Missouri drops 50, handles Tennessee

The Tennessee Volunteers and Missouri Tigers were paired today in what looked like one of the better games on the slate around the country today, but a good game is not what we saw. The Tigers came away with an easy 50-17 victory and the Vols are still looking for a bowl-clinching win.

Early on in this game, the story was Jarrett Guarantano’s injury that he most likely suffered after a sack by Tyree Gillespie early on in the first quarter.

Both teams were feeling each other out and got to off to slow starts. Mizzou had a 6-0 lead when Gurarantano finally left the game at the beginning of the second quarter. Keller Chryst entered the game and led the Vols on a nice TD drive to go up 7-6 with 10:45 left in quarter two.

It was all downhill from this point on for the Vols, however. On the ensuing drive, Missouri scored on a 4 yard Tyler Badie TD run to go up 13-7 and never looked back.

Drew Lock and Larry Rountree III had good games on offense for the Tigers. Lock finished 21-30 for 257 yards, two TDs and no interceptions. Rountree finished with 135 rushing yards and a touchdown.

Two Tiger defenders made huge plays in this game as well. DeMarkus Acy returned one of Chryst’s two interceptions 76 yards to set up an 11 yard TD drive for Mizzou to go up 26-10 going into halftime. In the third quarter, Joshuah Bledsoe returned a fumble 39 yards for a touchdown. This was for 40-17.

The short of this game was that Missouri stymied Tennessee. The Tigers, now 7-4 (3-4) close out the regular season next week hosting the Arkansas Razorbacks on Black Friday. After now becoming the first team to win in both Knoxville and Gainesville in the same season since the 2014 Mizzou team, the Tigers can lock up a decent bowl game.

Tennessee 5-6 (2-5) now has to go to Nashville next week to try and secure a bowl appearance against Vanderbilt. Volunteer fans are hoping that the possible neck injury to Jarrett Guarantano won’t cause him to miss this one.