Quote:
Originally Posted by Saul Good
Mizzou will never be as bad as those teams, so it's kind of a pointless argument.
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http://www.rockmnation.com/2010/5/10...-football-1920
According to RockMNation the worst Missouri team in history was the 1934 Tigers.
Best Win: That would have to be the 0-0 tie with Colorado
Worst Loss: How about 40-13 against Wash. U.? Does that do it for you? 20-0 against Kansas? 7-0 to SLU?
Gwinn Henry had led Mizzou to quite a few strong seasons in the 1920s, but the Tigers went just 4-13-2 in his final two years on the sidelines. He was dismissed after the 1931 season, and the boosters overruled athletic director Chester Brewer's preferences on who his replacement would be. They preferred the man Mizzou would end up hiring: Frank Carideo, Notre Dame's star quarterback from the 1929-30 seasons.
Doing the math, of course, you find that Carideo was just 24 when the 1932 season started, and he quickly proved that he was not ready for a major head coaching job. He couldn't work with talent that wasn't at the caliber of Notre Dame's, and his three seasons in Columbia were three of the worst in the history of the program. 1932 was bad (we'll get to that one soon enough), 1933 was terrible, and 1934 was simply the worst season in the history of the program.
The 1934 Tigers scored a staggering 25 points all season long, 13 of which came in potentially the most embarrassing loss of the season, to Wash. U. They were outscored 106-6 by their Big 6 rivals. 106-6! Clearly offenses weren't high-scoring in the mid-1930s, so giving up 106 was actually more egregious than scoring just six.
Of the 126 teams that constituted what would have been considered "Division I" in 1934, Mizzou ranked 100th in offense, 118th in defense. We talk about how bad a program Kansas State was when Bill Snyder took over ... well, when Don Faurot took over in 1935, Mizzou was as bad or worse.
The lesson, as always: never listen to boosters.
(The secondary lesson: football never changes. The spread is basically the Split-T with more receivers, and boosters were screwing things up 75+ years ago.)