Last week I did a deeper dive on Missouri’s offense through four games. You can find it here.

This week we do the same for the defense. Here we go!

Almost all of this is great. Part of that might be my own bias, as I thought this defense would be so much worse due to the complete overhaul of its two-deep, but Corey Batoon has done tremendous work in getting this unit to the level that it currently sits: Top 30 in most impactful areas.

The thing that does suck, though: points per scoring opportunity. 4.88 points allowed which ranks 112th. This is similar, however, to this point last year where the ‘25 defense was giving up 5.08 points per scoring opportunity (and that ranked 118th in the country).

It might just be a Batoon bugaboo: allowing points but mostly keeping offenses out of scoring opportunities. It’s worth monitoring, at least.

Much like my offense piece, these numbers would have looked A LOT better if the Ole Miss game hadn’t happened right before, but oh well. They’re still in good shape against the run, holding teams to a solid Yards Per Rush and stuffing 22% of all runs. The yards before contact ranks 2nd and the yards after contact ranks 57th. Might be a tell-tale to Mizzou’s tackling woes over the past two-ish weeks.

Honestly I thought this would be so much worse but there really isn’t a metric for “opposing quarterback can’t throw the ball”. Most of these stats are solid but the 70th ranking in Yards Per Successful Dropback tells the story of what happens when a quarterback does actually complete a pass. It’s not great!

Also, I thought the pass rush was going to be a liability this year, so ranking 54th ain’t too shabby! It does need to improve, though, as Mizzou faces more accurate quarterbacks.

Top 20 in 1st-downs, and 2nd-and-manageables is great. Having those rankings drop when you hit passing downs - where the defense should have an advantage - is not great, but again, highlights the secondary’s issues.

At roughly this time last year Mizzou’s defense was 2nd in the nation in overall 3rd-Down Success Rate (21.0%). Now, they are 54th (35.8%). Much like the rest of the defense/team, its just another thing that has gotten worse from ‘25 to ‘26 but has time to improve.

Heading into this season I thought the entire Missouri football team - and specifically the defense - would be worse than the previous edition, simply because losing so many players and replacing them with transfers typically leads to regression. While I (so far) have been correct in the regression aspect, it’s not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

So how do you view it? Does it get better as this team gels? Or does it get worse as the SEC 9-game schedule slogs on?