Hey, reader of this column. Can you keep a secret? Like, promise not to tell anyone who was responsible for the SEC handing out packets of information about why the conference goes through a gauntlet unlike anyone else in the sport?
Well, the secret is that Mizzou might have a schedule that’s eerily similar to what Indiana had in 2024. As in, Mizzou might have a schedule that sets up extremely well while getting everyone extremely mad if it somehow finds itself in Playoff contention.
Shhhhhhhh. Don’t tell anyone that I told you that. Nobody is supposed to know that one can possibly land a draw so favorable in the SEC.
But, reader of this column, tell me which one of these options best describes Mizzou’s 2025 schedule:
A) 6 home games to start B) 0 games vs. teams who won 10 games in 2024 C) Every road opponent lost at least 6 games in 2024 D) 1 game in a non-bordering state E) All the aboveIt’s “E.” It’s always “E.”
That is … significant. It’s significant because Indiana took it on the chin for a Big Ten schedule that resulted in 1 regular season game against a team that finished with more than 8 regular season wins (at Ohio State). IU’s non-Ohio State Big Ten opponents were a combined 21-42 in conference play last year. The Hoosiers didn’t face a Power Conference opponent outside of Big Ten play, and they feasted on a trio of laugher matchups at home.
The fact that it was Indiana — a program that’s still searching for its first bowl victory since 1991 — only added to the skepticism that grew as the Playoff path became more realistic in Year 1 of the Curt Cignetti era.
The good news for Mizzou is that it has far more history than Indiana. On the heels of consecutive double-digit win seasons, Mizzou won’t necessarily come out of nowhere to disrupt the party in the way that Indiana did. Eli Drinkwitz led the Tigers to a 21-5 mark the last 2 seasons, which included a Cotton Bowl victory against Ohio State to close out 2023. There’s some built-in credibility that wouldn’t have been there if this were a few years ago.
But the bad news for Mizzou is that after the fuss that the SEC raised at the end of its spring meetings with a completely unnecessary brochure of flexing, the SEC skeptics are going to call out any sort of schedule that appears favorable.
Let’s call it what it is. Mizzou’s 2025 draw appears to be extremely favorable. It misses the likes of Georgia, Texas, LSU, Ole Miss and Tennessee. It will, however, face 5 of the 6 SEC teams who finished with a losing conference record in 2024.
Here’s the regular-season over/under for each Power Conference foe on the Tigers’ 2025 slate (via FanDuel):
Kansas, 7.5 wins South Carolina, 7.5 wins Alabama, 9.5 wins Auburn, 7.5 wins Vanderbilt, 4.5 wins Texas A&M, 7.5 wins Mississippi State, 3.5 wins Oklahoma, 6.5 wins Arkansas, 5.5 winsIn case you were wondering, Mizzou’s regular-season over/under is 7.5 wins (+106), and it’s +500 to win 10 regular season games. Make of that what you will. There could be questions about a new-look offense in a post-Brady Cook/Luther Burden III world. There’s a chance that this team doesn’t sniff November Playoff relevance.
But at the same time, Indiana was loaded with questions a year earlier after Cignetti basically brought the best pieces of the James Madison program with him to Bloomington. One of the non-JMU pieces was Ohio quarterback Kurtis Rourke, who thrived in a new offense that took the vast majority of IU’s opponents by surprise.
Mizzou doesn’t have some new coaching staff, but it does have a new-look offense with Penn State transfer Beau Pribula, which Drinkwitz hopes will take the vast majority of Mizzou’s opponents by surprise. Pribula and Louisiana-Monroe running back transfer Ahmad Hardy could be the 1-2 punch that Cook and Cody Schrader were in 2023 when Mizzou rode a top-30 offense en route to a 10-2 regular season. Alternatively, a Mizzou defense that ranks No. 5 in percentage of returning defensive production could be the steadying force like it was in 2023 when it had a top-25 scoring unit.
If the 12-team Playoff had existed that year, the Tigers would’ve been a Playoff team. Even though their best win also came against a team that won 8 regular season games (Tennessee), they probably wouldn’t have faced 2024 Indiana levels scrutiny because they hung tough at Georgia in ways that IU didn’t at Ohio State.
Still, though. You can close your eyes and picture Mizzou being a team that gets picked apart nationally because it doesn’t stockpile blue-chip recruits in the way that most in the SEC do (Drinkwitz does deserve credit for elevating the level of incoming talent during the 2020s). After what the SEC did in the spring, it put an even bigger target on its back for schedule criticism.
If Mizzou gets to that first Playoff Poll in November with an Alabama loss as the lone blemish and a favorable 4-game stretch to close the regular season, get ready for the 2024 Indiana comps.
By then, the secret will be out.
Why Mizzou might have the 2025 version of Indiana’s schedule Saturday Down South.
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