How a war movie, rallying around QB Drew Pyne and a chaotic finish helped Mizzou beat Oklahoma

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Roughly 24 hours before it played 200 tumultuous and victorious seconds of a college football game, the Missouri football team watched a movie.

The viewing material for the Tigers’ Friday movie night, hand-picked by coach Eli Drinkwitz, was the 2018 war movie “12 Strong,” based on a dozen Green Berets’ combat and survival in Afghanistan.

By the time Mizzou congregated to watch the movie, it was evident that the Tigers would be taking the field against Oklahoma on Saturday without No. 12 — that is, starting quarterback Brady Cook. Drew Pyne, the backup quarterback who’d thrown three costly interceptions in Missouri’s last game, would be the starter.

And that’s why Drinkwitz picked the movie. He wanted to prove a point.

After the credits rolled, the fifth-year MU coach divided his team into position groups, a dozen in all. A few days earlier, Drinkwitz had projected confidence regarding the faith that both he and the Mizzou locker room had in Pyne. Externally, there were valid questions about what the offense could be with the Notre Dame and Arizona State transfer in the game. The movie was about to clear that up for everyone inside the program.

Drinkwitz turned to each position group in turn with a question.

“You got Drew’s back?” he asked.

All 12 answered affirmatively. They’d back their quarterback.

“We’re 12 strong,” Drinkwitz then told the assembled roster.

“Whole team went nuts,” Pyne said, retelling the story of Drinkwitz’s pregame motivational tactic. “That really — I said I was going to go out there with an army, and we did. I’m just so thankful that these guys have believed in me. After Alabama, in the locker room, every single guy came up to me, told me they love me and that I’ll bounce back, we’ll bounce back.”

Missouri did, beating former Big 12 foe Oklahoma 30-23 on Saturday. Pyne threw for three touchdowns, settling in after a slow first half to lead three critical scoring drives in the second.

That’s the narrative that glosses over what the final 200 or so seconds of the game entailed: 28 points, including two defensive touchdowns, plus two ties and two lead changes.

“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Drinkwitz said.

With three minutes and 20 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Missouri was nursing a 16-9 lead. That itself had been an adventurous acquisition.

The Tigers’ offense started slowly with Pyne at the wheel, punting on three of its first four drives and turning the ball over on downs on the other possession. Pyne had just 23 passing yards at the half, which was the third-most of any player in the game — Oklahoma’s punter had more after an effective fake.

Mizzou trailed 9-3 at the break with the game setting up to be a slugfest bordering on a rock fight.

“We all knew, we were exactly where we wanted to be,” Drinkwitz said. “We hadn’t turned the ball over. We had established the run game. We knew it was going to turn our way. Took a little bit, but we got there.”

“We really tried to establish a good run game,” Pyne added. “Halftime, we kind of just said we’re gonna go all out. I felt really good.”

That he felt capable of shouldering more of the offensive load was notable — and necessary for what Missouri would do in the second 30 minutes.

“When you go into a game, your quarterback has a lot to say in how you’re trying to attack a team based off what he likes, what he’s comfortable with,” Drinkwitz said. “Drew’s got a different feel and a different style. We knew we needed to establish the run to take some pressure off of him.”

A more conservative first half was the byproduct.

“We were setting the table to be able to throw the ball in the second half,” Drinkwitz said. “But we couldn’t go out there and make a mistake early or take a bunch of sacks or lose field position. You have to establish the run game, and that’s what we did. Those (short) yardages started bleeding to longer yardage, and then it opened up the pass game.”

Mizzou went three and out on its first possession of the second half. On its second drive, the offense started clicking. Twelve plays covered 59 yards before wideout Theo Wease Jr. took a screen pass 13 yards and into the end zone for a touchdown against his former team.

The Tigers scored another touchdown near the midpoint of the fourth quarter, leveraging a short field for a nine-play 30-yard scoring drive that ended with Pyne finding tight end Brett Norfleet in the back of the end zone for a touchdown. Kicker Blake Craig missed the extra point, establishing MU’s lead at 16-9.

As the clock ticked down to 3:20 remaining, Oklahoma was setting in motion a third-down trick play. Quarterback Jackson Arnold handed the ball off to running back Taylor Tatum, who ran wide and then passed it back to the signal-caller. Arnold sprinted 18 yards into the end zone to tie the game at 16-all.

But the hosts had plenty of time to respond, needing only to score in some capacity while, ideally, controlling the clock. Mizzou handed the ball off twice to get the drive going, then turned to running back Jamal Roberts on its third play.

He finished as MU’s leading rusher with 13 carries for 54 yards, but on that play, he coughed up the ball. OU safety Billy Bowman Jr. grabbed it at the Missouri 40-yard line and made it a house call.

Within 78 seconds of game time, the Tigers went from holding a touchdown lead to trailing by seven points after giving up a receiving touchdown to a quarterback and a scoop and score defensive touchdown.

“For us to score, have them drive the length of the field was a little bit surprising, as well as we were playing defensively,” Drinkwitz said. “And then for us to turn the ball over like that —”

But with two minutes to go and the Sooners leading 23-16, there was still plenty to come.

Pyne took the field for the ultimate quarterbacking test: the two-minute drill.

He completed a 28-yard slant to Wease on the first play, then threw two incompletions. The third, though, drew a defensive holding penalty, resetting the downs. On a shiny new first down, Pyne took a sack.

He and Wease couldn’t connect on second down. On third down, Pyne looked for wide receiver Luther Burden III down the field.

Burden was in a pocket of space along the left sideline, so Pyne heaved it his way.

“You throw that thing up, somehow he’s going to come down with it,” Pyne said. “Luther is incredible.”

Burden caught it, tightroping the sideline for a 33-yard gain to set up first and goal from the OU 10-yard line.

From there, on second down, Pyne made a read on the right side of Mizzou’s formation, where Wease was lined up.

“I saw it was man coverage” Pyne said. “We had (a) fade (route) on the outside. I threw it up and he made a play on the ball.”

The play, to be clear, was catching it for a game-tying touchdown. Wease’s defender was clogging the airspace in front of him and the gold out-of-bounds paint was immediately behind.

The sixth-year wideout has boasted that those throws, which might be broadly categorized as 50-50 balls, are actually 80-20 in his favor. He wanted to make a revision after Saturday’s catch.

“It might be 90-10 now,” Wease said, flashing a diamond “UNO” chain after the game, referencing his jersey number.

With the game tied at 23-all and 1:03 left to play, overtime threatened to dawn on the horizon.

Wease was on the sideline preparing for it.

“I was ready for overtime, or whatever we had to do,” he said.

Drinkwitz wasn’t there yet. He was talking with other Missouri coaches on their headsets, discussing when they should use the Tigers’ final timeout on Oklahoma’s offensive possession and how they could force a speedy punt.

“We weren’t thinking overtime,” Drinkwitz said. “We were thinking about ‘How do we win the game in that situation?’”

The answer revealed itself quickly.

On the Sooners’ third play of the drive, MU outside linebacker Triston Newson sacked Arnold. He wasn’t trying to force a turnover — just a negative play.

“I was actually trying to make the tackle,” Newson said. “I was trying to get him down. It’s good the ball came out.”

The ball did exactly that, leaving an Oklahoma player’s hands for the Sooners’ sixth fumble of the game. In came defensive end Zion Young.

The instructions going through his mind were simple.

“Grab it. Pick it up,” Young told himself. “It’s a sitting ball. Take it to their zone.”

He scooped and he scored, beating the Sooners’ pursuit to the goal line.

Young’s defensive touchdown gave Missouri 30 points. Oklahoma was stuck at 23.

The chaos was complete. Pyne and the Tigers had their bounce back.