OPENING ACT: Austin Simmons SHINES In Missouri Debut

0:00This is the Lockdown Podcast Network celebrating 10 years of your team every day. The Austin Simmons era has begun on what Eli Drinkwoods called a perfect night. Are you being sarcastic, dude? You are Lockdown Mizou, your daily podcast on the Missouri Tigers, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Hey, all you true sons and daughters. I'm John Miller, your Mizzou Maffio. So, and the central scrutinizer of Missouri Tigers football and basketball. After of course, a big 50, a four to 14 win for Missouri over Arkansas Pine Bluff last night. Kind of a tale of two halves, 40 to nothing in the first and well a tie ball game in the

1:00second. Can that really be a perfect night? Well, according to Eli Drinkwoods, it was. I'm also going to daily preach a little bit of patience with the Missouri running game. But I want to start by talking about Austin Simmons, of course, because he was going to be probably the lead of this program no matter what. Fortunately, we've got a lot of good things to talk about here. I thought Austin was really impressive last night. Heck, we'll just pick him apart just a tiny bit here at first. According to Drinkwoods, the one sack was on Austin. That was a sack he shouldn't have taken because it was a run pass option play where, again, this is going to be Eli Drinkwoods. Don't shoot the messenger. He should have handed the ball off. I also thought there was one decision where Austin threw the ball sort of a deeper post route that I thought he threw it kind of right where the safety was. However, I will say that was such a good throw. I could be wrong. It may have been completed anyway. Probably was, frankly, 17 of 19 was Simmons, 252 yards and four touchdowns, not quite the

2:07five touchdown debut by a Chase Daniel 20 years ago, but not too shabby. I have to say I was really impressed and something that I've preached about all off season for Simmons, it's going to come down to accuracy and decision making. Like I said, there was really only one decision that I wasn't a huge fan of, but I thought he looked like he had command of the offense and well, he threw the ball where it needed to go. I thought he did it decisively. I thought he played very decisively. For the most part, I thought his accuracy was on the money. I can't really think of a time where I thought that pass was a little bit off the mark. So really all systems go so far for Austin Simmons, I would say a really good start. Obviously, I don't want to make too much of it against a completely overwhelmed Arkansas Pinebluff team, especially in the first half, but like I said, this is about as good of a start as he could have hoped for for Simmons and really the entire Missouri passing game.

3:10I also liked the fact that obviously Missouri got a lot of explosive plays out of the passing game, but it wasn't just, oh, line up and run a go route and let our superior athletes just run by everybody. Hey, that's that's fun. That would be great to see too. I liked that there was more more stuff and sort of the intermediate part of the field, not just again, not just go balls, but stuff, you know, 15 yard outs and post plays, that type of thing, things more of the intermediate part of the field. So really good start for the Missouri passing game. Obviously, Kansas next week is going to be a completely different challenge as any actual big 12 or power four team would be. I will say while the Missouri passing game was more or less clicking on all cylinders, at least when Simmons was in the ball game, you know, the Missouri rushing attack left a little bit to be desired, but I got to remind people that's a pretty common theme

4:10often early in Mizzou football seasons. I think we need to be patient with this outside zone rushing attack because this isn't just man blocking where you just find a guy in front of you and just go hit him. It's a little bit more complicated than that without going too deeply into the intricacies of outside zone, which, you know, Brandon Jones, coach Jones is going to be the guy for that particular topic anyway. But the point is even in the 2023 season, for example, here's some good contacts. Now that was a good offense. That was a good outside zone rushing attack with Cody Schrader and company who ended up what seventh in the Heisman trophy that season, largely on the back of that outside zone play. Well, week one that season, by the way, Brady Cook, just 172 yards passing one touchdown in the ball game. Sam Horn was three of five in that game as well. Cook would eventually be named the full time starter in week two.

5:15By the way, Missouri had offense wasn't very impressive against middle Tennessee either. In fact, to the point where I was going, wait, what are we doing with this? Why are we? Why are we so obsessed with this outside zone rushing attack? And then yet by the time the middle of the season came around by the time, you know, it just kept getting better each and every week. And by the time the Georgia game came around, well, we were kind of running it down that defense is throat a little bit down the national champions throat, the defending national champions. I should say that season. But again, back to that South Dakota game that Missouri won 35 to 10 in 2023. Nobody was exactly doing back flips after that game, the middle Tennessee game, even more concerning to be honest with you. And really, you look at Schrader in that opening ball game, 18 carries for 138 yards. He had one explosive play for 42 yards and a score.

6:15That was kind of the big difference. Otherwise, a little pedestrian, eight Pete, just 14 carries for 52 yards. That was less than three yards of pop in that particular game. So the point here is that if you're Missouri, be patient with that running game because I think clearly clearly, clearly coach Jones coach looper, the running backs coach, they burned our trust. Missouri knows how to run this scheme. And by the way, I think what Missouri was doing a lot, especially early in that game, was testing out the left side of that line that not only was Jack laying, starting at left tackle in place of Caden Green who hopefully will be back in week two for the Kansas ball game, but Tristan Wilson at left guard a new, not a new comery has been around this. This team for for a long time now, but a new starter at left guard. It seemed like Missouri was trying to see what they had and just kind of spamming that outside zone play to the left for the most part in the first half to sort of mixed results.

7:16Again, that is, you can say, oh, that's discouraging. But we've seen examples of it not looking that great early in the season for Missouri, and then yet somehow by the end of the year against much better opponents, you're cramming it down Tennessee's throat, for example. So also, yeah, we could use a mod hearty back as well because clearly explosive plays in some ways is the name of the game. That's really been the talk all off season in the NFL ever since ever since in the Patrick Mahomes, the height of the chiefs and the Patrick Mahomes arrow and teams in the NFL decided, you know, let's play back. Let's play coverage. Let's play two safeties back and dare everybody to run the football and also just dare you do methodically march the ball down the field. Sounds familiar, right? If you remember the Gary Pinkle air of defense, bin, but don't break. That's essentially what everyone in the NFL to some extent. That's been the trend lately. So unfortunately, while yes, like my dad pointed out yesterday, sometimes that outside zone,

8:20it leaves you with more second and thirties than you would like. That is not desirable. Certainly, you would like to just move the ball ahead at the very least even two or three yards, but I think once you start getting to the outside, once you start grinding that play over and over again, and you get the explosive and the tackle breaking a mod hearty back in the fold, by the way, how many defensive backs are capable of actually tackling him? That's the point. And once he's, once he gets going, good luck. And I'm just telling you those explosive plays that Missouri, I think is eventually going to get in this season out of this run game. I think it's going to be worth those occasional. Oh, no, no, it's second and 13. We just lost three yards. Unfortunately, that's, that's sort of the cost of doing business in this offense. And speaking of that Missouri rushing attack, there was one back who stood out to me yesterday and no offense to Jamal Roberts, but it wasn't him. It was a Missouri newcomer who I thought showed some flashes in limited action yesterday.

9:24Let's talk more about that and getting into even more of this Arkansas pine bluff. A football game here in just a moment. But for support for today's show comes from square, the system powering so many of the places we already know and love, whether you're running a packed game day spot, a local restaurant, any type of growing business square gives sellers the tools to run their business without making things more complicated square brings payments, inventory payroll, invoices, customer insights and more together in one connected system. So whether you're a one location business or growing into multiple locations, square gives you the tools to sell, manage and grow without needing an IT team to figure it all out. And that's the thing. Square is it truly is an all and one thing and just imagine how much more trust you have in this modern system compared to what we had to deal with back in the day. I remember the carbon copies that whole deal.

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11:27outside of Roberts last night. The little moments there, just little one run in particular. I was just like, this guy's got a little shi ftiness to him, a little get up and go. There's just there's something there with this Zai Shaan Edwards kid. I will say I don't know what his, I don't know how he is in the past blocking part of the game, for instance, considering, especially as a second, third string running back, obviously third at best, whenever a mod hearty comes back. That's a really important trait to have. So that may end up limiting his action to some extent. I'm just saying all the little things that you can't see, all of that stuff matters. What we'll see it eventually, I'm just saying we haven't seen it in practice like the coaches have. But I'm just telling you, just from the little bit I saw, there's something there with this Edwards kid, just a little bit of shi ftiness and explosiveness that I liked and just a short amount of action there that stood out to me. And by the way, more on that perfect night that Eli Drankwitz talked about, yeah, the

12:32first half about as good as you're going to do, a 40 point, a first half for Missouri. I don't know how many times necessarily Missouri has had a 40 point victory in a first half, but I did ask Groc, by the way, to do some research for me. How many times has Missouri scored 40 points in a half of football? Well, maybe more than you would have thought. In fact, the most Missouri has ever scored in a half was 58 in the first half against Delaware State all the way back. Now in 2016, in fact, most of these are in the Barry Odom slash Josh Hyple era of 2016 to 2018. But and of course, most of these are against your FCS type of opponents. Missouri did score 48 points against Memphis in 2018. That's pretty impressive. Also 45 in the second half against San Diego State in 1979.

13:35And most notably of all, the Tigers scored 41 points in the second half against the Kansas J Hawks in the famous 1969 season, a 69 to 21 victory over the J Hawks. Tigers scored 28 in the third quarter, 13 in the fourth, not too shabby. Again, back to this perfect night idea. A great first half, the second half, well, I think the reason it was a perfect night is because now Eli Drinkwood says plenty to complain about. Obviously, you'd rather have the good first half versus the good second half considering, well, those are your first stringers. But plenty of four of that second, third, even fourth string to work on those. There's no question about that. Maybe does make you wonder a little bit about Missouri's depth, but at least the first string seemed to do what it needed to do, including the Missouri secondary by the way. It's just a ton of new faces over there, including Christage Graves, the transfer from

14:39Ole Miss who I assume he played yesterday. I never heard his name the entire game, which is a compliment, by the way, because I'm pretty sure he was not targeted the entire game. He certainly didn't show up in the box score. No tackles. I never heard his name except in the starting lineup. However, he heard Sioni La Lalle's name quite a bit as well. We did see, we did hear his name quite a bit because Arkansas Pinebluff, well, they kept trying him for whatever reason. They kept isolating him on one side and saying one on one. Well, let's take our chances here and well, basically to no avail, really good defense there by the former Oregon duck. One thing I noticed offensively from Missouri. I'll go back and look at the film. Maybe this was just maybe I'm actually wrong here, but you tell me it just seemed like there was a lot less jet sweep action than what we've seen in the past from Missouri. Not a complaint whatsoever. Just an observation that I didn't see as much jet motion, whether it's just handoff

15:43or fakes, whatever it might be. Didn't see as much as that. Maybe we'll see more of it against Kansas in week two. Also thought a nice nice debut by Bruno Royce, by the way, a solid debut for him in the punting game. Had a couple of nice puns. One that just barely snuck into the in zone, that type of deal. But solid debut from him was kicking the ball through the in zone on the kickoffs as well. Also, I liked that Missouri when it was when it had the big lead, by the way, put Matt Zoller's in the game for that two minute drill. That was really I would judge Zoller's his performance much more on that two minute drill. I just show me that film and all good, bad or indifferent. I'm going to judge him based on that much more so than well, sort of that garbage time stuff in the second half and in an extremely hot game where, you know, just human nature being what it is. I mean, gosh, I was gassing out in the second half and I was just sitting on a bench.

16:44I can imagine actually playing football how quickly you would gas out out there just from basic human nature. So, you know, I'm going to kind of push that second half to the side for the most part. It's a great thing for the coaches to grab onto and keep their team focused and all that stuff. As a fan, I think I'm not going to overanalyze it too much, either from Zoller's perspective or really anybody else's. And of course, I've got more to get to on this ball game, including one Missouri starter on offense who, well, at least they presumed starter all off season, at least to my eyes, it sure looks like somebody has over passed that young man. Let's talk about that here on the program coming up here in a minute. At first, we got to talk about ultra pouches. Sport for today's show comes from ultra pouches. Football season means long days, early mornings, late nights, and yes, plenty of time spent trying to stay focused and energized, especially for those of us who have to work on a Friday

17:46after a Thursday football game in my right. And whether you're heading into work, getting a workout in or settling in for a full day of football, having something that helps you stay locked in can make a difference. Ultra pouches are designed to deliver instant focus and smooth energy in a convenient pouch without nicotine or caffeine. Ultra partnered with leading neuroscientists to create pouches using no atropics, including infinity px, L-theanine, alpha gpc, and vitamins b6 and b12. The result is a pouch designed to support focus, mental clarity, and smooth energy that lasts one to two hours without caffeine, nicotine, or a crash. I do love these. I really do. I have to say I was a skeptic, but you know what? Ultra sent me some product. My brother-in-law is a huge fan as well. He's used some other type of pouches before.

18:48I think these might be his new go-to. Ultra, excuse me, is the ultimate guilt-free pouch delivering instant focus and mental clarity without nicotine or caffeine. New customers can use code Lock Dawn College Football to get 15% off at takeultra.com. That's takeultra.com for 15% off with code Lock Dawn College Football. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. All off season, everybody including myself has more or less had Caleb Goody. Well penciled in as your starting receiver on the outside, along with Donovan Alluba Day. But the speedster from Cincinnati, at least to my eyes, she looked like he was playing a lot more with the twos yesterday than Neshawn Montgomery, who had three catches for

19:4947 yards in the ball game. Caleb just won for five. That sure seems like Montgomery has overtaken that role at the moment. I got to say, that's not bad news, especially for the future. Montgomery, a real talent and just an unusually, well, you know, actually, you know what, I'm going to take that back. He's not quite as tall as I was thinking. So I'm going to take that back because I actually look at his measurements here. And this, Montgomery, clearly the younger player here, just a sophomore, Goody, either a fourth or fifth year player here, out of Cincinnati. You know, that's for the future of this program, you actually don't mind seeing the younger guys take spots well from the older guys, especially when both of them are newcomers anyway. So Neshawn Montgomery could be a much bigger player on this team than I was thinking. So speaking of receivers, it was good to see Sean Terry get into the end zone early in

20:50the ball game for catches for 55 yards. Get me explosive Terry. I think he could be he's definitely going to be a part of this offense this season. That seems pretty obvious. A Luba Day played really, really well. Eight catches for 116 yards, two scores. Looks like he's going to be a more complete player like Eli Drinkwood said, got to say a terrible fumble though by by a Luba Day, just kind of inexcusable there, just not really taking care of the ball. He acknowledged that after the game, hopefully just a good learning moment here against an FCS opponent at more receiver talk here, I suppose. Demarian folks got some action with the second team on the outside, but most importantly, to me, I thought he looked the part as a return man once again. I know it's against FCS, but we've seen him do it against SEC opponents as well. I was encouraging it once again to Marion folks looks like he could be a difference maker at the return spot.

21:51And by the way, I'm kind of already liking the home slate better this season. I'm already liking that we're breaking up September, especially considering how freaking hot this September is beginning and looks like it's going to be glad we're breaking it up a little bit. Like last year where it seemed like what there was five or six home games to start the season, this is a better balance. I have to say and I will say, man, it is just big time football at the University of Missouri. Now I can remember going back going, I attended the Texas game in 2008 and I just remember looking around going, man, this is tough to compete with just in terms of dollars and sense and all that stuff. And don't get me wrong. Ever since I've been down there, the long horns have probably rebuilt one or two of their in zones as well. But man, that North in zone complex that the new outdoor practice facility that was completed a couple years ago. I mean, it's the transformation over the last just 10 years even of Missouri football.

22:55There's really been something pretty astonishing to see. I have to say, I mean, you can't say we're not going for it. That is for darn sure and not always the North in zone complex really impressive. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the video board is big enough for for my eyes all the way in the south in zone. The sound system, by the way, definitely an improvement. It's better. It's not perfect. Could use a little tweaking still. I wish it was more of a surround the whole stadium situation, but you know, beggars can't be choosers. I suppose. And by the way, shout out to a whole bunch of fans listeners of the program I met yesterday, including, killing Mizzou super fan Brian Garner, including Big E and Kevin and just a whole bunch of people. I'd say at least a dozen people came up to me yesterday and which was, which was always nice. It really is. I always enjoy that. Everybody's always cool to talk to in person online. Sometimes people can be tough, but in person, I always have great interactions with all

23:58the listeners of Locked On Mizzou. So by the way, at least one person asked me, are you nervous about Kansas next week? Uh, yeah. Obviously, I'm a Missouri football fan. Of course I'm nervous about a Kansas game. Are you kidding me? Don't be me wrong. I'm picking Missouri to win. I think the Tigers are going to win the ball game. But am I nervous? Yeah. Absolutely. I'm nervous. But that's sort of like Blake Craig said this week. That's part of the fun. Embrace the nerves, baby. If you weren't nervous, well, this wouldn't be all that much fun. Would it? And by the way, just one quick note from last night, Rutgers got absolutely dog walked by UMass last night. Woof. Woof. I mean, I googled Rutgers football. The first thing that came up was Greg Chiano's buyout. So that's where we are right now with the Scarlet Knights. Tough day for anybody who is trying to argue for the Big Ten's depth over the SEC.

25:03That's for sure. But hey, speaking of depth, hopefully I've gotten you a good depth, a good volume, at least of podcasts here the last few weeks. And we'll certainly more common. We are right in the middle of football season. Happy to be here. Happy to have you here. And you know what? I think that we'll rest the weekend off unless something crazy happens or maybe I just get a wild hair to make some more money and never know what's going to happen. So subscribe on YouTube, subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and you'll never miss an episode. Also follow me on social media everywhere on Locked On Mizzou, put out some occasional shorts for breaking news on that kind of stuff as well. So until next time, I'm John Miller. Thanks for listening to Locked On Mizzou.