51ºÚÁÏ

COLUMBIA, Mo. — By the standards of the late, great basketball coach John Wooden, Missouri football is in for the most authentic kind of test on Saturday.

“The truest test of a man’s character,� goes one of Wooden’s more famous quotes, “is what he does when no one is watching.�

It’s not that no one will watch the No. 25 Tigers (2-0) host the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns (1-1) of the Sun Belt Conference. The game sold out during the preseason, and Mizzou fans are feeling quite bullish about their team through two weeks of the season.

But with kickoff time moved up three hours to noon Saturday and the game being streamed on ESPN+/SEC Network+, the audience won’t be anything like it was for last weekend’s border war, when MU and archrival Kansas played the most-watched game on ESPN2 in three years.

The crowd, whether 57,000-strong or not, won’t be as rowdy. Fans will already be risking dehydration just by spending their early afternoon sweltering in temps expected to touch the upper 90s, and that’s before any booze enters the biological equation. Moving the game time up will spare the players a few degrees of turf temperature, but it’ll keep portions of the Faurot Field stands from becoming shaded as the game goes.

Compare this game to the Border War of last week or the Southeastern Conference opener against No. 11 South Carolina next week, and Week 3 against Louisiana could pack in all the hot blandness of a Midwestern attempt at gumbo.

So what’ll it be, Tigers, when there aren’t as many eyes on a game like this one?

Mizzou could get away with a snoozefest. The Ragin’ Cajuns want to run the ball. MU is certainly willing to do that, too. It wouldn’t be surprising at all if the first quarter ends and the game’s third possession is still going because the first two drives chewed up the clock.

It’s not like either team will want to bake in the mid-September heat any longer than they have to, anyway.

In some senses, this game has the markings of a trap game. As previously mentioned, it’s sandwiched between Missouri’s most important games of the season, when a locker room could easily be riding the high of a rivalry win or playing with one eye on the next team coming down the pike.

Louisiana, while struggling this year without its starting quarterback, has been one of the best Group of Six teams over the last handful of seasons. The Ragin’ Cajuns won 10 regular-season games in 2024 and made it to the Sun Belt title game. Their 34 wins between 2019 and 2021 got Billy Napier the Florida job.

And, if Mizzou coach Eli Drinkwitz’s glowing scouting report is to be believed, Louisiana’s running back tandem is a legit talent.

There are two primary factors — one on-field, one off-field — pushing back against the trap-game narrative.

First, Louisiana’s run-first style is conducive to limiting possessions but not staging comebacks. If or when the Tigers pull ahead, the Ragin’ Cajuns have not displayed an ability to complete passes consistently enough to rally. Crazier things have happened, of course, but their identity looks best when they’re leading or on level terms.

And running on the Mizzou defense does not look easy. Central Arkansas posted 154 team rushing yards. Kansas managed only 31.

Second, based on Drinkwitz’s public comments, this has not been a week of back-patting within the MU team facility.

“There’s a lot of stuff that was really disappointing when we watched the tape (from the KU game),� Drinkwitz said Tuesday, “and I think all of us felt it.�

He was particularly blunt in challenging the offensive line to improve even more than it did between Weeks 1 and 2, and in critiquing the scheme and miscommunications that led to zone coverage breakdowns within the secondary.

Those were just his public-facing talking points, too. The behind-the-scenes meetings and walkthroughs probably took on a little harsher tone.

If Mizzou players have spent the last several days with their coaches in their ears about getting up for their assignments in the trenches or in holding together the back-end of the defense, this could be a fiery squad that comes out of the tunnel for Saturday’s matinee.

The Missouri defense put together two shutouts in the early stages of the 2024 season. A late score from Central Arkansas ruined the bid for a clean sheet in the 2025 opener. Massachusetts’ Sept. 27 visit will be another opportunity for a shutout, but this matchup with Louisiana also feels like one.

The best way for Mizzou to make any sort of statement out of a game that won’t be as marquee as those on either side of it is to, well, make a statement. Stifle the Ragin’ Cajuns’ ground game. Keep a zero on the scoreboard. Win in the trenches in a way that reinforces the difference between the Sun Belt and the SEC. Pick apart the Louisiana defense with poise and aplomb. Make streaming — on TVs and in sweat cascading down foreheads — worthwhile for fans.

The Tigers can reinforce the character of this 2025 team with a sound, smooth win on Saturday.