COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Missouri shouldn't need any extra motivation to bounce back from last Saturday's disappointing home loss to a decidedly average Indiana team.
But just in case they do, the Tigers have plenty of reasons to sharpen their focus this week and come out fighting in their Southeastern Conference opener Saturday night at No. 13 South Carolina. The Gamecocks are the only team in the SEC East that Mizzou hasn't beaten since joining the conference, and losses don't get more painful than the one Steve Spurrier's team handed the Tigers last season.
"There's not too much we can really do about it, so especially after a year we're definitely not thinking about it," wide receiver Bud Sasser said Monday. "It's in people's minds, of course, but it's not something we can just go out there and hang our heads on."
Still, Sasser said he hoped to learn some lessons from watching film of the devastating 27-24, double-overtime loss in front of more than 67,000 fans at Faurot Field. Mizzou looked well on its way to improving to 8-0 after Andrew Baggett's 24-yard field goal midway through the third quarter made it 17-0 before things went horribly wrong for the Tigers and their young kicker.
After South Carolina finally scored a touchdown, Baggett missed a 46-yarder on the following possession, ending a streak of nine straight made field goals. The Gamecocks completed a stunning comeback with less than a minute left to send the game into overtime, and the Tigers eventually lost when Baggett dinged a game-tying 27-yarder off the post that he knows still hasn't been forgotten.
"Just go check Twitter," Baggett says. "Any time a kicker does something bad, people bring that up every day. It's not a big deal. You just kind of ignore stuff. You don't really worry about anything like that."
The junior seems to have the right mindset to not be bothered by some of the truly awful things said by fans clearly struggling with their own maturity issues. Baggett made six of his final eight field goals down the stretch, including a go-ahead kick from 46 yards in the fourth quarter of Mizzou's 41-31 Cotton Bowl victory over Oklahoma State.
He looked briefly like he might be the hero last week, when his 40-yard field goal put Missouri ahead by three with 2:20 to play. The celebration, however, would be short-lived.
"It felt really good," Baggett says. "I think the best thing is when you see it go in and all your teammates are excited. If I could miss every single kick, but we would win, that's what I would rather do."
But he could only watch helplessly as Indiana marched right down the field, buoyed by running back Tevin Coleman's 44-yard reception on a simple screen pass. Coach Gary Pinkel says big plays continue to be a problem for the Missouri defense thanks to a combination of missed tackles, poor pursuit and secondary concerns.
Linebacker Kentrell Brothers says some of the same factors cost Mizzou against South Carolina a year ago, and they'll need to be corrected to pull off the upset Saturday. The return of defensive end Markus Golden from his hamstring injury should help, but the Gamecocks' offense has been difficult to stop with almost 450 yards and 37 points per game against a very respectable schedule.
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"We just try to do the best we can and understand they throw the ball well," Pinkel says. "They have a good scheme, they try to change the tempo of the throw, quick game, play-action, drop-backs, screens, things like that, and that's very well designed."
Brothers says he remembers being impressed with Dylan Thompson, even though South Carolina didn't really have any success against Mizzou until backup quarterback Connor Shaw took over in the second half. So far this season, Thompson has compiled almost 1,140 yards and 11 touchdowns, including 271 yards and three touchdowns in a 38-35 upset of then-No. 6 Georgia on Sept. 13.
In many ways, those numbers are even more impressive than the ones put up by Missouri's Maty Mauk, who already has 14 touchdowns, two more than Chase Daniel had through four nonconference games the year he broke the school record with 39. Mauk threw a 96-yard touchdown pass in his second career start against South Carolina a year ago, but he's clearly grown into a better, smarter player since that bitter loss.
"I had to be ready for four quarters of football and not just coming out fast like we did," Mauk says. "We've got to finish, and it's something we learned as a football team."
Nonetheless, like his coach and the rest of his teammates, Mauk says he won't treat South Carolina differently from any other opponent. Brothers doesn't care about the Gamecocks' 20-1 record at home dating back to 2011, even though they lost, 52-28, to visiting Texas A&M in this season's opener.
Maybe all of that's true, and the Tigers have prepared this week the same way they did for South Dakota State in their home opener. It's not so hard to believe for Baggett, whose job consists of one relatively uncomplicated task.
"I don't have to do anything different," Baggett says. "I don't have to block anyone or anything like that, so I have it way easier than everyone else, but I think people view it as the next step on the path."
That path is about to get a lot tougher with the start of SEC play, and Missouri needs to get back to weekly improvement to have a chance of reaching its lofty goal of playing in a second straight conference championship. A critical home game with Georgia awaits after an off week, and two straight losses could virtually knock the Tigers out of the race.
You can follow Luke Thompson on Twitter at @FS_LukeT or email him at lukegthompson87@gmail.com.
