COLUMBIA, MO. • It took five weeks and some unusually poor tackling for Missouri’s defense to call a special meeting during the team’s week off.
Still roughed up from Louisiana State’s 42-7 stampede on Oct. 1, first-year defensive coordinator DeMontie Cross encouraged players to speak up and voice concerns about the unit’s struggles.
They didn’t hold back.
“Sometimes everyone’s just frustrated but nobody’s talking about how to make it better,” MU middle linebacker Michael Scherer said. “And nothing ever gets better.”
That was the point of last week’s meeting.
For weeks, players and coaches have talked about the defense’s struggles to absorb the new defensive scheme Cross installed, a gap-control system that requires more pre-snap reads from all levels of the defense, particularly for the defensive linemen.