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Another Civil War Over

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Ho-Hum. Another GASL blogger against blogger showdown in St. Louis has ended with the inevitable drubbing:

Reloading or rebuilding? That seemed a reasonable question for a Mizzou football program with numerous apparent X-factors entering its 2009 opener against Illinois on Saturday at the Edward Jones Dome.

But by the time the Tigers had shredded Illinois 37-9, the tone of the questions already was changing radically:

Might MU be as good, or better, than it has been the last few years?

For all else that went so well as the Tigers beat Illinois for the fifth straight time, nothing was more promising and could have inspired more faith than the play of sophomore quarterback Blaine Gabbert from Parkway West.

Actually...truth be told, I wasn't nearly so confident going into the game. I told my wife, in fact, that I expected Mizzou to get their asses handed to them. Oh, I knew the Illini had some defensive difficulties, but I expected the Mizzou offense to be mistake prone.

Turns out most of the mistakes made on the day were committed by Illini safeties who forgot how to A) position themselves, B) support their corners, C) tackle, or D) cover receivers. Other then that they were fine.

Mostly, I figured the Illinois offense would dominate, but they were off their game (couple guys getting banged up didn't help) and the Tiger D were good. I thought the defense would improve this season...but not that much.

This makes five years in a row we have bested the team from Champaign.

Do I hear six next year?
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