Instant Analysis: Cotton Bowl

The Missouri Tigers could have sulked after being snubbed by the Bowl Championship Series, and particularly the Orange Bowl. Instead, Gary Pinkel’s pupils showed what they were made of in the bowl game that used to be a venerated college football classic.

The Cotton Bowl once attained a lofty place in the college football pecking order, as the duel in Dallas often decided national championships while providing the most magical matchups on New Year’s Day. This revered postseason contest has sadly lost a lot of is luster (though efforts are underway to bring the Cotton Bowl back into the BCS rotation), but in the first hours of a new year, Missouri treated this game as a special occasion, and the Tigers reaped the rewards in a thorough throttling of an Arkansas team that’s waiting to leave Darren McFadden behind and embrace the brilliance of offensive wizard Bobby Petrino.

There isn’t much that needs to be analyzed in the wake of this all-Ozark throwdown, which featured a Missouri mowdown of the hapless Hogs. Very simply, Tony Temple ran like a madman, and the Tigers’ defense, up and down the roster, hammered the Razorbacks in the trenches to smother McFadden and his equally explosive teammate, running back Felix Jones. The Hogs—bereft of a credible downfield passing game—saw Missouri load up against the run in the game’s early stages, and when the Tigers put the clamps on the two studs in the Arkansas stable, it was all over but the shouting.

An account of this game begins and ends with one very simple reality: Missouri, a vastly superior team, didn’t groan or grumble about being relegated to the Cotton Bowl for a 10:45 a.m. kickoff. The Tigers treated this game with the respect it deserved, and for that one basic reason, Missouri dished out misery to Arkansas instead of drowning in a pool of self-inflicted tears. In a sport where far too many good teams lose bowl games because of motivation level, Missouri did something different, playing with passion instead of pouting. One can’t say enough good things about the character and attitude of the Big 12 North champions, who honored themselves and their sport in a game that has defined and revealed many champions over the past several decades.