Don’t tell Eli Drinkwitz that Missouri’s presence in the Texas A&M backfield was a “little lacking.”

“It was, obviously,” the Missouri football coach corrected, “a lot lacking.”

Mizzou got well and truly thrashed by Texas A&M on Saturday in College Station, where the Tigers took a 41-10 loss that was every point as bad as the scoreline suggests.

If it looked a lot like the Aggies were controlling the lines, the eye test did not defy you. Mizzou quarterback Brady Cook was on the run far too often. Texas A&M quarterback Conner Weigman, not so much.

This week, the Tribune is looking at the Tigers’ performances pressuring opposition quarterbacks and protecting its own. Starting with the defense, here is where Missouri is having problems and what the Tigers must do to fix them before they get back to SEC play:

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Is Missouri football blitzing enough?

Remember the Cotton Bowl? We bet you do.

Saturday’s performance at Texas A&M was a clear reminder of what Missouri has lost since it thrashed Ohio State in Arlington, Texas. The Tigers have lost five NFL Draft picks, 10 combined starters and key role players and, of course, a defensive coordinator who wasn’t shy to send some heat.

The missing pieces didn’t truly show before College Station. But after a day of getting the runaround, it’s perhaps time to revisit what the Tigers are replacing.

The numbers on the football analytics site PFF aren’t always a perfect representation of the on-field picture, but they are what we have to work with. And, at least in the case of Mizzou’s game against Texas A&M, they show that somewhere between first-year Missouri defensive coordinator Corey Batoon’s play calls and the Tigers’ execution of those calls, there were issues.

First, the numbers suggest Missouri wasn’t sending much pressure Weigman’s way.

The Aggies quarterback isn’t a statue in the pocket, meaning you do have to keep an eye on him running … but he’s no Jayden Daniels, either.

PFF charts each snap that each player is involved in as either defending the run, rushing the passer or in coverage. Here are some numbers that stood out from Saturday.

Free safety Joseph Charleston went after the passer once. Tre’Vez Johnson never rushed. Star safety Daylan Carnell got sent one time, which was his second such play of the season. Last season, Carnell had 38 pass rush attempts in 12 charted games, or more than three per game. Safety Marvin Burks Jr. didn’t rush the passer, and has not all season. For comparison, Burks had four pass rush plays charted last season without about half the number of snaps.

Now let’s move up a defensive level to the linebackers, where Missouri rotates four players.

Triston Newson played 37 snaps against A&M and rushed the passer twice. Corey Flagg played 29 snaps and rushed the passer once. Khalil Jacobs rushed four times on 25 plays. Chuck Hicks played 28 snaps and never rushed the passer.

For comparison, with only Hicks and Newson healthy in the Cotton Bowl, Mizzou’s linebackers rushed Ohio State’s combination of QBs 12 times.

All of that is to say that Missouri isn’t sending extra men very often.

The second part of this seeming trend is that perhaps Missouri doesn’t quite feel comfortable sacrificing players in the secondary or in the box to bring extra players in pass rush downs. PFF tabs Mizzou players as missing seven tackles, which seems like a kind assessment for the Tigers, and as forcing just two pass breakups on 20 total targets.

The Tigers, from the observable reps in Tuesday’s practice, appeared to be running with Nicholas DeLoach Jr. over Toriano Pride Jr. at one of the cornerback positions, after the pair split reps evenly at Kyle Field. The Aggies ran for 6.6 yards a carry Saturday as MU struggled to stay gap disciplined.

But the sparing attempts getting to Weigman didn’t translate to patience paying off. The quarterback felt pressure on only six of his 27 dropbacks and on just seven plays total. He was sacked once, by defensive end Zion Young, and hit once. That, clearly, didn't cut it.

“I feel like the timing of the blitzes, we just weren’t doing exactly what we were coached to do based on the calls that we were getting,” Flagg said. “And I think that affected (Weigman’s) timing, as far as him having a lot of time. Guys still being on double teams when a guy is supposed to be shooting the gap, and that guy is supposed to be off the double team.”

How can Missouri fix the problem?

It’s an intriguing trend one year removed from the blitz-happy defenses of ex-DC Blake Baker’s tenure. That was a hallmark of the team that gave itself the moniker “Death Row.” The Tigers’ 2023 team created 124 pressures over the course of the year, or 9.5 per game.

Missouri has created 23 pressures this season, or 4.6 per game.

Against A&M, that hurt.

But how do the Tigers fix it?

“I think it's a combination of getting better pass rush and creating better pass rush through schematics,” Drinkwitz said. “So, again, there's a lot of different things that we can do and challenge ourselves to do in order to be better, and that's what we'll do this week.”

Missouri’s linebackers and defensive backs, when looking at all snaps combined, rushed the passer at a 3.4% clip. Against Ohio State in December, that rate was 6.7%. The rate of pass rushes from defensive ends, without first-rounder Darius Robinson, appears to be down, too. Last year’s most oft-used pass rusher, Johnny Walker Jr., is rushing the passer approximately nine times fewer per game so far this season.

This is all to say that Mizzou gave Weigman time to throw. The QB used it, and he torched the Tigers. There’s a reasonable argument to be made that Mizzou prepared for the wrong quarterback. Holding a mobile QB — like backup Marcel Reed would have been — to the pocket had mostly worked for MU against Boston College and Vanderbilt.

It’s cause for concern that Mizzou was unable to adjust when the situation changed.

“We make no excuses about it,” Drinkwitz said. “Shouldn't have mattered who was playing the quarterback position. We should have been better, and we need to focus this week on stopping this quarterback and figuring out our scheme so that we can execute at a higher level.”

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Why Missouri football defense couldn't create pressure vs. Texas A&M