ARLINGTON, Texas — Don’t inform Missouri that New Yr’s Six video games exterior the Faculty Soccer Playoff don’t matter. Should you watched the No. 9 Tigers have fun their 14-3 Cotton Bowl win towards No. 7 Ohio State, it would as nicely have been a championship.
Gamers made snow angels within the confetti. Each workers member received a photograph with somebody. No one wished to depart the sphere. Mizzou followers, who offered out their 13,000 ticket allotment in lower than 18 hours, packed in additional than half of the 70,000 individuals in AT&T Stadium. It was the Tigers’ largest bowl win for the reason that Cotton Bowl to cap a top-five season a decade in the past. An eleventh win. A cause to have fun a breakthrough season and an upward trajectory.
“The best way (the Cotton Bowl) handled us, it felt just like the Tremendous Bowl,” head coach Eli Drinkwitz mentioned.
Confetti SZN! 🎉 Congrats to @MizzouFootball for successful the 88th #GoodyearCottonBowl Basic! #LikeNoOther | #MIZ | #SomethingWasProved pic.twitter.com/xhc7MOOlBI
— Goodyear Cotton Bowl Basic (@CottonBowlGame) December 30, 2023
But Friday night time once more highlighted the rising bowl conundrum of the previous decade and why issues are going to vary subsequent season.
The upcoming 12-team Faculty Soccer Playoff was meant for groups like Mizzou — to supply entry to the packages that don’t win their convention however have a top-10 season and may spring an upset or two. To allow them to play in a postseason recreation that issues, towards a crew that desires to be there.
This Cotton Bowl meant every little thing to Mizzou. It’s exhausting to say the identical for Ohio State. Huge receiver Marvin Harrison Jr., a future top-10 decide, was right here however didn’t play. The beginning quarterback this season, Kyle McCord, has already dedicated to switch to Syracuse and was on the sideline for the Orange’s bowl recreation final week. Ohio State performed most of this recreation with its third-string quarterback.
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That’s not to remove from Mizzou, which didn’t have any opt-outs of be aware. They don’t put asterisks on wins. It’s simply mentioning a actuality we’ve seen for a number of years now. The New Yr’s Six was meant to be one of the best of each worlds, protecting conventional bowl celebrations alongside the creation of the Playoff. It didn’t take lengthy for a lot of star gamers in non-CFP video games to see little level in enjoying and risking harm, and the switch portal exacerbated it.
Ohio State at all times expects to play for the nationwide championship. Mizzou was picked to complete sixth within the SEC East. This sport has at all times been an expectations recreation.
It’s the finish of an period, when nice groups might finish their season with a significant bowl win and have fun. Within the 12-team CFP period, 11 groups will go residence with a loss. If the 12-team CFP existed this yr, Mizzou would’ve performed at Oregon in an 8-9 matchup for the fitting to play No. 1 Michigan. As an alternative, Tigers followers took over Arlington and loved a win. They liked it.
“I’ll be trustworthy, I hope we don’t lose that within the 12-team playoff, as a result of there’s one thing particular about having these bowl experiences,” Drinkwitz mentioned. “But when that is the final one, wow, Mizzou did it proper for ’em.”
Mizzou isn’t finished right here. The win was additionally a 2024 assertion for the Tigers, who will return nearly all of their crew past All-American operating again Cody Schrader and have eyes squarely on getting a type of CFP spots, maybe on their residence discipline.
“(This win) is particular for our crew subsequent yr,” quarterback Brady Prepare dinner mentioned. “The fellows coming again for yet another, the coaches, the brotherhood. That is simply going to provide us extra momentum.”
QB Brady Prepare dinner threw a TD cross and had 66 dashing yards on Friday. (Kevin Jairaj / USA Immediately)
Prepare dinner will probably be again. Star receiver Luther Burden III will probably be again. The Tigers will add a top-25 recruiting class that options five-star edge rusher Williams Nwaneri, the No. 2 recruit within the nation within the 247Sports Composite, together with a stellar switch class. Mizzou’s administration stepped as much as preserve defensive coordinator Blake Baker, whom Drinkwitz mentioned turned down jobs elsewhere over the previous month.
Mizzou and Drinkwitz are making an impression within the locations that matter in a cutthroat SEC that’s about so as to add certainly one of this yr’s CFP groups in Texas, together with blue-blood Oklahoma. It’s a Tigers program that two years in a row gave Georgia its hardest regular-season recreation. This isn’t a Mizzou that may accept bowl eligibility. It’s making waves within the title, picture and likeness area, signing five-star gamers and never placing limits on what it might probably do.
“The long run is extraordinarily shiny due to the plans we have now and the imaginative and prescient we’re finishing up,” Drinkwitz mentioned. “It’s not simply me, it’s our administration and what they’ve finished … It’s what our gamers have finished. It’s what our recruiting is doing, getting the fitting gamers to play for us.
“With the 12-team Playoff system, this is able to be a recreation the place we’re persevering with to maneuver on and have an opportunity to play at a better stage. Every little thing’s coming collectively now. However we perceive the wind’s twice as exhausting on the high of the mountain.”
Come November 2024, faculty soccer might see upward of 30 or 40 groups within the Playoff hunt. Groups like Mizzou. That’s the joy to return. As an alternative of hoping for a New Yr’s Six opponent that will or might not care to be there, the Tigers might have a path to a nationwide championship.
Which will appear unlikely or unrealistic. Then once more, so did this season.
“Going from unranked to high 10 was fairly particular,” Drinkwitz mentioned. “However why cease now?”
(High photograph of Luther Burden III: Sam Hodde / Getty Photographs)