22. MISSOURI

OPPOSING COACH'S TAKE

You know their players are going to be in the right spots and they're going to believe in what they're doing. It's one thing to have good players, and it's another to be coached really well. When you put those two things together, you end up with a team that makes it to the SEC championship game. And [coach Gary Pinkel] recruits well, so I don't expect any drop-off. That program is built the right way.

They have the ability to rush the passer, and they do a good job of rotating those guys up front, finding your man-to-man blocks and continuously putting heat on the quarterback. Markus Golden will be their breakout guy this year. They don't have to do it a lot with blitzing; their front four is good enough. When teams can do that, they can commit seven guys to coverage, and that's harder to prepare for than a team that will blitz a lot. They score a ton of points and put great pressure on you to score as well.

SI POWER RANKINGS

By Rotowire.com

[The following text appears within a chart. Please see hardcopy or PDF for actual chart.]

OFFENSE 87%

DEFENSE 85%

SPECIAL TEAMS 83%

PHOTO

PAT LOVELL/CSM/LANDOV (GOLDEN)

MARKUS GOLDEN

CHART