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Greg McElroy breaks down Cotton Bowl frustrations facing Ryan Day
By Paul Harvey
Published:
Greg McElroy believes this year’s Cotton Bowl will be a major showdown in the New Year’s Six Bowls. In fact, he ranked the impending showdown between Missouri and Ohio State as one of the top bowl games of the postseason outside of the CFP.
According to McElroy, he believes there will be a lot at stake particularly for the Tigers in the game. The game against Ohio State will be the program’s best bowl opponent since 1970.
“The Buckeyes are Missouri’s highest-ranked bowl opponent since 1970. Think about that. 53 years since they’ve had an opponent of this significance, so this is a massive opportunity for Eli Drinkwitz and the Missouri Tigers,” said McElroy. “And you look at their roster, it’d be hard to envision a scenario where they’re not at or near 100%. They are looking for their first top-10 finish in 10 years, so it’s really important that Missouri can go out there and play really well.”
McElroy also said the Tigers proved they can “go the distance” against elite teams as evidenced by a hard-fought game against Georgia. He described the Cotton Bowl as “a quest” for Mizzou with the matchup against Ohio State.
As for the head coach of the Buckeyes, McElroy believes Ryan Day is facing some frustration in bowl prep with some uncertain factors facing Ohio State:
“Ryan Day has to be a little frustrated that Kyle McCord is in the transfer portal. Marvin Harrison Jr., not 100% sure that he’s going to be playing in the bowl game, but it looks like it’s going to be Devin Brown at quarterback,” McElroy explained. “That is nice to know you at least have a guy that went the distance with McCord in the QB competition to fill in and is likely to be the guy in this particular spot.”
As for the elite skill players of the Buckeyes, McElroy operates with the current belief those players will see the field, but that could always change. Either way, the bowl game gives an interesting chance to see how Ohio State operates with a new QB after playing the regular season with McCord under center.
“Marvin Harrison, Emeka Egbuka, Cade Stover, will they all play? I would anticipate — I’m going to operate at least at the moment — that those guys will go,” clarified McElroy. “Ohio State has been one of the best as far as attracting WR talent… It will be interesting to see how they attack this Missouri group.”
Paul is a lifelong fan and student of all things college football. He has been covering college football since 2017 and the B1G since 2018.