2018 Missouri Tigers Season Win Total Picks and Predictions for NCAA Football

2017 Record: 5-7

2018 Las Vegas Season Win Total: 5.5

2018 Season Win Total Picks NCAA Football: 'Over'

I've heard more than one prognosticator suggest that Missouri could be a potential sleeper in the SEC East this year. After all, the former Big 12 doormats managed to scam their way to back-to-back SEC title games as recently as 2013 and 2014. And with a quarterback that tossed for nearly 4,000 yards and 44 touchdowns last year, the Tigers could be some kind of run-and-shoot counterpoint to the rest of this ground-and-pound conference.

But it's not going to happen. Missouri was able to avoid a third straight bowl-less season thanks to a six-game winning streak to close out the year. That streak involved wins over heavyweights Idaho and Connecticut as well as peeing on the dumpster fires that were Florida and Tennessee. So let's not get carried away here.

Head coach Barry Odom, who was the defensive coordinator under previous coach Gary Pinkel, has shown very little competence actually coaching defense. The Tigers gave up 43 points in the opener to FCS foe Missouri State en route to surrendering 31.8 per game. Not a great sign when the defense started showing signs of life only after they turned the DC job over to the secondary coach halfway through the year.

Also, Josh Heupel is gone. He was the offensive coordinator that led the offense from the 13.6-point-per-game catastrophe that it was in 2015 to the explosive unit that we saw last season. He's been replaced by retread Derek Dooley. Oh yeah, Dooley, who failed impressively as Tennessee's head coach, has never been a coordinator before. So this should be good.

On the positive side, Missouri does have Drew Lock. The senior is a three-year starter and was First-Team SEC quarterback last year. Throw in three of his top four runners and four of his top five receivers, along with all five offensive linemen, and Lock should have enough weapons and savvy to overcome Dooley's incompetence.

Defensively, my expectations are lower for a unit that finished No. 97 in points allowed and No. 82 in total defense. But they do have seven starters back from last year's squad.

Missouri opens the year with three of their first four games at home. The road game is at Purdue, another high-scoring team. They also have winnable games at home against Memphis, Kentucky, Vanderbilt and Arkansas. And a road game at Tennessee isn't beyond reach considering that the Vols are rebuilding.

Missouri went 7-0 last year against teams that finished with a losing record. They were 0-6 against teams with a winning record. But they have a lot of winnable games on the docket this year. As long as Lock doesn't get crunched during a three-game stretch against Georgia, at South Carolina and at Alabama then I think that the Tigers will be able to find their way back to a bowl game in spite of their coaching issues. I'll offer a tepid 'over' play on this one, but only because I think that this is a soft number.

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