Marvin Burks Jr. had every reason to be surprised.

The Missouri football safety was all alone, after all, and there was a pass coming toward him like it had been hardwired and programmed to end up in his arms. There wasn’t a Buffalo receiver in the area code. Bulls quarterback CJ Ogbonna, on the first-quarter, third-and-10 heave, may as well have gift-wrapped it for Burks.

It was as simple and sweet an interception as Burks likely will ever pluck from the sky.

He had every reason to be a little surprised at the present, but he wasn’t. Not really.

“I don’t wanna say I was surprised, because, like I said, we were watching a whole lot of film,” Burks said postgame. “… Basically, (Bulls receiver Nik McMillan) was (Ogbonna’s) guy that he was trying to look to, and I kind of saw them looking at each other pre-snap. So I just made a great play.” 

There have been a fair few of those from the Tigers’ defense through two games. 

Through two straight shutouts. 

Mizzou is 2-0, and it has cruised to 2-0. Its 38-0 win over Buffalo on Saturday night on Faurot Field in Columbia marked eight straight quarters without allowing a point to open the 2024 season. 

Dating back to last season — and for the first time since 1941, per MU coach Eli Drinkwitz —  the Tigers have gone 12 straight quarters without allowing a touchdown. It’s the first time Missouri has held two straight opponents without a single point since 1935.

The transition wasn’t supposed to go this smoothly.

The Missouri defense was supposed to be one of the team’s foremost question marks.

Through two games — through two shutouts — consider any concerns resoundingly answered.

“It’s impressive. I think, you know, the general thing, and all offseason you see in the media, … ‘Oh, what’s the defense going to be?’” Missouri quarterback Brady Cook said. “You know, it’s still going to be that same ‘Death Row’ defense that we’ve had.”

For a unit that lost five starters to the NFL Draft, five more key pieces to graduation and had to replace a defensive coordinator all in the same offseason, that’s surely been a little bit of a surprise, right?

But there’s a reason Burks wasn’t shocked. There’s a reason nobody in the Mizzou camp even seems remotely surprised.

Under defensive coordinator Corey Batoon, the Tigers are giving off the impression that they know what’s coming.

New linebacker Corey Flagg mentioned it after the Murray State win, saying that color-coordinated signs from the sideline put them in prime position to make plays.

Burks echoed that.

“We just kind of feel like we just know what’s going on every time we’re out there,” the sophomore safety said. “On third down, second down, first down, end of game, end of half, … we just know what’s going on throughout the game, I feel like.”

The shutouts are impressive. The numbers behind them are jarring.

Missouri’s opponents, Buffalo and Murray State, have not sniffed the end zone. The furthest either of them has made it up the field was the MU 30-yard line. Including turnovers on downs, Mizzou forced the Bulls into three first-half turnovers on Saturday, which takes the Tigers’ total for the season to six. 

Buffalo quarterback CJ Ogbonna passed for just 55 yards. That was more than double what Murray State managed last week.

Crucial to it all, Missouri’s opponents have completed just 5-of-27 third-down attempts between them. Buffalo went 1-of-12 on third downs.

It hasn’t just been shutouts. Nobody has been close to scoring.

Sure, Murray State and Buffalo are far overmatched, but what’s making it so difficult for teams to sustain drives against these Tigers?

Maybe Theo Wease Jr., who had a career-high 149 yards on 13 catches against the Bulls, can answer that.

“That’s ‘Death Row,’” Wease said. “They’re out there flying around; Coach Batoon is doing a good job disguising … and sending pressures from different places; and then, at the end of the day, the plays are being made.”

How about Cook, who surpassed Blaine Gabbert for sixth all-time on Missouri’s career passing yards standings?

“I went against them for however many days in fall camp. You know, they suffocate you,” the quarterback said. “They don’t give up much.”

The Tigers are likely to move up in the national polls Sunday after a loss from No. 5 Notre Dame. A top-25 matchup could be on deck next weekend, when Boston College, who surprised Florida State, comes to town.

Mizzou, a pair of shutouts in hands, has been all about no surprises so far, though.

“It’s a great confidence boost for us, but we’ve still gotta keep our head down,” Burks said. “And like I said, just keep working each and every day, each and every week because it’s … getting tougher and tougher each week as we go.”

COLUMBIA, Mo. — The Missouri Tigers didn’t go out and score 51 tonight, but they didn’t let Buffalo have any more room to breathe than it allowed Murray State in Week 1.

It took a quarter for Missouri’s offense to thrive after a slow first 15 minutes, but its three rushing touchdowns in the second quarter were all it really needed to leave Faurot Field with another win. It had a stifling defensive performance, along with a strong run game throughout the contest.

The Tigers made quick work of their opponents once again, regardless of the significant disparity in talent between the two rosters. Here’s three takeaways from the shutout win:

Although Missouri’s rushing duo of Nate Noel and Marcus Carroll is leading the backfield, it found other ways to attack Buffalo in the run game.

Quarterback Brady Cook’s 28-of-36 pass completion and 228 passing yards were nothing to look past, but he found much of his success was found in the run game. He rushed for 62 yards on five attempts and two touchdowns on the night, the first of which coming on a 3-yard drive up the middle and the latter from a 31-yard scramble that ended with a flip into the end zone at the 1:51 minute mark in the second quarter.

The Tigers also opted to use receiver Luther Burden III as a rusher on two occasions in the first half before he exited from injury. It started with an 18-yard rush to the right at the 14:47 minute mark of the second quarter, followed up by a 3-yard jet sweep to score a touchdown at the end of the drive.

The depth in Missouri’s backfield is deep as-is, but using Cook and Burden in the run game helped throw different looks at the Bulls and resulted in three separate scores. Cook’s trend as a dual-threat quarterback seems to be continuing from last season, and Burden getting more looks as a rusher could be something to look for in the coming weeks.

In back-to-back weeks, the Tiger defense has decimated its opponents.

Once again Missouri held its opponents to a shutout, forcing Buffalo to just 168 total yards and 1-of-12 on 3rd down conversions. The Bulls struggled immensely to get any form of a strong offense building, even when the Tigers started to ease the foot off the gas pedal in the back half of the game.

Safety Marving Burks Jr. had himself a night, intercepting a pass into no man’s land off Buffalo quarterback C.J. Ogbonna at the 9:38 minute mark of the first quarter and taking it down the field for 15 yards — the first time of his career. As easy of a snag as it was, the quick read on the play helped start a wave of momentum for Missouri.

The Tiger defensive line recorded three sacks throughout the the game, led by freshman Jahkai Lang’s 1.5 sacks. Johnny Walker Jr. and Chris McClellan recorded the remaining sack and .5 sack respectively.

Missouri’s defensive performance was encouraging yet again, and it’ll enter next week’s matchup against Boston College without a single point allowed. It’s the only team in college football to currently hold that status.

Although the Tigers won without much of a fight from Buffalo, field goal opportunities were missed multiple times throughout the contest.

Kicker Blake Craig’s night started with a 51-yard field goal that gave Missouri its first three points of the game at the 10:47 minute mark of the first quarter, but he went on to miss two consecutive attempts after the make.

The freshman missed wide left on a 49-yard attempt at the 6:52 mark of the first quarter, and fell short and right at the end of second quarter from 52 yards out.

Being a first-year player, its not surprising to see Craig deal with struggles early on in the season. He made the distance on the first miss, but the second miss was ugly and his accuracy was off on both attempts. He showed the ability to make short and middle kicks against Murray State in a 3-for-3 outing, but he’ll need to build confidence to drill kicks from further back.

STE. GENEVIEVE COUNTY, Mo. (First Alert 4) – A man from Arnold died in a single-car crash in Ste. Genevieve County on Friday.

According to a report from MSHP, at around 8:35 p.m. Friday, a 2013 Chevrolet Camero was traveling westbound on Route O, east of Missouri 32, when the driver failed to yield to Ste. Genevieve County Sherriff’s Deputies. The Chevrolet traveled off the road’s left side, hitting an embankment and then a tree. The driver was pronounced dead at the scene.

The driver was identified as Keegan Schubert, 21, of Arnold, Missouri.

Schubert was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash.

The crash was investigated by MSHP Troop C.

Copyright 2024 KMOV. All rights reserved.