Vanderbilt football grades vs. Missouri: Making sense of where Commodores stood vs. Tigers

Vanderbilt football extended its losing streak to four with a 38-21 loss to Missouri on Saturday at FirstBank Stadium.

The Commodores (2-4, 0-2 SEC) gave up 532 total yards, including 7.1 yards per play. While Vanderbilt's offense showed life at times, it could not score enough to keep up with the Tigers (5-0, 1-0). The Commodores only had one turnover, an improvement from the past week against Kentucky, but Ken Seals, who started in place of an injured AJ Swann, didn't make enough explosive plays to win.

Here's how we graded the loss:

Offense: C

Seals didn't have two interceptions returned for touchdowns like AJ Swann the previous week, and he had his moments that included a touchdown drive to Will Sheppard and scoring a rushing touchdown himself. While he performed well for the most part, the same couldn't be said for the run game, which struggled once again, putting up just 54 rushing yards (not including sacks).

Defense: F

The defense allowed the Tigers to be extremely efficient on offense as Brady Cook threw for 395 yards and had just nine incompletions. The run defense was quite a bit better than the pass defense, allowing 137 yards on the ground with four yards per carry.

Special teams: C

There were a few miscues on special teams, including a kickoff out of bounds, and Matt Hayball wasn't as good punting as is typical. But there were no major issues here either.

Coaching: C

Unlike the previous three games, this one didn't stand out as being awful. The game plan was relatively vanilla and Vanderbilt's skill-position players were simply outclassed by Missouri's.

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Overall: C

Vanderbilt didn't beat itself this time − it simply got beat. That makes things less painful, but the end result isn't any different.

Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on Twitter @aria_gerson.

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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Vanderbilt football grades vs Missouri: Where Commodores stood vs Tigers