His name was Willard Duncan Vandiver.

 

He was born a century and a half ago -- coincidentally enough – near what we know today as Moorefield, West Virginia; the hometown of 2008 Fiesta Bowl standout Reed Williams. By 1857, Vandiver’s family had migrated west to settle on a Missouri farm. From there he grew into a successful career in politics. It was in that capacity in 1899, as a U.S. Senator representing Missouri, that he delivered a speech at a banquet in Philadelphia that his constituents, from St. Louis to Joplin, would exalt forever.

 

OK, they might not celebrate the whole speech – but just two words of it. The only hint I’ll offer is that one of those words isn’t cockleburs.

 

“I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me,” Vandiver declared. “I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.”

 

The expression has long since become so central to the identity of the “Show Me State” that it now adorns Missouri license plates, some of which Mountaineer fans will see scattered around Morgantown this weekend. 

 

 

It’s a refrain that might just as easily serve as the theme for this 2016 season opener itself. After all, this clash between Dana Holgorsen’s West Virginia Mountaineers and Barry Odom’s Missouri Tigers is replete with questions on both sides.

 

For example: Mizzou’s offense last fall was a dumpster fire, managing just 163 points. The last time Missouri scored less than that, gas was 40 cents a gallon. Can a new staff and an assortment of imported talent flip the script and help the Tigers pile up a few points?

 

 

Missouri finished 2015 with a paltry 15 touchdowns. According to my crack research team of one, the last time a Power 5 program’s offense scored fewer than that was all the way back in 2006. Just how bad did things get for Mizzou last year? It suffered through a three-game stretch in which it mustered a dozen total points and failed to convert 38-of-41 third-down attempts.

 

Ouch.

 

After watching the Tigers offense finish last in the Southeastern Conference in scoring, total yards, rushing, passing and third-down success, Odom jettisoned the staff and handed the keys to former Oklahoma OC Josh Heupel, fresh off a one-year stint at Utah State. Some Mizzou fans have anointed Heupel as a savior, expecting him to ignite a flame from last year’s dysfunctional heap of ashes. Can that be accomplished in a single offseason?

 

 

In sophomore signal caller Drew Lock, Heupel might have a solid cornerstone. Don’t be deceived by the ugly numbers (4 TDs, 8 interceptions, 49 percent) Lock posted as a true freshman. Study the Tigers offense and you’ll see he was surrounded by a glaringly incapable supporting cast. Missed blocks, dropped balls and blown assignments were customary.

 

This was all intensified by the fact that, ostensibly in an effort to protect their young QB from such a grueling baptism under fire, last year’s staff often handed Lock predictable game plans that coddled him to a dangerous degree. But Lock’s own lack of preparation didn’t help either, which is why Heupel has been critical of that element of his quarterback’s game as a freshman. 

 

All of these things contributed to Missouri stumbling to the lowest scoring output by a Power 5 Conference team (13.8/game) since 2009 and to the Tigers reaching the end zone on just 32 percent of their red-zone possessions – easily the lowest figure by a Power 5 team in the last five years. Can Heupel help Mizzou buck this trend and restore a bit of luster to a program that not long ago was producing record breakers (remember Chase Daniel?) and first-round draft picks (remember Blaine Gabbert?) at the quarterback spot?

 

 

Lock was highly regarded (No. 107 in ESPN’s Top 300) coming out of Missouri’s Lees Summit High School for a reason, having earned Kansas City Metro Player of the Year honors as a senior.

 

Enter Heupel, a former Heisman Trophy runner-up as a QB himself who has helped mold such Oklahoma trigger men as Sam Bradford and Landry Jones. Some of Heupel’s finest work, however, might have come last season at Utah State when the Aggies lost senior quarterback Chuckie Keeton in September. Heupel chiseled unproven sophomore Kent Myers into an efficient weapon (16 TD passes, 3 interceptions, 61 percent) and helped USU go bowling.

 

Now he hopes to bring out the best in Lock, a strong armed but rough-around-the-edges project still learning the nuances of the position.

 

“He’s eager for knowledge and, because of that, he’s gotten better since I’ve gotten here. He’s got a high ceiling,” Heupel has said of Lock.

 

“He’s a highly competitive kid with a good overall skill set and good overall athleticism, but that’s true of a lot of the guys in our meeting room.”

 

Ahh. No wonder there’s chatter out of Columbia about backup quarterback Marvin Zanders playing some kind of role for the Tigers.

 

“I’m pretty sure I’m going to see the field,” Zanders said last week. “If an eclipse comes or something, maybe I won’t, but those don’t happen for a while.”

 

Zanders might talk like Galileo, but he runs like a scalded dog, showcasing the kind of mobility that presents a whole different problem for defenses. How Heupel might utilize him this weekend is anyone’s guess. Remember the “Belldozer” package in Norman? Might we see Zanders complement Lock in much the same way that Heupel incorporated the Trevor Knight/Blake Bell combo at Oklahoma?

 

 

The Mizzou offense at large rolls out five new starters up front, an Alabama transfer (WR Chris Black, who converted a key third down in the fourth quarter against WVU in the 2014 opener in Atlanta), an electrifying true freshman playmaker who consistently turned heads in camp (WR Dimetrios Mason) and an Oklahoma transfer (Alex Ross, 6.4 career yards per carry) at running back. Mix in a retooled staff that includes influences from the nation’s No. 1 ranked offense (tight ends coach Joe Jon Finley, formerly of Baylor) and from the Sun Belt Conference’s top scoring attack (OL coach Glen Elarbee, formerly of Arkansas State), and you begin to appreciate the renewed sense of offensive optimism in Columbia. The overhauled Mizzou offense hopes to be not just more exciting but considerably more productive. The evidence suggests it might be both, but seeing is believing.

 

 

While the 2015 Tigers offense was earning insults, the defense was earning helmet stickers. Mizzou’s No. 5 national ranking in scoring defense merely scratches the surface. Just how nasty was Odom’s defense last year? You can sum it up with one staggering statistic: Missouri allowed a mere 22 points in the fourth quarter all season long. You read that correctly. All. Season. Long. Feel free to assume the Lotus position and let that really sink in for a minute.

 

The thing about great defenses is they tend to travel well, helping you deal with the adversity of hostile environments like Mountaineer Field at Milan Puskar Stadium. That’s exactly what we saw from Mizzou last fall as it held opponents to 4.3 yards per play away from Columbia. That was the best mark posted by any road defense not just among SEC programs, but in the entire nation. Can the Tigers overcome one of the stiffest road schedules in the country and produce similar results this year?

 

 

Missouri returns eight starters and 150 games worth of starting experience from that 2015 unit that was led by then-coordinator Barry Odom, a former Tigers linebacker who played against West Virginia in the 1998 Insight Bowl and who this offseason succeeded Gary Pinkel as the 32^nd head coach in Tigers history. The addition of new DC DeMontie Cross, an old Missouri teammate of Odom’s, could mean a few interesting wrinkles. After all, Cross is familiar with WVU after more recently gaining acclaim as the linebackers coach the past three seasons in Gary Patterson’s problematic 4-2-5 scheme at TCU. It was there two years ago that Cross mentored Frogs LB Paul Dawson to Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year honors. 

 

Sure Missouri lost the nation’s leading tackler to the NFL (LB Kentrell Brothers); plus the August dismissals of talented defensive linemen Walter Brady and Harold Brantley have forced the Tigers to reshuffle the deck a bit; but never pity a defense that welcomes back five of its top six tacklers. That’s especially true when one of those tacklers is a dynamic edge rusher (Charles Harris) projected to go in the first round of the next NFL Draft.

 

Throw in the tape of the Florida Gators’ trip to Faurot Field last season and you’ll see Charles Harris’ explosiveness on full display – particularly in a two-play sequence midway through the second quarter. On first and 10 from the Missouri 40, Harris bursts upfield and sets the edge, quickly sniffing out a jet sweep for a nifty takedown in the open field that results in a loss of seven yards. On the next snap, Harris explodes toward the outside shoulder of left tackle David Sharpe. When Sharpe takes the bait and commits upfield with a turn of his hips, Harris unleashes an inside spin move that puts him all over quarterback Will Grier in the blink of an eye. A perfect strategy complemented by a wildly athletic move, culminating in a five-yard sack.

 

On film, it looks almost unfair. Like all great threats off the edge, Harris is equal parts technician and tempest. That’s bad news. To the offensive tackles tasked with blocking one – and to the quarterbacks hoping to survive one – the only thing more menacing than an explosive pass rusher is an explosive pass rusher with a plan.    

 

All of the above suggests Missouri has the makings of another premier unit in the SEC this season. But, again, not a single whistle has been blown yet.

 

 

Center Tyler Orlosky, left tackle Yodny Cajuste and the rest of the Mountaineer offensive line knocking heads against an explosive Missouri front seven should be worth the price of admission. Make no mistake about it, what you see in the trenches when West Virginia has the football on Saturday will be a cage match. This could be the ‘game within the game’ that dictates how everything else unfolds.

 

Can Skyler Howard hit his mark against a Mizzou unit that finished No. 5 nationally against the pass? Will Shelton Gibson, Ka’Raun White and the rest of WVU’s corps of receivers do what others could not and take the top off a Tigers’ secondary that yielded just one completion of 40-plus yards all year – the fewest in the country? Can Rushel Shell III, Kennedy McKoy and camp standout Justin Crawford find any creases? None of that will play out without WVU’s big boys up front taking care of business against a disruptive Missouri defense that figures to once again be among the best in the country at clogging up lanes and finding its way into the backfield (only Clemson averaged more tackles-for-loss last year than the 8.8 per game Mizzou posted).

  

With an abundance of veterans and a pair of high-quality coaches (Ron Crook and Joe Wickline) squeezing every ounce of potential out of this talented group, many pundits believe the WVU offensive line could emerge as one of the best the program has produced in years. 

 

 

The West Virginia defense, meanwhile, faces a much different challenge. The Mountaineers lost eight defensive starters who landed in NFL camps, including five of their top six tacklers. Shortly after the start of fall camp a month ago, defensive coordinator Tony Gibson lost his top returning tackler, free safety Dravon Askew-Henry, as well as linebacker Brendan Ferns -- West Virginia’s most heralded defensive recruit -- to season ending injuries. Then of course you have to factor in linebacker Xavier Preston’s one-game suspension.

 

Ugh.

 

If you’re looking for a silver lining, you might find it in this unit’s history of overcoming adversity. Since taking over in 2014, the calling card of Tony Gibson’s defenses has been resilience. Remember when the Mountaineers lost both starting cornerbacks yet still found a way to derail No. 4 ranked Baylor two years ago? Then, after losing superstar safety Karl Joseph a month into last season, Gibson’s defense circled the wagons to allow the fewest touchdowns in the Big 12 while forcing the most turnovers by a WVU unit (31) since 2007. 

 

Gibson’s defenses have always been at their best with their backs to the wall. So here we go again.

 

The exceptional camp Jeremy Tyler enjoyed after stepping in for the injured Askew-Henry is a promising sign, but will that be enough to help Gibby pull yet another magic rabbit from his hat of tricks?

 

 

I’ll see you at the 50.