COLUMBIA - Drew Lock has played some of his best football in a Missouri uniform against the Arkansas Razorbacks to close out the regular season, and that looks like it will continue.
Arkansas head coach Chad Morris announced Monday starting cornerback Ryan Pulley and starting strong safety Kamren Curl would be suspended for Friday's 1:30 p.m. game on CBS, reportedly for flirting with members of Mississippi State's dance team before Saturday's game against the Bulldogs.
In 2017, Lock was 25-for-42 for 448 yards, five touchdowns and two interceptions in a shootout the Tigers won by a field goal in Fayetteville. The year before, he was 16-for-26 for 268 yards and a touchdown, and though Lock was 9-of-27 for 83 yards and a pick, Friday's game should look more like the last two years than 2015.
That's because even with Pulley, a junior, and Curl, a sophomore, the Razorbacks (2-9, 0-7 Southeastern Conference) have had problems on defense all season as Morris, not known for being a defensive-minded coach, tries to enact a sea change. Arkansas has allowed 20 passing touchdowns this season, tied for third-worst in the conference (with Missouri), and is giving up an average of 247 yards per game through the air. The team has five interceptions and has conceded 29 plays of 25 or more yards passing, nearly three per game.
In run defense, the Razorbacks haven't been much better. They've allowed 23 touchdowns on the ground, most in the SEC, average 167 yards per game allowed, and are coming off their worst loss of the season, a 52-6 drubbing in Starkville.
Arkansas might look like a team with nothing left to play for, but Lock and the rest of this Missouri team that was in Columbia for the 2016 game know different.
The Tigers (7-4, 3-4 SEC) and Razorbacks were essentially in opposite positions that year, with Arkansas headed to a bowl game and Missouri out of the picture at 3-8. But after trailing 24-7 at halftime, Lock and company scored 21 unanswered points and the defense came away with some big stops in a win that players and coaches inside the program kick-started the progress the Tigers have made in the following two years.
The lesson was cemented for Lock when he and his family bumped into a group of drunk Arkansas fans outside Chris McD's restaurant in Columbia after the win.
"It got chirpy, and then one of them was like, 'Have fun at your guys' bowl game this year,' and obviously we weren't going to a bowl game," Lock said Monday. "But we had won, that was their only comeback they had that day. So that still resonates in my head that we do have the bowl game bragging rights, but that's nothing compared to winning the actual game bragging rights that we all want to be able to have at the end of that day."
Is the lab-formulated "Battle Line Rivalry presented by Shelter Insurance" finally picking up some steam? Somewhere Eric Beisel, who is now selling t-shirts featuring his famous quote while waiting for an NFL team to call, shed a tear.
III
Neither Emanuel Hall nor Tyler Badie were recruited by their in-state SEC schools. Hall spent 2017 torching Tennessee and Vanderbilt deep and Badie, though injured against Vanderbilt, scored a touchdown against the Volunteers and has been one of the conference's most impressive freshman backs.
Damarea Crockett has never had the opportunity to show his home state's SEC school what they missed out on, at least in person. The Little Rock native was suspended before the Arkansas game his freshman year after a misdemeanor arrest, and was injured last season.
He could get his chance this year, despite a sprained right ankle and sprained toe on his left foot during the Tennessee game last week, and even if Odom elects to hold him out because of the toe, which Crockett had in a walking boot, Larry Rountree, Badie and Simi Bakare have proven themselves more than capable of carrying the load.
"I'm trying not to focus on that," Crockett said. "I'm trying to give myself a real input. I'm not trying to focus on the fact that we play Arkansas and the fact that I haven't played them yet. That's bothering me really bad right now, but I'm trying to swallow that pride and go day by day right now."