COLUMBIA, Mo.— Brady Cook passed for a touchdown and ran for another TD, and pre-season AP All-American Luther Burden III caught six passes for 117 yards helping No. 6 Missouri top No. 24 Boston College 27-21 on Saturday.
Nate Noel rushed for 121 yards for the Tigers (3-0), who trailed 14-3 early in the second quarter. Blake Craig kicked four field goals.
Cook was 21 for 30 for 264 yards. He found Burden for a 19-yard touchdown with 3:04 left in the first half, and Noel tied it at 14 when he carried in the 2-point conversion.
Cook's 6-yard TD run lifted Missouri to a 24-14 lead in the third quarter, and Craig made a 31-yarder with 5:58 left in the fourth.
Thomas Castellanos passed for 249 yards and three touchdowns for Boston College (2-1), but he also tossed two interceptions. The Eagles finished with just 49 yards rushing on 26 carries.
Castellanos and Boston College got off to a fast start, putting together a 14-play, 75-yard drive on the opening possession of the game. Castellanos' 12-yard touchdown pass to Jerand Bradley made it 7-0 with 7:31 left in the first quarter.
After Craig kicked a 38-yarder for Missouri, the Eagles scored again on their third drive — this time on a broken play. Castellanos dropped the snap and recovered his own fumble, and then passed to a wide-open Reed Harris for a 67-yard strike with 9:44 left in the first half.
But the Tigers rallied in the last part of the second quarter. Craig made a 56-yarder on the final play of the first half to give his team a 17-14 edge at the break.
After overpowering Murray State and Buffalo in the first two weeks of the season and becoming the only defense to enter week three without having given up any points, Missouri found itself on the defensive against the Eagles in a game that Head Coach Eli Drinkwitz and players called “a fistfight”.
“Was not pretty, wasn’t our best performance top to bottom but really responded. We hadn’t been challenged all year,” said Drinkwitz, who was concerned about the adjustments with new players and coaches on staff. “I think you saw a team that’s committed to each other, a team that responds, a team going to rally and fight.”
Drinkwitz said there was plenty on tape to fix ahead of the team’s Southeastern Conference opener next week at home against Vanderbilt, with blown coverages in the secondary and unsportsmanlike conduct and personal foul penalties on Burden.
“I just gotta, you know, cut the nonsense out,” Burden said. “I don’t want to put my team in that position anymore.”
The matchup Saturday at Memorial Stadium was the only one across FBS college football pitting two ranked teams. For a team that leaned into a “something to prove” mantra last season and continues to in 2024, the decisions by the network television crews to put shows like “College Gameday” in Columbia, SC instead of Columbia, Mo struck a nerve.
“To me, it’s disrespect to not have us on the big stage with the big tv cameras. I took that personal and I’m pretty sure everyone in that locker room took it personal. We ain’t going nowhere so, we’re here to stay,” Burden said.
Welcome back
Missouri welcomed back tight end Brett Norfleet Saturday after he missed the game against Buffalo with a shoulder injury. He caught three passes for 10 yards. Drinkwitz said there were a few more designed plays for him that didn’t get called, and that the staff was “a little worried” about not doing too much with him in the running game to protect his shoulder.
AP writer Matt Derrick reported from Columbia