on his way to a big run after the catch.
“What a great yards-after-catch run,” Drinkwitz said.
That led to a Tiger 14-10 lead after the first quarter.
Finding the end zone for the first time
With Hardy already sitting at 69 rushing yards, he started to rack up more in the second quarter.
On the Tigers’ second drive of the second quarter, Hardy found the end zone for the first time, breaking through a handful of defenders and powering his way to a 10-yard touchdown to put the Tigers up 21-10 with 2:36 left before the break.
“I think his speed really surprised them,” Drinkwitz said. “You know, this games means a lot to him. He was a Mississippi young man, wasn’t recruited by that school and so it was really important and meant a lot to him. And I’m proud of him.”
Racking up rushing yards
The third quarter belonged to Hardy, though not without issue. He totaled 27 rushing yards on the first three plays out of the break, but he fumbled and Mississippi State drove down to cut the lead to 21-17.
Hardy responded though, adding 25 rushing yards to his total on the Tigers’ next series. Then he broke through after the teams traded punts.
With the Tigers set at their own 24, he took one run for four yards. Then on the second play, he took the handoff to his left, cut back to his right and sprinted through a massive hole in the defense before outracing the secondary for a 72-yard touchdown.
Then, with the Tigers up 28-17, the Mizzou defense got involved in the scoring.
Mizzou hadn’t scored a defensive touchdown since freshman Dante McClellan returned an interception 83 yards for a score in Week 1 against Central Arkansas. But the defense got on the board twice against the Bulldogs.
The first was on a pass from Blake Shapen that was well defended by Daylan Carnell. Carnell hit the receiver as the ball got to him, then the pass bounced multiple times on Carnell’s shoulder. Which is where Toriano Pride sprinted in to scoop it up and return it 19 yards for a touchdown.
The second defensive touchdown came on a Shapen pass that sailed over its intended target and into the hands of Marvin Burks on fourth-and-4 from the Bulldog 18.
Burks grabbed it at the 28 and ran down the home sideline for a score.
“I saw the quarterback rolling out, too, so I really was just hoping that maybe he’d overthrow it or if he didn’t overthrow it, I was gonna get a good hit on him,” Burks said. “But once I saw the ball release, I’m like, ‘Man, that’s kind of coming straight towards me.’ So I kind of got my hands up, that’s kind of when I bobbled it. But I knew I had it.”
Reaching the record books
Hardy was well past 200 yards as time began to wind down in the fourth quarter, but after a failed fourth-down conversion from Mississippi State, the Tigers sent him out to try to get to 250.
And on the first play with 11:21 left, he broke free for a 43-yard touchdown.
Mizzou got the ball back one more time and sent out the starters trying to get Hardy to 300 yards.
He had five runs, but with Mississippi State selling out to stop him, they garnered just 17 yards combined. He needed 19 more to get to 300, but on third-and-8 it seemed unlikely.
The Tigers took some time to talk over a play during the two-minute timeout, and the call worked. Hardy got exactly 19 yards on his next carry and the Tigers kneeled out the win after that.
Hardy became just the second Tiger to ever rush for 300 yards in a game, joining all-time single-game record holder Devin West, who rushed for 319 in the 1998 Border War.
Add on Hardy’s 250-yard performance against Louisiana in Week 3 and Hardy now holds two of the top 10 single-game performances in Mizzou history.
“We stuck with the hot hand,” Drinkwitz said. “Even after the fumble, we didn’t lose faith in him. We said, ‘Let’s keep going.'”
Stats
- Mizzou led 438-345 in total yards and 326-110 rushing. Mississippi State led 235-112 in passing yards.
- Mississippi State ran 90 plays to Mizzou’s 55 and led 36:42-23:18 in time of possession.
- Mizzou averaged eight yards per game, 14 yards per completion and 8.4 yards per rush.
- Mizzou had five sacks and 13 tackles for loss.
Up next
Mizzou (7-3, 3-3 SEC) will look to play spoiler against Oklahoma (8-2, 4-2) which beat Alabama to remain in the CFP hunt. Game time is yet to be announced between the former Big 6/Big 7/Big 8/Big 12 rivals.
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