With national championship hype long since exposed as blather, with Big 12 title aspirations reduced to rubble by Oklahoma on Saturday night at Arrowhead Stadium, by Sunday evening the Missouri football team was engrossed in reconciling a next-best scenario for its Alamo Bowl meeting with Northwestern on Dec. 29.
A year after finishing 12-2, Mizzou remains a victory away from another double-digit win total that the Tigers suggest would yet distinguish this team and be a balm for some of the sting of a string of four losses in eight games.
"When was the last time a Missouri team won 10 games back to back in history? Never,"
Tigers quarterback Chase Daniel said. "We still have a chance to make history. .... Coach (Gary) Pinkel said ... if you win 10 games you're among the elite in the nation, and I really believe that."
Whether or not that's a true indication of elite status, if Mizzou does win a 10th game at least it will have its first victory of the season over a currently ranked foe. The Wildcats (9-3) are ranked 22nd with victories over Michigan and Illinois since losing to Ohio State.
Entering their fifth bowl game in six years, the Tigers are 9-4 and ranked 25th after being blasted 62-21 by Oklahoma in the Big 12 title game.
MU and Northwestern are tied 4-4 in a series that began in St. Louis in 1895. They have met just twice since 1967, with MU winning the last in Columbia in 1987.
Pinkel said he knew little about Northwestern, having just seen their statistics 30 minutes before a late-afternoon news conference. But he was aware of coach Pat Fitzgerald, a linebacker on Northwestern's 1996 Rose Bowl team who is being inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame later this week.
"He's probably young enough (34) to be my son,"
said Pinkel, 56, adding, "I think he's got a lot going for him."
It's the first Alamo Bowl appearance for MU, which played in the Independence, Sun and Cotton Bowls the last three years and is keen on playing in Texas again. With 28 players on the team from a state that MU makes a recruiting priority, the game serves MU's purposes in many ways.
"I would suggest it's a very, very big game,"
Pinkel said.
Even if it's not as big as one of the five marquee BCS bowls would have been.
"Everybody shoots for the stars, everybody wants to be national champions ... but there's (only) a few teams that do (it),"
Pinkel said. "Unfortunately, this year we're not part of that. But what you want to do consistently is go to bowls year in and year out, that's No. 1."
Devaluing other bowls compared to BCS games, Pinkel said, was "really shortsighted"
and not "very smart."
"You get what you deserve, and the Alamo Bowl is a great bowl,"
he said.
As for the lingering hurt of the OU game, a week after a loss to Kansas, Pinkel said he and his staff won't forget the experiences and ultimately will learn from them. But for now, he added, "It's still about finishing, and we've got a chance to finish in the right way."
Calling the day "bittersweet,"
receiver Jeremy Maclin noted, "We did get beat by 40 yesterday, and that's kind of upsetting."
On the other hand, he added, now is a chance both to prove wrong the "bandwagon hoppers"
and to win one merely for one another.
"We don't want to go out on the note that we did,"
he said. "It's another game to go out there and redeem ourselves."
Said Daniel: "If we can get 10 wins, we'll be known as one of the better teams in Missouri history."
By sheer numbers, yes. Maybe or maybe not otherwise.
But whatever the case, at least a victory would send out the winningest class in Missouri history on a high note.
Saturday night "is going to sting for a while. Why wouldn't it? We lost the Big 12 championship,"
Daniel said, adding, "But we can finish off in style."
