Mizzou's offense currently caught between a Mauk and a hard place

Published Oct. 11, 2014 6:48 p.m. ET

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COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Nobody wants to hear this, but that one wasn't all on Maty Mauk. Missouri's offensive line Saturday was porous to the point of low comedy. Half of Mauk's four picks against Georgia came on preventable bobbles or fluke tips by Tiger receivers that somehow got juggled into in the hands of Bulldog defenders.

"They shouldn't (blame him)," Mizzou receiver Bud Sasser said after he and his mates were housed -- and "housed" might be putting it kindly -- by No. 13 Georgia, at home, 34-0. "They really shouldn't. Really, it's the quarterback position -- they're either going to be glorified or killed by the media."

By social networks, too:

By the way, Mauk made a point to "favorite" that particular tweet. Love that. Even if he's lost half his fan base -- and "half" might be putting it kindly -- after Saturday, our man No. 7 hasn't completely lost his sense of humor. Yet.

"That's fine," the sophomore signal-caller said after his second straight dumpster fire of a performance, a 9-for-21 passing day that featured five turnovers, four of them picks.

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"They can blame me all they want ... because it doesn't affect me. ... I don't care what people say. And I know what I've got to work on and offensively, we know what we've got to work on, and we're going to come out and fix it."

Which gets right down, really, to the root of the problem: This ship leaks in a lot of places at the moment, and not just under center. Sasser and Jimmie Hunt are not Dorial Green-Beckham, through no fault of their own. Mauk was running for his life from the get-go, and that particular side of the equation is on an offensive line where the injuries, as they did two years ago, are really, really starting to show. It takes a village, and when the gates to the village are made of plywood, bad things tend to happen.

"You should never play like that," said Sasser, who caught two balls for 14 yards. "Ever."

Nobody wants to hear this, either, but Mauk is not -- well, he's a lot of things, but he's not terrible.

But neither is he good enough to elevate a flawed offense above its weight class. And the more he tries, generally, the worse it gets. Maty Football is running around, pirouetting, trying to make something happen, and when it doesn't, he throws a ball an inch too high, or with a bit too much zip, and -- voila! --€” a paper cut becomes a flesh wound. Instead of putting out fires, No. 7 brings more gasoline to the party.

"Maty shows up every week," Sasser continued, "and a couple of those picks are receivers' faults -- we've just got to come down with it."

The problem with Mauk -- and it's not so much the problem as the reality -- is that there's so little gray area, so precious few swaths of middle ground. Like all gunslingers, he is beloved when it works and reviled when it doesn't; angel one week, demon the next. Maty Football is the anti-Alex Smith, always forcing the issue, always looking a little farther downfield, generally thinking about the knockout instead of the jab.

The trouble with swinging from your heels all the time, of course, is that it makes you vulnerable to the counter. It leaves your weaknesses -- chin, solar plexus, etc. -- exposed. And you get Saturday, or an upset stomach. Or both.

In truth, you could toss blame all around, kicker Andrew Baggett notwithstanding. Despite being without suspended Heisman Trophy candidate Todd Gurley in the backfield -- the second time the Tigers have missed him in two seasons -- the Bulldogs (5-1 overall, 3-1 Southeastern Conference) ran for 210 yards, on the road, 143 of them coming from the wheels of freshman plugger Nick Chubb, Gurley's top understudy. Missouri ran four plays in Georgia territory, and three became turnovers. It was the first time in 10 years -- Nov. 20, 2004, against Kansas --€” that Mizzou (4-2 overall, 1-1 SEC) was shut out during the first half.

Add it all up, and Saturday tied the second-worst margin of defeat ever by a Gary Pinkel Mizzou team at home in league play (34 points) and was the biggest setback since a 41-7 loss to Texas on Oct. 24, 2009. More negative superlatives: It was the second-worst shutout loss in a league game under Pinkel, and the first home shutout under his watch since a 38-0 whitewash at the hands of Kansas State on Nov. 23, 2002. Mizzou's five turnovers were believed to be the most for the Tigers in one game since Pinkel's reign began in 2001.

"Obviously, if you have that stat that extreme on one side," the coach said, "it's very difficult to win any game."

The Tigers came in with four turnovers for the young season. Mauk committed four in the tilt's first nine possessions.

Although those first two weren't his fault, necessarily, as a bobbled screen and another butterfingers job wound up in the hands of Georgia defenders. The fourth was all Mauk,  an all-time brain-cramp: Given a solid pocket -- one of the few on the day -- with 5:42 left in the third quarter, Mauk wandered right, then sauntered left, looking for an option. Instead of taking off, he set and fired a laser toward the middle of the field, which Bulldogs defensive back Dominick Sanders was only too happy to step in front of and snatch out of the air, returning the missile 22 yards to the 50.

"I saw (Marcus Murphy) and there was another guy that came opposite of me," the quarterback explained, "and he just got under it and made a good play."

As Sanders headed upfield, Mauk could be seen taking his frustrations out on Georgia defensive lineman Mike Thornton:

But the damage was already long since done. Which led to this postgame exchange between the coach and the scribes:

Reporter: "Did you think about taking (Mauk) out?"

Pinkel (quickly): "No."

Reporter: "Why not?"

Pinkel: "What's that?"

Reporter: "Why not?"

Pinkel (quickly, and a little tersely): "Because I didn't want to."

Fair enough, but something under Pinkel's tent -- timing, mechanics, chemistry, trust -- is seriously out of sync. Over his past two contests, Mauk is 21-for-55 passing while throwing zero touchdowns, four picks and getting sacked five times. Coming into Saturday, the Ohio native had completed only 16 of his 42 pass attempts on third down (38.1 percent) and 13 for 34 (38.2) on third-and-5-or-longer. Which means the Mizzou offense is stuck between a Mauk and a hard place.

"I thought we had a great week at practice and came out and executed all week," the quarterback said. "We came into the game, and I'm not sure what happened. But it's something we have to fix."

And nobody wants to hear that, either.

You can follow Sean Keeler on Twitter @SeanKeeler or email him at seanmkeeler@gmail.com.

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