The MizzouToday Show: 3 things to know for Mizzou vs. ULL
Receivers
On this week’s episode of The MizzouToday Show Kyle and Kenny walk about the Tigers maybe looking at getting more receivers prominently involved this week against Louisiana. After a week of the Kevin Coleman and Brett Norfleet show, Kyle had a prediction for another receiver to break out.
“Through the first two weeks for Mizzou, it’s been kind of an interesting change week to week,” McAreavy said. “Week 1, obviously, you got the opportunity to get everybody involved against Central Arkansas. You can kind of throw it all over the field as much as you want to. Week 2, it was the Kevin Coleman show.
“That’s not a bad thing, but it, you know, Marquis, Marquis Johnson, Joshua Manning, didn’t really get involved. You know, most guys had one catch, some of them one very important catch. But you know, it was kind of just Kevin Coleman and Brett Norfleet and those were your main pass catchers. Everyone else limited opportunities. I think this week is another kind of breakout opportunity week for maybe a guy like Joshua Manning. He’s probably going to be, you know, bigger and a bit faster than than whoever’s on him regularly. You know, got a bit of a Marquis Johnson breakout in week one, maybe week three is where you get the Josh Manning breakout.”
Coverage talk
The guys also talk about changes to the game plan in the secondary as the Tigers try to shore up some issues revealed last week in the Border War.
“I think the thing that’s that stood out during the game last week was Mizzou was playing a lot of soft zone coverage, which is kind of designed to let up short passes, right?” McAreavy said. “You’re, you’re, in a soft zone, you’re generally not breaking up a lot of passes. It’s, you let the guy catch it, you make your tackle quickly, so there’s no yards after the catch. And if that’s the game plan, Mizzou did fine. And there, there weren’t a lot of broken tackles from the secondary. There weren’t a lot of, you know, extra yard opportunities, which is good.
“But there was a lot of completions, and it kind of led into Kansas being able to sustain longer drives, which, right after the game, (Missouri coach Eliah) Drinkwitz came in and said, you know, there were a couple of blown plays that didn’t end up being that bad in man coverage because of, say, like, an overthrow, where a Kansas receiver had his defender beat pretty bad. Which then kind of, he didn’t use the word scared, I’ve used the word scared the Tigers into playing that soft zone. So you don’t want to get beat deep. That’s the idea of that. But he doesn’t want to do that moving forward. And said specifically, we need to focus on a different scheme.”
What to look for
“I just don’t think this is the game where we can evaluate the differences in the coverage defensively,” McAreavy said. “Louisiana is just not, or at least through the first two weeks hasn’t been, a strong passing team. I don’t remember exactly, so I’m not going to give specific numbers, but I’m pretty sure they haven’t hit 100 passing yards in either game. And if they’re not hitting 100 passing yards, or, let’s say 150 in case I’m forgetting, against McNeese State, I just don’t think that’s an actual evaluation opportunity to look at what the Tigers are able to do, or really anything that we’ll be able to take away from that moving forward.
“I do want to see some more improvement from the offensive line, for sure, Drinkwitz called out Louisiana’s defensive line as being pretty strong. But again, you know, it’s another cupcake opportunity. This should be a game that the Mizzou offensive line really steps up and and is able to kind of dominate a bit. We did not see that in Week 1. I’d like to see that now. I think that would be a good sign moving forward.”
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