Trick or trick: Maybe Mizzou can do it

No chance. No shot. No way, no how.

So goes the conversation surrounding the 12th-ranked Missouri football team’s chance of toppling undefeated and No. 2 Georgia on Saturday between the historic hedges of Sanford Stadium.

And maybe that viewpoint is correct.

Georgia Coach Kirby Smart’s undefeated Bulldogs, in pursuit of their third straight national championship, just blitzed rival Florida by 23 points in a win that was not as close as that final score suggested.

So much for the talk about the Bulldogs being a little down (for them) this season, and perhaps losing a step or two without all-world tight end Brock Bowers, who has been out due to an high-ankle injury.

Georgia is 42-4 at home since Smart took over in 2016. That stretch includes 23 consecutive home wins and 11 consecutive home wins against ranked opponents. Georgia’s active 25-game winning streak dates back to the 2021 College Football Playoff, and its regular-season winning streak is even longer, dating back 35 games, to 2020.

Las Vegas has assigned the 7-1 Tigers an underdog status of 15 points Saturday. The predictive metrics at ESPN say Mizzou has just a 16.7% chance of scoring a historic upset. Even when Mizzou has mustered a heroic attempt against Georgia in recent seasons, like just last year, the bottom tends to drop out. The Bulldogs have won nine straight against the Tigers. Mizzou’s 2013 upset in Athens turned a decade old earlier this month. For a generation of players that gets bored watching Instagram shorts, it might as well have happened in the era of landlines.

Perhaps Tigers Coach Eli Drinkwitz and his team would be better off petitioning SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey for another bye week so they can rest up for the regular season ending stretch of Tennessee-Florida-Arkansas that invites the Tigers to secure their first double-digit win season since 2014.

One way of looking at this game — and it’s probably the guarded Mizzou fan’s habitual lean — says to count the Georgia trip as a loss now and focus on what could still be achieved by a two-loss Mizzou team that runs the table after being bitten by the mighty Bulldogs. That picture could still be very pretty. If Georgia rolls as expected into the

College Football Playoff and a twoloss Tigers team secures the clear second-best status in the SEC East, a bowl game invitation that makes fans’ toes tingle will be in the mail at the regular season’s end. That season, if captured, would still be a smash success.

There’s another way to look at this, though, if you dare to risk the Halloween scare of upshot optimism. This rosier view is the one Drinkwitz’s Tigers should take. It suggests a Mizzou team that has proven plenty has earned this premier opportunity at the perfect time. Nothing to lose. Everything to gain. Nothing to fear. Bring the fight, and put a fright into the frontrunners.

The Tigers are battle-tested and bye-week rested. They should present Georgia the best offense and two-way team the Bulldogs have faced yet this season. Don’t believe me? Georgia is one of three SEC teams averaging more than 32 points per game while holding opponents to less than 25. The others are 7-1 Ole Miss and Mizzou. Georgia doesn’t play Ole Miss until the week after Mizzou.

Georgia’s SEC wins this season have come against South Carolina, Auburn, Kentucky, Vanderbilt and Florida. Mizzou already beat South

Carolina, Kentucky and Vanderbilt. Mizzou should be favored against 5-3 Florida, which lost at Kentucky 33-14. Auburn is 4-4.

Mizzou quarterback Brady Cook and Georgia quarterback Carson Beck share a passer rating of 162. Both are completing more than 70% of their passes. Cook has one more touchdown (15) than Beck, and Beck has one more interception (four) than Cook. Mizzou star Luther Burden, the SEC’s second-leading receiver, was averaging 32 more receiving yards per game than Bowers before the Bulldog’s start tight end was injured. Mizzou running back Cody Schrader, the little engine that could, is averaging almost eight more rushing yards per game than Georgia’s lead back Daijun Edwards.

Maybe none of it matters. Georgia is the unstoppable beast of the East and nothing found on paper disproves that until something says different on the field. But what seems clear here is that Georgia hasn’t played or beaten a team this season as impressive as Mizzou has turned out to be, and when you give a talented, confident and rested team a go-beat-Goliath opportunity, sometimes that house money haunts.

Happy Halloween.