COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Let's not get too caught up in a victory over a middling team from the Ohio Valley Conference, but Missouri checked a lot of boxes in Saturday's 51-14 win over Tennessee-Martin. The new offense scored on eight of its first nine possessions, didn't come close to turning the ball over and committed just two penalties on 78 plays from scrimmage. The defense tackled well, mostly prevented big plays and made stops on 10 of 14 third downs. The kicking game was clean: 9 of 9 on field goals and PATs and solid in coverage.
Let's take a deeper dive into Missouri's seventh win in its last eight games ...
DOOLEY'S DEBUT
We told you the tight ends would play a major role in Derek Dooley's offense. Don't get caught up in the four combined catches for Albert Okwuegbunam and Kendall Blanton. They were major pieces to the offense Saturday. Just look at the first possession, a nine-play drive that picked up four first downs and ended in the end zone.
First play: 12 personnel (one back, two tight ends) out of a pistol formation. Blanton and Okwuegbunam are lined up on the left side of the line with a receiver split wide on each side of the field, Nate Brown and Emanuel Hall. With his first carry since last year's Georgia game, Damarea Crockett runs right between the tight ends for an 11-yard gain.
Second play: Four-wide shotgun formation, but the slot receivers are the tight ends, Blanton and Okwuegbunam. Crockett takes a designed swing pass into the flat and slices through the open-field blocks of ... Blanton and Okwuegbunam. 11 yards, first down.
Third play: Four-wide again but slot receiver Johnathon Johnson replaces Blanton with three wide to Drew Lock's left. Quick pass to Okwuegbunam for 7 yards.
Fourth play: Four wide ... but really wide. On one sideline, Okwuegbunam and Hall line up stacked behind one another outside the numbers. On the other sideline, a good 50 yards away, Johnson and Brown are stacked identically, forcing the defense to leave the middle of the field open to cover the wide splits -- Baylor splits as they're often called in homage to Art Briles' old Waco offense.
This is a classic count-the-box play, where it's a run up the gut against a light box or a quick screen outside against a heavy box. Crockett gets the ball but only picks up a yard.
Fifth play: Third and short. It's back to 12 personnel with the two tight ends on the right side of the line, two receivers split left. Crockett follows his tight ends off right tackle and gets 3 yards.
Sixth play: Same personnel but Lock goes into the pistol for a handoff to Crockett. A linebacker shoots a gap on the right side and drops Crockett for a 3-yard loss. A rare negative run for the first-team offense.
Seventh play: Three-wide shotgun formation with one tight end lined up on the right. Lock throws left to Johnson on a bubble screen for 17 yards.
Eighth play: Back to the four-wide stacked formation, this time with Blanton and Brown split way right. Brown grabs a quick screen, runs behind a block from Blanton and picks up 6.
Ninth play: Second and goal from the 9. Time for some beef. Back to the pistol. The tight ends attach to the right side of the line on the short side of the field. Brown, the right outside receiver, goes in motion and stops behind the tight ends as an extra blocker. Crockett blasts behind their wall and scores the first touchdown of the season.
From right of center, the Tigers lined up right guard Tre'Vour Wallace-Simms (330 pounds), right tackle Paul Adams (315), Blanton (270), Okwuegbunam (260) and Brown (210). Yes, that's 1,385 pounds of blocking -- just on the right side of the play.
To quote Sheldon Richardson, dare we say, old man football?
The Tigers haven't discovered a new brand of offense under Dooley -- remember, it was former OC Josh Heupel who used D-tackle Josh Augusta at fullback in 2016 -- but those kind of power plays were outliers in Heupel's otherwise pedal-to-the-floor shotgun spread attack.
"It was a different feel. I enjoyed it," Lock said. "I know everyone on the offense enjoyed it. I definitely know the defense enjoyed it. They got to have little break on the sideline every once in while. ... It just feels like real ball, and I'm excited to go on to the rest of the season like that."
Real ball.
Yeah, he said it.
Strong phrasing there from Lock. Even if the offense doesn't look that different to the naked eye, it feels different for the players. And those 1,385 pounds of humanity probably feels different, too.
Dooley didn't reveal his entire playbook Saturday, but a few things became clear:
--The Tigers will make dramatic changes in personnel and formations from one play to the next. That's a shift in philosophy from last year.
--The tight ends are huge pieces of the puzzle on the ground and through the air.
--The offense won't hurry for the sake of hurrying. The 40-second clock got into the low 20s and once all the way to 16 when Lock snagged the snap during the game-opening nine-play drive. Not to make too much of one game against an FCS team, but, as stated in Sunday's story, that was just the third time in 26 games under Odom that Mizzou possessed the ball longer than its opponent. Only one team in the SEC this week held the ball longer than MU's 33 minutes, 17 seconds.
Out of the 125 FBS teams that played a game so far, that ranks No. 33 nationally.
By no surprise, Central Florida, now coached by Heupel, ranks No. 121.
PASSING REVIEW FOR O-LINE
Let's stick with the offense. The O-line was missing its second-most experienced player Saturday in left guard Kevin Pendleton, out with a sprained knee. Senior Sam Bailey and redshirt freshman Case Cook split series as his replacements. The run-blocking wasn't always overpowering -- Crockett and Larry Rountree III averaged just 3.8 yards per carry -- but the pass protection was outstanding. Lock was touched just once all day, on a quarterback keeper that picked up a few yards up the middle.
"It was really hot," Lock said. "The one play I did run though, I thought, holy cow, thank goodness I play quarterback and I'm not running around here like these guys because I'd be dying."
As always, Lock gushed about the play of his guys up front.
"I don't have any kids yet, but I feel like they're my kids," he said of the offensive line. "I take them under my wing and if they bleed I bleed. They have fun, I have fun. It's warming in my heart when they play well and they deserve credit.
"Case and Sam came in and played really well. Obviously the ones have chemistry with Kevin in there, but adjusting they did a fantastic job, including Case and Sam coming in and playing big roles today."
Of course the O-line will face bigger tests the rest of the season, but a solid start for the five guys up front. The first unit was on the field for MU's first nine possessions -- eight with Lock at quarterback, one with Taylor Powell -- and produced 479 yards on 60 plays. That's 7.9 yards per play. For the season last year Mizzou averaged 7.1 yards per play. The offense went backward on only five of those plays, three runs, a shovel pass and a pass to Rountree in the flat.
The running game might have posted better averages had Odom not called off the dogs early. Once MU got out to a big lead, Odom called for runs on the run-pass option plays that otherwise would have been passes based on the defensive alignment.
DEFENSE STANDS ITS GROUND
No red flags for the Missouri defense. That's a good thing.
The edge rushers didn't get a consistently good push against pass protection, but Tennessee-Martin got the ball out quickly and rolled the quarterback away from pressure. It was a vanilla game plan for the Tigers and for the most part, they kept the ball in front of the last line of defense. We saw lots of substitutions along the defensive front plus a regular rotation in the secondary. Terry Petry replaced DeMarkus Acy for long stretches at cornerback. Terez Hall and Cale Garrett rarely left the field at inside linebacker.
On Tennessee-Martin's second possession, Mizzou debuted its Cheetah/dime package on third and 6, replacing nose tackle Walter Palmore for a third defensive end, Nate Anderson, who moved inside next to D-tackle Terry Beckner Jr. The Tigers put Hall on the edge showing blitz, and replaced the other two linebackers with extra corners, playing a secondary with corners Adam Sparks, Christian Holmes, Petry and Acy, plus safeties Cam Hilton and Joshuah Bledsoe. The Tigers only rushed three and dropped 260-pound defensive end Tre Williams into coverage in the middle of the field. Unique look there. The three-man rush flushed the quarterback out of the pocket to make the stop on third down.
EXTRA POINTS
No crowd shaming here, considering: (1) It was Labor Day weekend; (2) The quality of the opponent; (3) The miserable Missouri heat. But not since the 1997 home finale, when students were still at home for Thanksgiving break, has Mizzou announced a smaller home crowd than Saturday's 44,019. Yes, capacity is down to 60,000 this year because of the south end zone renovation, but if those numbers don't improve during SEC play, don't be surprised by another budget deficit for Mizzou athletics. Football ticket revenue -- and all the ancillary streams of revenue that follow suit (parking, concessions, T-shirt sales) -- will keep this program further buried among the SEC spenders if the crowds continue to dip into the 40s and low 50s. A few numbers to consider: It was also Labor Day weekend and blazing hot in other SEC college towns that were hosting lesser opponents, yet South Carolina had 75,126 for Coastal Carolina ... 63,342 at Arkansas for Eastern Illinois ... 54,289 at Mississippi State for Stephen F. Austin.
--Mizzou is an early 18-point favorite over Wyoming, which followed a week 1 win over New Mexico State with a 41-19 loss to Washington State. According to OddsShark.com, Wyoming is 4-1 against the spread in its last five road games but 6-19 straight up in its last 25 road games. Since the start of the 2014 season, Wyoming is 0-6 against Power 5 opponents with the average margin of defeat 28.5 points. The Cowboys covered the spread in two of those six losses.
--Odom's staff clearly wanted to see Powell against live bullets in a game situation. Odom stopped short of declaring him the No. 2 quarterback over Micah Wilson. Here's a possible reason why: Sometimes the No. 2 quarterback you play in garbage time isn't the same No. 2 quarterback you play when the starter gets hurt and you need the backup to win the game. Wilson has experience, maybe enough to be the latter for now. Powell seems like the former but needs the experience to become the latter.
--Let's not go overboard on comparisons, but when Kam Scott went up and snagged Lock's pass in mid-air, dodged a couple defenders and kept his feet upon landing, that's the kind of play we haven't seen Mizzou receivers make since ... Danario Alexander? Scott's got all the tools to become a star.
--Early read on the SEC: Auburn's comeback win over Washington could go a long way toward playoff credibility, even if the Tigers don't win the SEC West. ... Best win of the Ed Orgeron Era at LSU? Maybe so. ... Kudos to Maria Taylor for asking the obvious question that had to be asked after Alabama-Louisville and for not backing down to Nick Saban. You're better than that, Coach. Kudos for later calling Taylor to apologize. ... Last Thursday I rated Tennessee last in my preseason SEC Power Poll. That's where the Vols will stay. Maybe for the season. ... Ole Miss won't play in a bowl but will win more than six games. Maybe eight. ... Middle Tennessee was a trendy upset pick at Vandy. Dores 35, Blue Raiders 7. Derek Mason is not going quietly into the night. ... If Jimbo Fisher can keep Texas A&M within single digits of Clemson, the Aggies can contend in the SEC West.