Mizzou football enters Saturday's game against Oklahoma with their eyes on a victory. I imagine the coaching staff is beating into them that they can't look ahead on the schedule. After Oklahoma, the Tigers face Nebraska. After that? Texas Tech, Kansas State, Iowa State and Kansas. It's going to be hard not to look ahead and dream of what could be if OU falls on Saturday.
But what we're focused on is right now. All the hype. ESPN'S College GameDay. National TV. No. 1 vs. No. 11. There's a lot of reasons to be excited here.
It almost feels like Nebraska coming into Columbia, MO a few years ago.
In 2007, the situations were different but the feelings are similar. Mizzou was playing No. 25 Nebraska and they were sitting at 4-0 with a big chance to show the world they were for real.
In un-Mizzou like fashion, they lived up to the hype. They watched Nebraska walk into Faurot Field and then they dominated them, 41-6. Chase Daniel had just turned 21 and put up his first on-the-national-stage performance. RPT of Rock M Nation calls is possibly "the most perfect night Faurot Field has ever seen."
A full offseason of buildup culminated in perhaps the most perfect night Faurot Field has ever seen. Sure, Nebraska was historically awful that year, but that doesn't change the amount of anticipation there was going into that game. That game was circled long before the 2007 season ever kicked off.
I don't know how this game will turn out but I do think this game is pushing those levels. Of course a win would be bigger than that Nebraska game. With Oklahoma being ranked No. 1 -- as opposed to Nebraska's No. 25 -- and Gary Pinkel having never beaten Oklahoma, and Aldon Smith coming back from injury, and Mizzou's 6-0 start, and ESPN's College GameDay, and maybe Blaine Gabbert's last year, and after all the offseason arrests....OK I'll stop there. But I think you get the point.
There are a lot of reasons this could be a very special game in Columbia.