Nate Noel already knew.

Saturday’s game just proved it for the Missouri football running back.

“We already knew (that) about each other, like, just going through the summer, through the fall with these guys, through the spring, I just saw the different dog in everybody,” Noel said. “Like, we’ve got that dog as a team. So it was just nice to see, like — nobody even flinched.”

No. 6/8-ranked Mizzou wasn’t pretty for most of Saturday’s 27-21 win over No. 24/NR Boston College. The Tigers started slow, mixed in bouts of careless errors and had to dig deep to walk off Faurot Field with a win.

Like it or not Mizzou (3-0) faced adversity against the Eagles (2-1). Mizzou was up against it early, periodically careless and was forced to sweat it out all the way until the game’s waning moments.

Here’s what you should like: The Tigers faced adversity, and they overcame it.

“Today was not pretty. Wasn't our best performance top to bottom,” Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “But (we) really responded. You know, we hadn't been challenged all year, and I was concerned with so many new faces about what that response would be. And today, I think you saw a team that's committed to each other, a team that responds, a team that's never out of the fight.”

When Mizzou returns to Faurot Field next Saturday to host Vanderbilt and open its SEC schedule, it has a lot to clean up.

Drinkwitz didn’t shy away from an inch of the errors, like the pair of blown coverages that led to BC touchdowns that he compared to “daggum Little League football team.”

Like the “selfish football” that partly resulted in penalty after penalty and, eventually, second-and-59 to reach the line to gain.

Like the “inexcusable” first-quarter, fourth-down touchdown conversion that resulted in the first points scored against MU all season.

“There's a lot of stuff to take off the tape,” the head coach said.

But here’s the deal. The Tigers responded to each and every one of those — and more.

Mizzou had looked somewhat lifeless down 11 points with five minutes remaining in the second quarter.

By the time the half was over, the team — over all three phases — turned that deficit into a 3-point lead.

MU placekicker Blake Craig was a perfect 4-for-4 on field goals, including a career-long 56-yard attempt — that may have been good from 70 — that sent MU into the locker room with the lead.

After a shaky start defending the athletic, dynamic Castellanos, Mizzou started to hit on the game plan, which was to negate BC on the run and contain Castellanos to the pocket. When that happened and the often error-prone gunslinger was pressed to chuck one long, Tre’Vez Johnson took advantage of a throw into double coverage with the first pick of his Mizzou career.

Luther Burden III, three plays and some video-game-like moves later, was in the end zone. Noel punched in a 2-point conversion.

What does that tell you?

“Biggest thing we showed? I’d say (that the) fight’s never over. We went down, what, 14-3? And you know that can get ugly real fast,” Burden said. “So, for us to turn it around — defense gets a stop and for us to go score right after that — that's good for heading into the rest of the season.”

There were more mistakes after that. Burden, even, could easily have found himself ejected if a second third-quarter unsportsmanlike conduct penalty had been awarded instead of a personal foul. He took that head on, saying he needed to “cut the nonsense out.”

The defense, after holding Castellanos and Co. to 13 second-half yards late into the fourth quarter, gave up a careless touchdown that made the waning moments nervier than they needed to be.

It was rarely comfortable. It was almost never picture-perfect.

But Missouri is 3-0, and it put up a fight to stay unscathed.

“We already knew what we had,” Noel said, “but to do it against another team? To go up against another team, back against the wall, and nobody flinches? That just shows, like, we’re really bought in.”

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: How Missouri football overcame mistakes to defeat Boston College