Big game down Nashville way!
If Missouri loses to Vanderbilt, they’re all but done as a playoff contender. Unless, of course, you believe MIZ can avoid a third loss on the season by defeating Texas A&M at home and Oklahoma on the road – plus avoid being upset by Mississippi State or Arkansas. But I digress …
And ESPN is sending College GameDay there to celebrate Vanderbilt’s breakthrough season and hope (privately) that Mizzou doesn’t ruin the Disney Company fairy tale by taking darling Vandy down.
No question, Mizzou is the “other” team in this SEC matchup, even though (1) both squads are 6-1 and (2) Mizzou is rated even places higher than Vanderbilt in the SP+ ratings.
Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia is being pushed and promoted with great zeal by college football media, whether it be corporate or country. (SEC media are torn between Alabama’s Ty Simpson and Pavia.) But the Pavia Bandwagon is filling up outside of the traditional SEC-hotbed markets.) I’ve been a Heisman Trophy voter since the late 1980s, and I am many miles (and games) away from making a decision. It’s wide open.
Pavia is an exciting and captivating talent, but the hype is so over the top I was surprised to see that Vandy has lost seven games with him at starting quarterback over the last two seasons. Don’t get me wrong; I think he’s great and I love watching him play.
MY 3 QUESTIONS ON THIS GAME
I’ll get to the prediction later. And I also have some trends to share from a legal wagering standpoint. But first, a look at three questions.
1. Can the Tigers derail Diego? Can the Mizzou defense pave Pavia with a disruptive pass rush?
The best analytics-tracker there is, Sports Info Solutions, ranks the Missouri pass rush No. 1 in the nation in games featuring two power-conference teams? And Pro Football Focus has Mizzou ranked No. 5 for best pass rush among the 136 FBS teams.
For what it’s worth, Vanderbilt’s starting offensive tackles – Bryce Henderson and Isaia Glass – rank 120th and 91st among the 129 power-conference OTs in pass-blocking grade. Mizzou edge rushers Zion Young and Damon Wilson could exploit that … and I am being polite here.
Pavia is a nifty escape artist who leaves burn marks after wriggling out of jams. But Mizzou’s defense, ranked 6th in overall defense in FBS by Pro Football Focus – has done a good job containing mobile quarterbacks this season. (Jalon Daniels, LaNorris Sellers, Jackson Arnold.) But Pavia is special. He is a magician. But he can be stopped.
This season, when pressured in a game pitting power-conference opponents, Pavia has completed 11 of 29 passes (38 percent) for a touchdown, two interceptions and three sacks.
When pressured on third and fourth downs, Pavia has connected on 4 of 14 passes with no touchdowns, two interceptions and two sacks.
Pavia’s passer rating when pressured by a power conference defense: 38.6. With no pressure, his passer rating is 116.8.
Pavia is an effective passer from the pocket (110.0 rating) and even better when throwing from outside the pocket (128.2 rating.)
2. Can Mizzou get Ahmad Hardy going on the ground? And where the heck is Jamal Roberts?
And I think the two questions are related.
Let’s start with Roberts because this has been on my mind. Earlier this season, when Mizzou blasted holes in the Kansas and South Carolina run defense, Roberts put up superb numbers in support of Hardy, and both of those teams were stomped by two MIZ backs.
Roberts had 26 carries for 219 yards including 135 yards after contact against KU and SC. His work included two touchdowns, 12 first downs, and a fantastic broken-missed tackle percentage of 46.2%. His runs had a strong success rate of 53 percent. And in the meaningful Expected Points Added metric, Roberts ranked first among power conference backs from Week 2 through Week 4. Very impressive. Roberts was outstanding and did extensive damage. Those poor defenses – they have to slow down Hardy and Roberts in the same game? And at times with both backs lined up in the backfield. Yes. Almost unfair.
OK, now let’s fast forward to Weeks 7 and 8 when Mizzou took on those tough defenses from Alabama and Auburn. Do you know how many rushing attempts Roberts had, combined) in the two games? He had only EIGHT.
Hardy was suppressed by Alabama and Auburn. He averaged 55 yards rushing per game on 3.1 yards per carry. Remember all of the broken tackles, and missed tackles, and defenders getting roadgraded by Hardy earlier this season? Well, against Bama-Auburn, Hardy’s broken-missed tackles percentage was a shockingly low 16.7%.
Now let’s switch back to Roberts. In the Bama-Auburn games, his eight carries produced 56 yards, an average of 6.5 yards per run. He had a first-down percentage of 37.5%. His broken-missed tackle percentage was 46%. And finally, this: Sports Info Solutions has a “boom” rate stat. And it’s basically a success rate, only much better and more impactful.
Against Alabama and Auburn (combined), Ahmad Hardy has a boom rate of 2.8 percent. (That’s bad.) Jamal Roberts had a boom rate of 37.5 percent.
If defenses are finding it easier to neutralize Hardy, and Roberts is still churning out yards, then why would Roberts get such a low amount of touches over the last two games?
Makes no sense. But will it change in Nashville? Because unless MIZ can regenerate its run game and power up on the ground, I don’t like the Tigers’ chances of winning this one.
3. If Missouri can’t bust loose on the ground, can quarterback Beau Pribula win the Vandy game through the air?
I have my doubts. I spent some time this week, looking at Pribula’s performance vs. Kansas and South Carolina, when he had the benefit of a physically, highly productive rushing attack. In the two victories, Missouri averaged 273 yards rushing and 5.7 yards per carry. (Pribula ran for some of those yards.)
And then I looked at what happened when Pribula went up against faster and more physical defenses, above the KU or SC level. Against Alabama and Auburn, Miizzou averaged 127 rushing yards per game and 3.5 yards per rush.
How did this impact Pribula? Well, not good. The MU run game was relatively quiet, which made it more difficult to get an advantage in situational football. Plus, Alabama and Auburn clearly learned from mistakes made by Kansas and South Carolina from watching Mizzou bowl those teams over.
Look, I know I hit you with a lot of numbers but I have to do it again to show you the “before” and “after” look at Pribula. The games against Kansas and South Carolina are “before,” and the contests against Bama and Auburn are the “after.”
The “before” column, listed on the left, comes first. The combined numbers vs. Alabama-Auburn are on the right. All of the passing stats belong to Pribula. And all stats and metrics are courtesy of Sports Info Solutions.
Completion rate: 69.7% … 57.4%
Catchable ball rate: 88.3% …
On-target rate: 83.% … 59%
Adjusted yards per attempt: 7.4 … 3.4
Touchdown-pass rate: 6.1% … 2.9%
Interception rate: 1.5% … 5.9%
Standard passer rating: 105.9 … 60.5.
Sports Info Solutions passer rating: 117.2 … 50.3
Positive passing plays: 50.7% … 43.8%
Boom passing plays: 29.6% … 21.9%
Bust passing plays: 15.5% … 17.8%
The other disturbing part of this trend is Pribula’s 3rd and 4th down passing performance.
Against Kansas and South Carolina: 18 for 26, total 216 yards, 69.2% completions, 80 percent on-target rate, no sacks, 4 touchdown passes, no interceptions, 134.0 passer rating
Against Alabama-Auburn: 9 for 20 for 110 yards, 45% completions, 45% on-target rate, two sacks, no touchdown passes, 4 interceptions, 22.9 passer rating.
KU-SC pressured Pribula on 32 percent of his dropbacks. Alabama and Auburn cranked that pressure rate to 46 percent. The Mizzou pass blocking was off form vs. Bama-Auburn compared to how the O-line did against KU-SC.
I’ll say this for Pribula and I will spare you the stats: he’s actually delivered the ball well when under pass-rush pressure. But in terms of impact, MIZ’s downfield passing is still an issue.
Vanderbilt has a highly capable defense. According to Pro Football Focus grading, the Commodores rank 23rd among the 68 power conference teams in overall defense and are 23rd in run defense, 17th in pass rush, and 34th in coverage.
WAGERING TRENDS THAT APPLY TO THIS GAME
FYI, at the time I wrote this Vanderbilt was a 3-point favorite over Mizzou … up from the opening line of Vandy by 2 and ½ points. The over/under is 52.5 points.
1) Mizzou is 1-18, straight up, in its last 19 games against SEC opponents ranked in the Top 10. Vandy is 10th this week. Mizzou is 15th.
2) Since the start of 2017, in games featuring two ranked teams, the home teams have won 69 percent of those games straight up (210-104) and are a 60 percent success against the spread 183-122-9.
3) From Steve Makinen: when the home team has been ranked better (Vanderbilt in this one), those have gone 121-28 straight up (81.2%) and are 90-55-4 against the spread (62.1%).
4) More from Makinen: when the better-ranked home teams have been single-digit favorites or underdogs, they have gone 62-25 straight up (71.2%) and 55-29-3 against the spread (65.5%) since 2017.
HEISMAN ODDS
Once a long shot, Diego Pavia is at +700 on the DraftKings odds board as the fourth choice behind Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza (+340), Alabama’s Ty Simpson (+350) and Ohio State’s Julian Sayin (+400). Pretty damn good for a dude, Pavia, who began his college-football career in junior college at the New Mexico Military Institute.
EXPERT OPINION
From Chip Patterson, CBS Sports: “Missouri's offense has not produced at the same clip in conference play, and while the Tigers' defense can cause some problems for Vanderbilt I'd rather have Diego Pavia than Beau Pribula in this QB battle. This is the second straight road game for Mizzou but also only the second road game of the season. After escaping in 2OT against an Auburn team that I don't rate as highly, the Tigers are going to find it tough to get the same breaks against Vanderbilt.”
FOR THE MIZZOU HOPEFULS
The Sportsline projection model has Missouri winning 33-28.
BERNIE’S PREDICTION
No one asked me, but … if Mizzou can revive a relatively dormant rushing game, I like their chances. And if I knew Jamal Roberts would be a lot more involved in this game than was the case in his limited participation vs. Alabama and Auburn, I’d probably go with Mizzou in this awesome matchup.
But if this turns into Pavia vs. Pribula, then I’d go with the home-team quarterback who is riding a high wave of momentum and confidence.
That said, Mizzou’s defense can win the battle of bordering states by putting relentless pressure on Pavia – and keep him trapped instead of allowing too many escapes. Pavia isn’t as effective when pressured and I supplied the numbers to back up the opinion. I also noted the poor pass-blocking grades of Vandy’s offensive tackles.
As a Mizzou fan I also have a big concern over something else: Mizzou trying to cover Vanderbilt’s two tight-end sets, because Vandy likes to run those tight ends down the seams, and I don’t trust Mizzou’s defensive backs.
As I mentioned, I have some doubts. Mizzou certainly can win the day in Nashville. But when in doubt I usually go with the best quarterback. And going into this game, Pavia is the best quarterback. Pribula’s numbers in his last two games raise considerable concern.
And since I live in the Show Me State, Mizzou must prove they can beat a nationally ranked Top 10 team from the SEC.
Final score: Vanderbilt 26, Missouri 24.
Thanks for reading ...
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015.
Bernie’s all-time favorite tweet from a follower? “Bernie, been reading you a long time,” from Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine. He’s a Rams fan and followed the team closely during their St. Louis years. He even flew in from Europe after a concert to see the STL Rams win Super Bowl 34 in Atlanta.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STLSportsCentral, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows. And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and Randy Karraker.