Mizzou knocks off North Texas

The Missouri Tigers beat the North Texas Mean Green 48-35 on Saturday afternoon. The win got the Tigers back to .500, as they improved to 3-3 while the Mean Green fell to 1-4.

Tyler Badie took 17 carries for 217 yards and two touchdowns. Badie carried a Mizzou offense that was otherwise fairly mediocre. Connor Bazelak had another rough outing, completing 22 of his 34 passes with a 5.0. yards per attempt mark. He did throw for two touchdowns and avoided the turnover issues that plagued him the last couple of weeks. He had one big play to J.J. Hester that led to a 41-yard touchdown. But otherwise, he was fairly mediocre. The deep ball wasn't there and after a lot of excitement for the young man, he has underwhelmed at times this year. He will need to play closer to how he did against Kentucky for Missouri to have a chance to get to a bowl game this 2021 season.

In the first half, the defense looked better. However, this is North Texas and the Missouri defense didn’t look completely lost... for the first half. They did force a few turnovers and defensive Mekhi Wingo had a pick-six in the second half that loomed largely. The Mean Green hit on passing plays of 52 yards and 77 yards to put a scare into the Tiger faithful. Four second-half touchdowns for the Mean Green won’t exactly ease the heat on defensive coordinator Steve Wilks. The good news, if there is any, is Trajan Jeffcoat got his first sack since Week 1.

The Tigers return to SEC play next week at 11 a.m. against Texas A&M in Columbia as they look to push for a bowl bid in the second half of the season.