College football is a week-to-week sport. The team we see in week one is often vastly different than the team we watch in the bowl game. But that doesn’t mean the first game of the season is meaningless. In fact, it’s been quite the opposite in recent years for Missouri. The Tigers’ first game has often been a harbinger of what’s to come since the end of the Gary Pinkel era.
What does that mean for the season-opener against Louisiana Tech? Let’s allow history to be our guide, shall we?
2016: Mizzou loses 26-11 at West Virginia
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The first game in nearly two decades without Gary Pinkel patrolling the Tigers’ sidelines did not go particularly well for the Tigers.