After looking at the stats, I can decide if I'm more encouraged or more depressed by Saturday's result.  Play this game ten times, and Mizzou probably wins 7-8.  But KU's risky ball-control gameplan paid off, and kudos to them for that.

• Field Position % might have been the single most important factor in KU's win.  The times they did have to punt, they had moved the ball just enough to have a chance at pinning Missouri deep, and they succeeded in doing just that.  All four punts that left Alonso Rojas' leg ended up at the Mizzou 21 or worse (including once at the 10 and once at the 2).  Not only did they manage to punt away from Jeremy Maclin, but they also got hellacious rolls on rugby kicks.  They kept the ball on Missouri's end of the field as much as possible, and it worked out great for them.  And beyond that, two huge kickoff returns by Dezmon Briscoe allowed KU to start a couple key drives in or near Missouri field position.
  
• Leverage % might have been the second most important factor in KU's win.  Surprisingly, the game-winning TD pass aside, KU did not see a lot of success on Passing Downs.  Problem was, Mizzou couldn't leverage KU into enough passing downs.  That, and they found themselves in too many of them.
• If you'd told me KU would be held to under 2.0 line yards per carry, I'd have bet a large sum of money on a Mizzou victory.  As poorly as Mizzou's pass rush was, their run stuffing was excellent.
• The per-quarter numbers told me something I already suspected--really, Mizzou didn't lose this game by failing to stop Todd Reesing and Kerry Meier in Q4 (I mean, they did, but you know what I'm saying)--they lost by failing on offense in Q1 and on defense in Q2.  If Mizzou had managed to avoid falling behind in the first half, they could have done more with their effective running game and dictated the pace.  Instead, Mizzou was playing from behind for all but 12 plays (seven when it was tied at 0-0, five when Mizzou had a 30-26 lead), and it left them with too littlle margin for error.
• What I said last week:

  KU's 49.4% success rate running the ball opens up an avenue of ball control success for them. Their big-play potential (i.e. PPP) is pretty crappy, but they can potentially move the chains a bit.

  Mizzou easily defeated KU in terms of PPP, but KU continuously did juuuuust enough to move the chains in the first half, and again...this and their early lead allowed them to dictate how the game unfolded.

Key Players and other Big 12 summaries after the jump.

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OU Links!

• Post-Dispatch: Missouri defense is bracing for high-octane Oklahoma
• Post-Dispatch: Sooners say chip on their shoulder against Mizzou (great)
• PowerMizzou: Stopping an unstoppable offense
• PowerMizzou: Like Father, Unike Son: Title Upset?
• The Missourian: Stoops says Sooners deserve spot
• KC Star: Coffman vows to fight pain, and Sooners
• KC Star: Even Tiger moms and dads are picking OU
• Tulsa World: Sam Nation
• Daily Oklahoman: Thumbs up for Sam Bradford
• Daily Oklahoman: What regional writers think
• Dallas Morning News: Missouri defense better be on its game against Oklahoma

Sounds like nobody on the Mizzou offense is feeling betrayed by Dave Christensen's departure...

Not that we need a ton of links talking about how badly Mizzou killed hapless UA-Pine Bluff last night, but...well, there's not a ton else going on, so that's exactly what you get!

• Mutigers.com: Missouri crushes Arkansas-Pine Bluff
• The Trib: Missouri routs Arkansas-Pine Bluff
• The Missourian: Missouri dominates Arkansas-Pine Bluff
• KC Star: Missouri pounds Arkansas-Pine Bluff
• Post-Dispatch: Tigers' defense is too much (way to go, P-D, ruining the headline symmetry...)

And if you want a bit more basketball reading, check out Steve Walentik's Big 12 power poll...

Finally, in Mizzou Football Recruiting news, Rivals has a neat story about Blue Springs South DE Derrion Thomas, Derrick Thomas's son who, while a bit undersized, developed into a dominant force this year...

Mizzou Basketball at Mizzou Arena

...we can add another Winter tradition to the list: Mizzou tight ends getting screwed over by the Big 12 coaches.

That's right, the Coaches' All-Big 12 awards have been announced.

1st-Team Mizzou players

WR Jeremy Maclin
DL Ziggy Hood
LB Sean Weatherspoon
DB William Moore (unanimous)
PK Jeff Wolfert

2nd-Team Mizzou players

RB Derrick Washington
TE Chase Coffman
OL Kurtis Gregory
DL Stryker Sulak

Honorable Mention

QB Chase Daniel
WR Tommy Saunders
OL Tim Barnes
OL Colin Brown
DL Jaron Baston
LB Brock Christopher
DB Castine Bridges (?)
DB Justin Garrett (??)
KR/PR Jeremy Maclin

I realize it's hard to complain too much--a few years ago, it was amazing to see a handful of second-teamers in Mizzou uniforms, much less nine on the 1st- and 2nd-team--and I realize that Jermaine Gresham is by all means a helluva tight end, but...come on.  Not only is Chase Coffman the best tight end in the conference, he's the best tight end I've ever seen.

Then again, this tells you everything you need to know about the validity of these stupid exercises:

* Justin Garrett = honorable mention all-conference
* Carl Gettis = not

Good god, what a waste of time.  Sorry I even acknowledged this with a post.

Here's something fun: of the 10 Big 12 defenses that took the field last weekend, nine of them got smoked.  Only that of Texas (and, technically, Iowa State and K-State, who didn't play) did not.  So when you get to the defensive rankings and DON'T see that Mizzou fell in every category after Saturday's KU game, that's why.

Mizzou's defense wasn't alone--pretty much every D-lineman, LB, or DB in the Big 12 got roasted like TurBaconDucKen with a side of green bean casserole last weekend.  That doesn't make more palatable the thought of Kerry Meier torching poor Justin Garrett yet again, but I'm just throwing it out there.  Our defense was no better or worse than 90% of the league last week.

Overall Big 12 Rankings*

* Once again, the overall rankings are derived by combining each team's Close-Game Offensive S&P+ with their Close-Game Defensive S&P+.  200 = average.  >200 = good.  <200 = bad.  From week to week, teams move up not only on the strength/weakness of their own performance, but on the strength/weakness of the performances of the teams they've played to date.

Biggest (Good) Mover: Baylor, for almost beating Tech.

Biggest (Bad) Mover: Texas Tech.  The most interesting downward move, however, was OU dropping six points.  We'll explore where that drop came from after the jump.

Category rankings and Big 12 Title Game projection after the jump.

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I'm sorry, but I just can't respect any movie that a) stars Tom Cruise, and b) stars Tom Cruise wearing an eyepatch.  Just can't do it.

Chase Daniel: chippy.

Quarterback Chase Daniel was in an extraordinarily chippy mood during his weekly turn at the podium. When asked about Oklahoma’s defense, Daniel came prepared with some offensive statistics for several of his teammates.

“They’re a great defensive team, but you want to talk about their guys,” he said. “What about our guys? I’ve got some stats right here.”

With that Daniel rattled off several season and career numbers for six of his teammates, reading off from a piece of paper — though he could probably recite them for memory. He mentioned numbers for Chase Coffman, Jeremy Maclin, Tommy Saunders, Jared Perry, Jeff Wolfert and Derrick Washington.

“You look at their weapons. Well, I want to look at ours and what we have to bring to the table,” he said. “I feel good about our guys.”

...

A couple things at play here: Daniel’s got something for the Sooners. That’s obvious. He grew up a Texas fan, so no surprise there. But over the last three years, Daniel’s been more than willing to discuss and dissect the defensive players for every other team on MU’s schedule. Just not Oklahoma.

“We want respect, and it’s not going to be given to us,” he said. “We just have to go out and get it.”

I love the attitude, but I'm scared enough about poking the bear that...yeah...back it up, Chase, and I'll love you to pieces...the KC Star has more.

Big 12 Championship Links!

• Mutigers.com: official release

  Oklahoma has won 18 of the last 19 games in the series, dating back to 1984, and if you take it back to 1970, they’ve won 30 of the last 33 meetings between the two schools. Since 1946, the series stands in OU’s favor by a whopping 49-7-1 margin – that’s when the separation really began by the Sooners from the Tigers, as in 1945, a Mizzou 14-6 win over OU evened the series at 16-16-1 at the time.

• Soonersports.com: Sooner Scouting Report
• The Trib: Tigers vs Sooners: The Sequel
• PowerMizzou: Tigers know few have faith
• Post-Dispatch: Missouri not distracted as it focuses on OU and Big 12 Title Game
• Bryan Burwell: Missouri has a chance to defeat Oklahoma, but it is a slim one
• Tulsa World: Sooners' depth will be tested
• Daily Oklahoman: Bob Stoops addresses Sam Bradford injury, Missouri
• Daily Oklahoman: Tigers way short of expectations
• Daily Oklahoman: Thumbs up for OU quarterback Sam Bradford

Naturally, Gary Pinkel is pretty happy about Dave Christensen's promotion (they've been working together since 1980!), as are Christensen's players...

In football recruiting news, it looks like Mizzou sent out a new offer for 2010: Blaine Gabbert's younger brother, Tyler.

Mizzou Basketball links!

• KC Star: Freshman Paul fits in at Missouri
• Mutigers.com: UA-Pine Bluff official release
• Steve Walentik: Goodbye Oral Roberts, hello Arkansas-Pine Bluff

Finally, it's time to get fully into 2003 Kansas State mode...live it, love it...

In response to the "How will Mizzou respond to a stinging KU loss?" question floating around, I thought I'd look at how Mizzou has historically responded in such a situation.

Since World War II, there have been 14 instances of Missouri losing to Kansas, their biggest rival, and then having another game to play.  (Until the mid-'90s, Missouri ended its season with Kansas almost every year, so there are plenty of cases where Missouri lost to KU, then didn't actually have another game to play.)

* Of course, this one goes down in the Missouri history books as a win.

Mizzou has gone 9-5 following KU losses.  Under Gary Pinkel, they're 2-1.  They laid an egg in 2005 in Boulder, but they followed the loss with their most dramatic wins of the season in 2003 and 2004.

The other thing to look at is...with Chase Daniel at QB, how has Mizzou responded to losses of any kind?

** Of course, this one goes down in MY history books as a win, ahem.

Not including the 2006 Sun Bowl loss to Oregon State (there was no game following that one, obviously), Mizzou has lost eight games with Chase Daniel a few yards behind center.  Five times, they have responded in style--when they win in these instances, they win big (by an average of 44-11).  The three other times, they have stumbled further.  When they have to respond to a loss by playing a bowl team, they've gone 3-2.

All this said, OU is clearly the best team Mizzou's had to play after a KU loss (since at least the '60s) or a Chase Daniel loss, so...yeah, this probably doesn't say a whole lot.  Just found it interesting.

I plan on doing a little stat analysis for each Mizzou game, but it's not to the play-by-play level, so we won't be using the "Beyond the Box Score" moniker.  Instead, we'll just hang out beside the box score for a bit.

(Here's the official box score.)

Mizzou 92, Oral Roberts 83

* This is an idea discussed last week.  Depending on the number of 2-pointers, 3-pointers, and FTs shot, you can generate a number of expected offensive rebounds and compare that to the actual number.

• Mizzou won this game on offense.  They forced only 12 turnovers, but 1.29 points per possession is very high.  They shot well and passed well, and though Oral Roberts is not a Big 12 caliber team, they're at least a solid mid-major, and 1.29 PPP is high against even that level of team.  And as we'll see in the player analysis, I'm giving DeMarre Carroll and Miguel Paul a lot of credit for that offensive efficiency.
• ORU's Robert Jarvis scored 34 points on just 18 shots, accounting for a large % of ORU's offensive success.  Jarvis aside, the Golden Eagles averaged just 1.36 points per shot (39% FG)...which is still pretty high, but better.
• Thanks to Leo Lyons' 8-for-10 performance from the FT line, Mizzou actually approached 70% as a team.  Of course, 70% still isn't very good.  Mizzou's guards went 6-for-9 from the line...67% isn't great, but it's also a small sample size, so we'll allow it for now.

Player analysis after the jump.

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