Mizzou’s domination in the trenches leads to a blowout victory over South Carolina.

Missouri’s 34-12 Homecoming victory over South Carolina proved the old cliche that the game of football is won and lost in the trenches right. This proved true for both the winner and the loser on Saturday afternoon.

South Carolina came to Faurot Field, after putting up 39 points and 465 total yards of offense (352 passing, 152 rushing) in a 41-39 loss to Florida, but it seemed like their offensive unit was left in the other Columbia 870 miles away. You can thank Missouri’s defense for this.

“Hats off to our defense,” Eli Drinkwitz said. “I thought Coach (Blake) Baker did an outstanding job getting after them offensively. To hold them to four field goals I think was incredible.”

The grittiness of what transpired over the final three quarters in Lexington, Kentucky last week leaked over into the Battle for the Mayor’s Cup.

Missouri’s defense has the pedigree to shut down pretty much any offensive attack, minus LSU, the front seven stood out as it did not allow Rattler to get comfortable and dice them up in the pocket.

Rattler, one of the more high-profiled quarterbacks in the Southeastern Conference, wasn’t able to generate any sort of magic as he finished the day going 23-40, for just 217 yards and an interception, while before leaving with injury, star wide receiver Xavier Legette mustered just a single catch for 20 yards in about a half of play.

Rattler rarely had time to go through his progressions resulting in him often scrambling out of the pocket to buy extra time often resulting in him tossing passes resulting in incompletions.

Six times, the havoc caused by Missouri’s defense resulted in Rattler being brought down for sacks. The most by the Tigers defense all season.

“Our theme all week was rattle Rattler. We just felt like we needed rattle him and (we) should have had more.”

Two of these sacks proved to be important in the first half. On South Carolina’s first offensive possession, the Gamecocks drove all the way down to the Tigers 20 yard-line, being one of their few successful possessions in the first half.

On third and eight though, with the heat on, Joe Moore III chased Rattler in the backfield resulting in a 13-yard loss setting up a long field goal attempt by Mitch Jeter.

Jeter shanked the kick from 51 yards out, and Missouri used the momentum to drive for it’s own scoring drive as Brady Cook hit Luther Burden for a long 42-yard score.

On the Tigers’ next defensive drive, the front seven once again put together divine perfection. Johnny Walker Jr. exhibited the depth of Missouri’s defensive edge room by wrapping up Mario Anderson for no gain. The play didn’t count as the Gamecocks used an illegal formation. two plays later, Rattler was forced to throw a quick dump off pass for three yards thanks to the pressure from Darius Robinson, for one of his two sacks during the game. On third down, Jay Jernigan and back up outside linebacker Triston Newson got home sacking Rattler for a loss of seven.

Missouri’s offensive response? Another touchdown to go up 14-0 in the first quarter.

Kristian Williams, a fanatic of natural disasters and wanted to become a storm chaser as a kid, compared Missouri’s defense to every natural disaster. Williams didn’t record a sack, but was present on the defensive line, almost recording an interception on a tipped ball. He knew that his fellow teammates getting to Rattler was high on the priorities for keys to victory.

“Spencer Rattler is a great quarterback,” Williams said. “With our gameplan, we just knew going into it that we had to disrupt the quarterback. I mean that’s in every game we’ve played, because a quarterback is an essential component into an offense. So as long as keep disrupting the quarterback, I thought we could disrupt the whole offense.”

The sack party didn’t stop in the first half as Chuck Hicks stopped a South Carolina drive in Missouri territory forcing a field goal in the second half, while Robinson ended the Gamecocks next possession for a loss of nine.

Back to the first half, South Carolina was held to a whopping negative eight rushing yards through 15 minutes of play, while Missouri’s ground game thrived for 156 yards in comparison.

It was a refreshing performance for the Tigers after averaging just 3.1 yards per carry at Kentucky last week. The Tigers nearly doubled their rushing total when the final seconds ticked off the clock with 220 net yards compared to 118 in the rain at Kroger Field.

The majority of the damage was done by Cody Schrader, who keep in mind, couldn’t even finish the Kentucky game due to his lingering quad injury and remained questionable to face off against the Gamecocks.

“First off, I got to shout out to our training staff. I’ve been here 12 hours every single day and these guys are staying after hours to put extra work on my body, help me out. So we have one of the best training staffs in the country.”

Schrader mentioned that it was more mentally draining to come out and prepare to play than physically with a lingering injury, but that didn’t stop him from playing in his final Homecoming game as he churned out 159 yards on 26 carries equaling a 6.1 yard average.

The last time he played at Faurot Field against LSU: 114 yards on 13 carries.

“I feel like everybody besides my family and friends, everybody has counted me out,” Schrader said. “So every time I touch the ball, I got to make the best opportunity I get with the ball each time just to continue to prove to myself that I do belong here because I do belong in the SEC.”

While Schrader’s hard style of running helped him reach the end zone twice against South Carolina, it came off the contributions of the Missouri Moving Company. On his first touchdown, you can see Javon Foster and Xavier Delgado creating a wide-open hole for the Tigers’ lead back with nothing but daylight ahead of him. (Well, running into the shade of the south end zone).

“The O-Line is doing an excellent job and when your playing behind guys like Xavier Delgado and Javon Foster and studs like Cam’Ron Johnson, Connor Tollison, and Armand Membou, and you got those guys leading that team and also leading that room, and they buy in and they trust me with the ball in my hands, it’s extremely special for us,” Schrader said.

On Brady Cook’s designed quarterback draw, you can see Delgado once again helping disrupt the Gamecocks’ defense by helping seal the edge, while Armand Membou helps clear out two defenders leaving a lot of space for Cook to score from 17 yards out.

The offensive line, a question mark heading into this season, has clearly made strides in becoming a well-rounded unit.

“Looking out our week of preparation, they have the hardest job because they got to continue everyday and they got to push another man everyday, you know, they got to fight every day,” Schrader said. “They don’t get a play off here and there, they got to practice hard every single day and that’s what this group is doing.”

Saturday was a microcosm of this season as they controlled the line of scrimmage and allowed zero sacks on the afternoon.

“We pride ourselves in dominating the line of scrimmage, we want to run the football,” Schrader said.

Missouri’s surely earned the week off with a 7-1 record. They’ll head into the bye week with possession of the Mayor’s Cup. After the bye, the Tigers will be on the road at No. 1 Georgia.