The spirit of Brandon Burlsworth has pervaded Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium in at least two of the last three games played there.
The greatest walk-on in Arkansas football history represented exactly what the Razorbacks have always needed to contend for titles with the blue-bloods – a tenacious, fighting spirit that can ultimately make a mockery of high school recruiting rankings.
Such intelligent ratcheting up of intensity powered Arkansas’ upset of then No. 4 Tennessee on Saturday, when the Hogs played with the kind of disciplined ferocity forming the cornerstone of every good team at this level. It was, of course, the first time Arkansas had notched a win over a Top 5 opponent at home since 1999, when a team led by Clint Stoerner and Anthony Lucas redeemed itself for losing to the No. 1 Vols a year before, when Burlsworth had been a senior.
There was also plenty of the late Brandon Burlsworth’s spirit on the field on Nov. 24, 2023, only this time it wasn’t wearing Razorback red.
Missouri Football Showed Burlsworth Spirit
That night, Missouri running back Cody Schrader racked up 217 rushing yards on the way to the Tigers’ 48-14 win. The performance cemented the Burlsworth Trophy for the former Division II Missouri native who had also started out as a walk-on and improved each year until his last in 2023. In his acceptance speech of the award for nation’s best former walk-on, Schrader credited “relentless consistency” as a key source of his success: “I think Brandon was the epitome of that.”
Well, Schrader’s gone from Missouri football coach Eli Drinkwitz’s roster now.
So too, it turns out, is the consistency that Drinkwitz’s team was supposed to have this season.
The foundation of what Drinkwitz’s program did so well, which was most showcased in that rout at Arkansas, now appears severely cracked after Missouri got blown to smithereens in College Station last weekend.
That 41-10 loss to Texas A&M sent Missouri tumbling from No. 9 to No. 21 in the AP poll, leaving many Missouri football fans deeply troubled. It wasn’t just the way Texas A&M murderballed the Tigers into oblivion in the ground game, or the way Missouri repeatedly shot itself in the foot with one penalty after another. More than any of those issues, the biggest concern is that too many Tigers have lost sight of the team-first mentality that brought so much success last season.
“They’re about ‘me,’” college football reporter Brandon Marcello said this week on “Out of Bounds,” an Arkansas sports radio show. “That’s affected their play. We see the receivers pouting on the sidelines. I don’t like seeing that; that’s going to hurt them.”
Is Luther Burden III KJ’ing It Up?
One of the main crybaby culprits here is star receiver Luther Burden III, who led Missouri in receiving in last year’s Arkansas game and is a projected All-American. Many Missouri football fans called him out for disengaged, petulant body language on the sideline during the Texas A&M loss that evoked a lot of the same criticism quarterback KJ Jefferson received last year from Arkansas fans.
“When things are going badly, that’s when we need actual leadership,” said “Locked on Mizzou’s” John Miller. “So I’m sorry, Luther Burden, you’re now a junior… You should know better than this. If you’re going to point your finger and wag your finger like the late great Dikembe Mutombo at the media and say, ‘Hey, where’s our attention?’ Well, when stuff starts going bad, I don’t want to see you throw your towel over your head as a signal to let everybody know ‘Hey, it’s not my fault.’”
Former Missouri star linebacker Sean Weatherspoon sees the same problem from Missouri that haunted Arkansas through so much of last season. “On-field leadership is something that I do not see on Missouri’s team right now,” Weatherspoon said. “ I see great players, I see ballers, but I’m not seeing the on-field leadership.”
Obviously, in the same way that Jefferson’s lack of leadership in 2023 fed into the toxic culture of Arkansas’ locker room, it’s a concern for Missouri that its best player is acting like a spoiled brat. How will this kind of behavior affect younger Tigers like Courtney Crutchfield, the top recruit from the state of Arkansas in the class of 2024?
Failing to replicate the same kind of culture from last season so far has earned Drinkwitz a bit of scorn throughout the college football world despite Mizzou having only one loss. USA Today’s Blake Toppmeyer referred to Missouri as a “fraud” contender for the College Football Playoffs and then pointed out the Aggies rout should relieve Tiger fans who thought Florida would want to hire Drinkwitz away later this year to replace Billy Napier.
“Drink up, Missouri,” Toppmeyer wrote. “He’s all yours.”
“They have played into the perception of Missouri being a fraudulent top-10 team,” Paul Finebaum added. “They’re a good team, they’re just a fraudulent top-10 team. I don’t see their road back.”
It’s easy for Arkansas football fans to count on 10 fingers and 10 toes all the times that Arkansas native Eli Drinkwitz has irked them, including 78% of his facial gestures in this video montage:
It’s easy to think “Well, Malzahn’s boy is starting to finally get his comeuppance.”
But don’t pile on too much. It may actually be in Arkansas’ best interest for Drinkwitz to recapture some of that Burlsworth/Schrader magic and take care of business in the season’s second half against tougher opponents like Alabama and Oklahoma.
The Hogs travel to Columbia, Mo., for their regular-season finale in a rivalry game that no longer needs quotation marks around that descriptor. If the resurgent Arkansas football program heads into the showdown with a 9-2 record, it very well may be contending for a spot in the expanded College Football Playoffs.
Depending on how an array of factors play out, beating a ranked Mizzou team at that point – as opposed to a .500 Tigers squad – could be the extra push Arkansas needs to secure a spot in the same field for which so many thought Drinkwitz was destined.
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