Mizzou's offense? Not as bad as you'd heard, but not exactly good, either
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- To paraphrase John Cleese's raging peasant in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, it got better.
Not that it had miles to go in the "worse" department, mind you. Maty Mauk's first passing attempt at Missouri's 2015 Black and Gold game was a wounded duck, tipped by linebacker Brandon Lee. Punt.
On the first attempt of Mauk's second series with the first-team offense, wideout Wesley Leftwich was open on a fly pattern, but the ball either got held up by the wind (optimist's take) or badly underthrown. Or some wacky combination therein. Also punt.
A year ago at this event, the Ohio gunslinger was 11 of 15 for 129 passing yards. Saturday? Fourteen attempts, nine completions, 68 yards, one score, 41 spins out of danger.
OK, we may have stretched that last number out. A bit. But the man still likes his pirouettes.
Beyond that, the conclusions from Memorial Stadium were largely ... inconclusive. Which wasn't unexpected. No Nate Brown at wideout. Yet. No Sean Culkin at tight end. Yet.
Instead of white jerseys, Mizzou quarterbacks should probably wear reflective vests, the kind they give to the folks working on highway construction crews.
"We're a lot better than weeks ago," coach Gary Pinkel said. "But we've got a ways to go. Now can we get there? There's no question about it. We can get there. And we have to get there, and that's my job, to get that done."
Lookin' good! Check out our gallery of SEC football cheerleaders.
Staked to a fictional 14-0 deficit, the No. 1 offense cut into the made-up cushion with 10 unanswered points, six coming just before halftime on a 3-yard fade from Mauk to freshman J'Mon Moore in the corner of the end zone.
The first five series of the Mizzou spring game featured four first downs and five punts. Reports of the defense of the two-time defending SEC East champs being light years ahead of the offense on Planet Pinkel (again) were somewhat exaggerated. Although not by much.
"It's just like I've been saying: 'We've just got to be consistent,'" the junior signal-caller said. "We can't have a play like, 'Oh, man, they look like a good offense.' And then the next play, (it's) like, 'What the heck is going on?'"
Or words to that effect.
The wideout returning to the 2015 two-deep with the most catches (five), the 6-foot-3 Brown, is recovering from a knee injury and sat out most of the spring. Ditto projected starting tight end Culkin with a shoulder problem. So you're left grading maybes and hypotheticals against two-hand touch.
And hand-wringing won't change reality. The offense, for now, is probably at its most efficient when it filters first through tailback Russell Hansbrough (six carries, 36 rushing yards), which fits neatly with a roster that will probably lean on its defense and a veteran kicking game. Or should, at least.
But the elephant in that particular room is what happens should Hansbrough happen to go down, and surviving weekly poundings by SEC defenses is no mean feat. Is senior backup Tyler Hunt (26 yards on seven carries) viable if Morgan Steward (bad hip) and Trevon Walters (bad knee) aren't ready for camp? Is Hunt a wild card? Or the horse who broke off the single-longest tailback rush of the day, 15 yards?
"I think so," co-offensive Josh Henson noted. "And I think he may have to (be)."
Meanwhile, Mauk spins. And spins. And spins. The Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune charted seven drops by first-team wideouts in the first three scrimmages of spring ball. Which will make any quarterback, even one with Maty's Favre-esque cool, somewhat ... well, edgy. Naturally.
"I have all the confidence in the world in them," the Mizzou quarterback said of the Tigers' untested (and unknown) wideouts. "I've had confidence in them since Day One.
"J'Mon probably would not have caught that (touchdown) Day One, and now he's starting to realize what he can really do. He's a 6-3 body that can go up, he's athletic, he can make his catches, he can make people miss. He's got the whole package. He's just got to get consistent."
One series, it's pure jazz. The next, it's a piano being dropped down six flights of stairs.
But to hear Pinkel and Mauk tell it, at least there are a lot fewer damaged pianos in their orbit than at the end of last month.
In fact, when a reporter asked Moore to grade the receivers' progress on a scale of 1 to 10 ...
"I'd say it's about 8.5. Nine," the Texan replied. "Still got some more steps to go. We're still not there all the way."
In 19 weeks, the vests come off. Training wheels, too. For better or worse.
You can follow Sean Keeler on Twitter at @SeanKeeler or email him at seanmkeeler@gmail.com.
