Mizzou’s 2026 season ends with an 8-5 record after losing the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl to Virginia. Missing a host of offensive players to transfers and injury, Mizzou’s offense failed to put up any points after the opening drive, making Virginia’s lone touchdown and two field goals enough to come out on top.
Virginia
Five Takeaways from Mizzou’s 13-7 Gator Bowl loss to Virginia
Here are your five takeaways.
Bowl games may not matter in the grand scheme of things. But despite what you may be told, they do have an impact on fan perception of a program. And Mizzou’s performance against Virginia will certainly leave a sour taste in mouths for the next few months.
Mizzou, a team that prides itself on a dominant run game and time of possession, was out-possessed by almost 17 minutes of game clock. A defense that made its bones on third-down conversion allowed the Cavaliers to convert 13 third downs for a 56.5 percent rate. The First Team All-American running back? Held to just 15 carries on the night, including conspicuous absences in critical, late-game moments (despite averaging 5.9 yards per carry.)
Don’t let the one-score outcome, or the fact that Mizzou nearly came back to win it late, fool you. The Tigers were flattened by Virginia in Jacksonville. Eli Drinkwitz and his staff will have plenty of bulletin board material to use for next season just based on this game alone.
2. So those final two plays…
I had written out a whole takeaway about how bad Matt Zollers was tonight. And by no means was he good. But the final drive, which saw him uncork a few mouth-watering throws, redeemed his performance somewhat. Unfortunately, an ultimate redemption was taken out of his hands by the referees.
With Mizzou sitting at the edge of the red zone on third-and-10, Matt Zollers scrambled to his right and threw a ball away under pressure from a Virginia defender. Then, after the ball had been out of his hand for a good second, another Cavalier came barreling in to lay a blind side hit on the freshman, whipping his head onto the turf and causing Zollers to grasp his helmet. After a few seconds of lying on the ground, Zollers bounced up for his final shot at the end zone.
Except it never came. The referees, using their discretion, removed Zollers from the game under the auspices of a possible head injury. Zollers, looking disconsolate at the decision, could only watch as walk-on Brett Brown put a lob into the corner of the end zone that was broken up by Virginia’s defense.
Perhaps it’s the right call by the officials given the game’s lack of importance and Zollers’ obvious discomfort after the hit. But allowing the hit to go unpunished in the first place will add to the grievance Mizzou fans will feel given the referees then put the Tigers at further disadvantage by removing their best passer from the game.
3. All chalk, all the time
With Mizzou’s loss to Virginia, the Tigers end their season perfect against teams with losing records… and winless against teams with winning records.
A team’s record isn’t everything, and it shouldn’t be the only factor in how we evaluate the program moving forward. The advanced numbers say that Mizzou was one of the country’s top 25-30 teams this year, and that’s meaningful when you play in the SEC. But it’s kind of poetic that this Mizzou team was exactly what it ended up on the scoreboard: Good enough to beat the bad teams, but not good enough to beat the good ones. It’s a tag that is starting to follow Eli Drinkwitz’s teams around, one that will be especially noteworthy given his new, eye-popping salary.
It’s a downer note for his season to end on, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t call out Mizzou’s new all-time single season rushing champion. Ahmad Hardy started the game with a bang, rushing 42 yards to set up Mizzou’s only scoring drive of the night. And while he was inexplicably sat for much of the game, he was able to bust enough trademark YAC runs to brake Cody Schrader’s record of 1,624 yards on the ground.
All eyes will be on the First Team All-American when Mizzou takes the field next season, and it’ll be difficult for him to top what he’s already done in black-and-gold. But he’s earned those distinctions, as well as the right to have an offense built around him. Get to work, Mr. Lindsey.
5. All eyes on the transfer portal and draft
Mizzou’s season on the field is over. But off-the-field, things are getting hairy.
Will the Tigers bring in QB competition for Zollers? Can they rebuild their WR corps and secondary? Will there be any upgrades in the trenches? How many more players will they lose? Which eligible players will declare for the draft?
A lot of questions hang in the air, and we won’t have to wait too long for answers.
Thanks to everyone who reads these pieces each week. Sometimes they’re a lot of fun to write. Sometimes they kind of suck. They’re always a challenge, and the engagement they get makes a writer feel good.
Happy New Year, all! M-I-Z!
RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger said she supports the House of Delegates’ proposed budget as state lawmakers race to avoid a government shutdown before the July 1 deadline.
Legislators are set to meet Tuesday to review their proposed budgets, and the House could vote as early as Thursday. But a major obstacle remains: the Senate Finance chair is insisting that a billion-dollar sales and use tax exemption for data center operators must end — a position that puts the Senate at odds with the House proposal.
The governor said her team has not had a substantive discussion on what Sen. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth) might present as a counter proposal. On Friday, Lucas posted a graduated tax proposal for data centers on social media but has not presented that plan to the governor’s team.
As recently as Sunday, Lucas was adamant that the companies behind the data centers would pay what she called their fair share.
“They keep saying to us, ‘well, if we don’t get that sales and use tax exemption in Virginia, we’re gonna go someplace else.’ Well, Senator Locke just laid it out for you: all the other states are saying, ‘no, we don’t want them’ and if we get them, we’re going to make sure that we modify how we do these use and sales tax exemptions,” Lucas said.
Spanberger reiterated her support for the House version of the budget.
“In the absence of any counter proposal or any additional budget language coming from the Senate, I continue to remain supportive of the House of Delegates proposed conference report, because it’s thorough, it’s thoughtful, it addresses priorities across the board,” she said.
She added that if it were brought to a vote, there is broad support for the measure.
“If it were brought to a vote, certainly there’s many members … of the state Senate whose budget priorities are also in that conference report,” she said.
The timeline is tight. While House of Delegates members return Thursday, Senate members do not convene until next Monday. Under legislative rules, an agreed-upon budget must be on legislators’ desks 48 hours before a vote can be taken. If a budget agreement is not ready by the close of business Tuesday, the House will not be voting on Thursday.
This is a developing story. Email the CBS 6 Newsroom if you have additional information to share.
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Virginia
Falls Church officials weigh order of operations for major affordable housing project | ARLnow.com
Which should come first for the Virginia Village redevelopment in Falls Church: Selecting a development partner, or considering zoning changes?
City leaders are facing a “chicken-and-egg”-type challenge as they tackle the major affordable housing initiative.
A decision will have to come soon, as city leaders hope to have an interim development agreement inked in the fall, followed by a full agreement nearly next year. At the June 8 Council meeting, officials discussed whether to prioritize zoning changes or partner selection.
Council member Arthur Agin said he believed consideration of zoning changes should come in advance of, or at the latest concurrently with, selection of a development partner.
“We shouldn’t be taking that acceptance of a developer until we’ve fully locked down the zoning,” Agin said.
City Manager Wyatt Shields said he wasn’t so sure. Shields affirmed staff’s position that an interim agreement with a development partner should come before finalizing land-use changes.
“It would be good for the public to interact with the specific plans [put forward by the developer]” before final action on potential zoning changes, Shields said. The Council could use that information to craft zoning changes for the 20-parcel Virginia Village site, he said.
The city’s Economic Development Authority (EDA) currently owns nine of the 20 lots, while the remainder are in private hands. Any zoning-overlay district for Virginia Village would apply to public and private parcels.
Council members on June 22 are expected to formally approve a request for proposal, seeking a development partner for the sites under EDA ownership. The city is expected to set a deadline sometime at the end of July for development proposals to be submitted.
City officials are seeking proposals focusing on three alternative development scenarios:
- Option 1: Rehabilitation of city-owned properties in Virginia Village with the potential for minor expansions, such as an additional floor or bump-outs of the existing buildings
- Option 2: Low-intensity redevelopment that would include razing the city’s properties and rebuilding up to four levels on the parcels
- Option 3: Larger infill redevelopment that would demolish the city-owned buildings and replace them with properties potentially up to seven stories tall in some areas
City officials also will consider hybrid proposals, combining elements of the three options.
Of the 20 fourplexes comprising Virginia Village, the city’s Economic Development Authority owns the following:
- A four-parcel strip at 2002-2004-2006-2008 Gibson Street
- A two-parcel strip at 310-312 Shirley Street
- Individual parcels at 302, 303 and 310 Maple Ave
The owner of a 10th lot, located at 300 Shirley Street, has contacted city officials with a request to potentially collaborate in the redevelopment. Additionally, other owners may now be in communication with city officials, or could be in the future.
The Virginia Village matter and the order of moving forward was not on the Council’s June 8 agenda, but Agin brought it up to Shields.
West Virginia has added another key piece on the offensive front with a commitment from Atlanta (Ga.) Tucker 2027 offensive lineman Jajuan Graham.
Graham, 6-foot-4, 300-pounds, picked the Mountaineers over offers from North Carolina, Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, Wake Forest, Memphis, USF and a number of others.
West Virginia initially offered in late April and the connection between the two only continued to blossom with offensive line coach Rick Trickett serving as the lead recruiter.
Graham made the trek to Morgantown over the weekend for an official visit and that proved to be enough to seal the deal on his recruitment with a commitment.
The versatile offensive lineman can fill several different roles for the Mountaineers up front.
Graham becomes the 20th commitment for West Virginia in the 2027 class and the second along the offensive line in this current recruiting cycle.
WVSports.com will have more with Graham in the near future.
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