‘The standard’: How evaluation, buy-in helped Missouri defense help team reach Cotton Bowl

ARLINGTON, Texas — Walk around a room of Missouri football’s defensive standouts and ask about when, where and how the Tigers’ rise to new heights began, and you’ll begin to piece together the puzzle of the remarkable 2023 campaign.

Mizzou defensive tackle Kristian Williams said it started with a new standard.

“I mean, each and every year you have different pieces, so you just have to get accustomed to everything, you’ve got to bring all the freshmen on board. And I could feel it, the energy just changed throughout the facilities throughout our games, pre-games,” Williams said. “So, I mean the people bring more energy, and everybody just multiplies, and then the standard that we bring, everything has a specific plan to it, and we all bought into those plans.”

MU linebacker Chuck Hicks said the team’s standards began to be evaluated and critiqued at the conclusion of the 2022 season, which saw Missouri finish the year with a 6-7 record.

“We knew we needed to take that next step, and we knew we needed to just do the little things right, and I think that's one thing we lacked in 2022,” Hicks said. “And obviously I think we're doing the little things right in ’23. … It's really important to maintain that standard, and I think that standard, every game we’ve won, it’s been raised.”

No kidding.

The No. 9-ranked Tigers are 10-2. On Friday, they’ll face No. 7 Ohio State (11-1) at AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, for a chance to finish the year with their best ranking in the College Football Playoff era.

Two days before their Cotton Bowl bout with Ohio State, five standouts from the Missouri defense — Williams, Hicks, safety JC Carlies, defensive end Darius Robinson and cornerback Kris Abrams-Draine — met with the media inside AT&T Stadium.

Since Missouri’s bowl destination was announced on Dec. 3, and long before, Missouri players have spoken at length about the unity that has inspired the Tigers’ turnaround.

But now the end is in sight. Abrams-Draine said it hasn’t quite hit him yet that he’ll be playing his final game as a Tiger. Robinson said this game means everything to him and this senior class.

“We’re trying to be one of the best teams,” Robinson said, “in Mizzou history.”

With a win, there wouldn’t be much competition.

They’re only the seventh Missouri team, all-time, to win double-digit games in a season. Of those select few, only three have won 11 or more — all coming under Hall of Fame coach Gary Pinkel.

And it was a long climb to get there … long enough to spark a sense of urgency.

“People realized we’ve got so many seniors, everybody gotta go at the end of the year, so you gotta play your best ball, be competitive, do whatever it takes to be the best version of yourself,” Robinson said. “I think we had a lot of guys like that. We wanted the best for each other, and I think that's why we played so well.”

That brings about another piece of the puzzle, one the Tigers have been trying to tell us all season long — this team has been through the ringer together, and they arrived at the top together.

“I mean, our coaches make up good game plans that we go into and we execute every week,” Carlies said, “but also with us just having a great camaraderie on this team, it just puts a boost into our system.”

The time was now, and they got there as a unit.

Carlies said it feels just as good to have gone through the bad years, because of how they’ve overcome them. Abrams-Draine knew he could have transferred, but that the results were a “testimony” to those who stayed the course.

Now, Missouri is beginning to look like an enticing option. The Tigers have landed seven players in the transfer portal since it opened earlier this moment, five of whom with Power Five experience. A late recruiting surge before early signing day on Dec. 20 saw MU’s Class of 2024 jump into the top 25 in the nation.

Success didn’t come out of thin air. The Tigers had to mold introspection and experience and commitment to get there.

But it’s just about there, now.

“It was a process,” Carlies said. “We're getting to where we want to be. We're not where we want to be yet, but we're taking steps in the right direction to where we want to be. And I feel like now people want to be a part of that process.”

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: ‘The standard’: How introspection helped MU defense helped team reach Cotton Bowl