A little Missouri history and a little reality check....

I can't let the Missouri game come and go without recalling the huge whooping the Falcons put onto them at the Doyt during UM II. It was about this time of year, and it was a beautiful night at the Doyt. It counts as one of the top 5 nights I ever spent at that stadium. The Falcons went absolutely nuts. This story below ran in a Mizzou paper--note the reference to the "diabolical" offensive mind of Urban Meyer. (Reading the story below was ALMOST as satisfying as the game itself).

Sorry, Mizzou fans; loss to imaginative Falcons is no upset

BOWLING
GREEN, Ohio - If the dateline had been different, maybe it would
be easier to digest this, but the setting was all out of whack. If the dateline said
Norman, Okla., or Lincoln, Neb., or even Austin, Texas, it all would have made
so much more sense. But none of this made even a little sense, because what was
happening to Mizzou was not being perpetrated in some hallowed college football
temple like Oklahoma's Owen Field, or Nebraska's Memorial Stadium. On this
breezy, steamy Saturday night, in this most unlikely place called Doyt L. Perry
Stadium, the Tigers were routed not by Nebraska, but by Bowling, freaking Green.

"My heart's in my stomach right now," said Missouri kick returner Tyrone
Roberson. "I'm hurting, I'm really hurting."

Roberson and the rest of the Tigers are hurting with just cause after a 51-28 spanking, not simply because of the final outcome, but because of the painful and obvious fact that this was no upset.

The better team won.

Now there will be a whole lot of folks all across the state this morning scratching their heads and wondering how a team like Bowling Green -- so far out of the loop of the BCS championship series that even Martha Burk couldn't get them an invitation to the national championship dance -- could do such a thorough destruction on a team from the almighty Big 12. But don't be fooled by the intimate 30,000-seat
stadium, or the Mid-American Conference pedigree, or the names on the Falcons'
roster that look so unfamiliar to the world of big-time college football.

What happened here was no fluke. First of all, take a quick glance at
the college scoreboard this morning, and what you'll see is several MAC teams
giving schools from the major conferences absolute fits. It happens all the
time. Now, take a deep breath and listen to the stats that Bowling Green piled
up on Missouri:

When you pile up 577 yards of total offense, and score
on six of your first seven possessions (the half ended on the seventh), that's
no fluke. When you build a 34-14 lead by halftime, when you have a quarterback
named Josh Harris giving you 394 yards of total offense (311 passing, 83
running), a receiver named Robert Redd, who caught 10 passes for 209 yards and 1
TD, and a running back named Joe Alls, who added 119 yards rushing . . . Oh
yeah, and a wide receiver named Cole Magner who threw 2 TD passes just for
yucks, this is no upset. This is simply one of the most dazzling offenses Mizzou
will see all season.

If you do not know much about the Falcons, here's a little introduction. A year ago, they made the top one-year turnaround in NCAA Division I-A, going from 2-9 two years ago to an 8-3 record. Bowling Green head coach Urban Meyer was the MAC coach of the year last season with good reason. His dazzling spread offense has no fancy name like Fun 'N Gun, or Run & Shoot. But what it lacks in name recognition, it more than makes up for in entertaining, head-spinning effectiveness. With a jaw-dropping quarterback like Harris operating almost exclusively from the shotgun, the Falcons threw every conceivable bit of offensive fireworks at Mizzou's defense, and waded up the field with little resistance.

If you think Mike Martz has a vivid offensive imagination, wait until you get a peek inside the diabolical offensive mind of Urban Meyer. This guy's offense is so aggressive, he makes Martz look positively timid. Imagine a wild video game in hyper-drive, and you begin to understand what this Bowling Green attack looked like. There were five-receiver sets, empty backfields, shovel passes, reverses, double screen option passes, reverse option passes, quick pitches, option pitches, and when they got really bored, the Falcons even used straight handoffs to the tailback Alls.

And there was nothing the Tigers could do to stop them. They did not overlook
Bowling Green, nor were they surprised by all the razzle-dazzle. "We knew they
did a lot of trick plays," said starting middle linebacker James Kinney. "We
just didn't stop them."

And now, in a weird way, this major butt-whipping could be the turning point in Missouri's season. If they did have a big head after beating Illinois, the hat size shrunk dramatically Saturday night. Coach Gary Pinkel says they are neither as good as they looked against Illinois, nor as bad as they looked against Bowling Green. Now they have the rest of the season to show us Pinkel's right, and figure out exactly where they do fit in on college football's pecking order.

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Alas, past success is no indicator of future results. Because we know things are different. UM is winning BCS titles. Gary Pinkel has the Tiger program humming. This is not 2002. See below.

“I think the thing that’s happened at Missouri is we’re not playing against just a good team, we’re playing against a good program,” Clawson said Monday in a teleconference.

I guess I would say this. We know that. I think we'll compete tomorrow and can win if everything goes right. But if we don't, nothing is going to erase that gorgeous late summer night in Bowling Green when the Falcons went crazy on a Big 12 team, with Cole Magner throwing 2 td passes. That is a brilliant memory that nothing is going to dull.