The Missouri Tiger football team held its second major scrimmage of fall camp Thursday morning on a sun-drenched but pleasant Faurot Field, and it was the offense that won the day, as it jumped out to a big lead early and cruised to a 41-19 win.
Blaine Gabbert led an effective day for the top offense, as he threw for 208 yards and three touchdowns, while reserve quarterbacks James Franklin and Ashton Glaser both threw and ran for a score apiece.
Gabbert finished the day 16-of-21 passing for 208 yards and the trio of scores, which went to WR T.J. Moe (9 yards), TB Derrick Washington (31 yards) and TE Michael Egnew (23 yards). He started fast, as he connected with WR L’Damian Washington for a 7-yard gain for a first down on 3rd-and-5 from his own 5-yardline. On the next possession, Gabbert promptly marched the #1 offense downfield 70 yards for a score, which was capped by his 9-yard swing pass for a score to Moe, who ended with 4 catches for 55 yards and a touchdown.
The top defense had a good day overall, as it allowed just one score, on a 29-yard TD pass from Glaser to WR Rolandis Woodland. The #1 defense was playing Thursday without senior co-captain DB Kevin Rutland, who strained his back yesterday in practice and is listed as day-to-day currently. When the scrimmage wrapped up with the two-minute drill, the #1 defense did its job, as LB Zaviar Gooden picked off a pass at his 40-yardline to end the series by the #2 offense. Gooden also added a tackle for loss late in the day, and reserve DE Marcus Malbrough had a pair of sacks to lead the defensive stat sheet.
Freshman WR Marcus Lucas, who is making a push for playing time this fall, led all receivers on the day with 6 receptions for 70 yards, while Egnew (5-55, 1 TD) and WR Gahn McGaffie (5-28) were also active. Derrick Washington ran for 35 yards on 7 carries, and added 3 receptions out of the backfield for 68 yards, including a nice 31-yard catch-and-run early in the day on a dumpoff from Blaine Gabbert that was perfectly blocked downfield. Ashton Glaser led all rushers with his 49 yards (including a 1-yard TD late), as he picked up several big gainers on scrambles, showing his nimbleness afoot. He was also a perfect 9-of-9 passing for 98 yards and the one score. James Franklin misfired on only one pass all day, and he ended 9-of-10 for 68 yards and one touchdown.
While the day had numerous highlights, Head Coach Gary Pinkel said afterward that he saw some pleasing elements, but he also focused in on the mistakes.
“There were quite a few penalties today, on both sides of the football, that’s probably my biggest disappointment that we were more disciplined,”
Pinkel said. “Last year we fell off in that area, probably the worst since I’ve been here. That’s just Missouri beating Missouri, so we’re going to learn from that. There were some good things, but as you know, when one team does something good, the other team, I can never be happy because I’m not an offense coach or a defensive coach. As I told the players, it’s narrowing down now, Saturday is 14 days until kickoff, so we’ve got to feel the urgency to improve and get better,”
he said.
