Mizzou Football vs. Kentucky Recap
Dorial Green-Beckham and Maty Mauk had record-setting days as Mizzou dominated Kentucky 48-17 on Saturday in Lexington.
Mauk completed 17 of 28 attempts for 203 yards and five touchdowns, four of which were to Green-Beckham. Mauk’s five scoring tosses tied the school record for touchdown passes in a game, and Green-Beckham’s four touchdown grabs set a new Mizzou single-game record.
Mizzou got on the board with its third drive of the game. A botched Kentucky 13-yard punt gave Mizzou great field position at the Kentucky 39, and they needed just three plays to reach the end zone. Runs of four and 27 yards by Marcus Murphy set Mauk and the Missouri Tigers up at the eight, and the quarterback threw a beautiful jump ball to Green-Beckham, who fought off his defender and came down with it for his first touchdown of the day.
Mizzou forced Kentucky into a three-and-out on its next possession, and Levi Copelin sprinted in from the left side to block the punt, which the Wildcats recovered at the four-yard line. Henry Josey took over from there and punched it in on the first play of Mizzou’s ensuing possession to make the score 14-3.
The Wildcats’ next drive was stalled by the vicious Mizzou pass rush, as Lucas Vincent and Shane Ray recorded consecutive six-yard sacks to put Kentucky in a fourth and very long.
After a 32-yard punt, Mauk and the Mizzou offense took over at their own 33. After throwing an incompletion on his first pass attempt of the drive, redshirt freshman Mauk went 3-4 for 50 yards to lead Mizzou into the red zone. From there, Mauk hooked up with Green-Beckham for the tandem’s second score of the afternoon.
On Mizzou’s next possession, Mauk spread the ball around, and Josey and Russell Hansbrough balanced the attack with five rushes of four yards or more to drive Mizzou from its own 13 to inside the Kentucky 10. Mauk finished the 87-yard drive with a 6-yard touchdown pass to Josey to make it 28-3.
Kentucky scored on its opening drive of the second half to narrow the Mizzou lead to 18, but that was as close as they would get.
Mauk and Green-Beckham picked up right where they left off to stretch the Tigers’ lead back to 25. On first and 10 from the Kentucky 22, Mauk threw a pass to the end zone to Green-Beckham, who took advantage of his 6-foot-6 frame and showcased his tremendous athletic ability by leaping and corralling the football over his defender’s back to put Mizzou up 35-10.
The dynamic duo set and tied their respective touchdown records with one more connection in the fourth quarter, and Josey put the nail in Kentucky’s coffin when he exploded through a huge hole and outran the Kentucky secondary en route to an 86-yard score.
To go along with his three touchdowns, Josey rushed for 113 yards on just 13 carries. Hansbrough turned in a productive day on the ground as well—he carried the ball eight times for 46 yards.
Not to be outdone by Mizzou’s record-setting offensive day, the Missouri defense recorded an eye-popping seven sacks and recovered a fumble to extend its streak of consecutive games with a takeaway to 40.
Kony Ealy led the Mizzou pass rush, recording 3.0 sacks. Markus Golden, Shane Ray, Matt Hoch and Donavan Bonner were also able to bring the Kentucky quarterback down in the backfield. In total, the Mizzou defense had 11 tackles behind the line of scrimmage.
The victory helped Mizzou maintain its lead in the SEC East heading into its second bye week and gave Coach Gary Pinkel his fourth nine-win season in 13 years with Mizzou.
Mizzou plays at Ole Miss on Saturday, November 23. Kick off is set for 6:45pm central and will air on ESPN.