Joel Klatt: Missouri has the easiest path to the College Football Playoff in the SEC

Missouri has been in the playoff contention in each of the past two seasons with consecutive records with double-digit wins. Now, with what they have in front of them this fall, the Tigers have an opportunity to make their debut appearance in the College Football Playoff.

On his show on Monday, Joel Klatt named ten programs who are most likely to make their first-ever appearances in the CFP, including Mizzou at No. 6 as one of four teams from the SEC to be in the Top-10. That started with a recap of what they’ve done in 2023, 2024, and what they’ve done this offseason to earn this nod going into 2025.

“They have questions on offense. They’ve got to replace Brady Cook, they’ve got to replace Luther Burden. But they did add a Top-10 portal class, so I like what they did there. The expected starter, Beau Pribula after transferring from Penn State? I liked what he was at Penn State,” said Klatt. “Eli Drinkwitz has done an excellent job with that program. They’ve recruited well, they play well and they’ve taken advantage of a schedule that doesn’t look like, let’s say, Florida or Oklahoma in the SEC. They brought in a transfer at running back, Ahmad Hardy from Louisiana-Monroe…Defense should be good. I feel like they’re always raising the talent on the defensive side.”

Missouri, after going 17-19 (.472) from 2020 through 2022, is 21-5 (.808) through the past two seasons at 11-2 in ’23 and 10-3 in ’24. That’s had them high in the playoff rankings in both campaigns, including as high as No. 9 in the final year of the four-team field in ’23, but with appearances in neither, despite those records, for the SEC Championship or CFP.

The basis of Missouri being on this list, though, as it was also last season, is the ease of their schedule as compared to others in the Southeastern Conference. The slate, which has just a flip of last season’s conference matchups at home and away, is seen as a simple one considering who they’ll face and who they’ll avoid in league play, which could lead to another record that’d be needed to be considered for an at-large seed in the playoff.

“They hit the SEC schedule lottery. If Florida loses that lottery, and Oklahoma by the way, then Missouri wins it. This is the easiest path to the playoff in the SEC. Again, not a knock. You start saying that and people get, you know, all bent out of shape,” said Klatt. “They do play Kansas, which is fun because that’s one of my favorite rivalries…Six straight home games to start the season. Six straight! South Carolina and Alabama, the two hardest SEC games in that stretch, both at home…They face five of the bottom-six in the SEC standings from last year. So, again, lottery gold. The only team in the SEC not to have an opponent on the schedule that made last season’s CFP. So, I want to give you this. This is the SEC teams that Missouri avoids this year on the schedule. These are all the teams they do not have to play – Texas, Georgia, LSU, Ole Miss, Florida, and Tennessee. Hello?!”

“If you’re telling me there’s a program that has constantly improved itself under Eli Drinkwitz, that I feel like has a quarterback in the transfer portal that can do something to replace a three-year starter in Cook, defense should be good,” Klatt said. “Then you look at that schedule from a league that gets the benefit of the doubt because you know that all the people over there are going to be arguing for anybody from that league because that’s all they do? So, boom, here we go. Now you’ve got a schedule that works out.”

Mizzou isn’t necessarily projected as a playoff-caliber team this fall out of the SEC. However, if they post a playoff-level record regardless against their schedule, it won’t matter to anyone in CoMo as they could be making their debut in the field.

“Missouri may not be one of the four best teams in the SEC but they might have one of the four best records,” said Klatt. “It’s a team that could go 10-2. They might need 10-2…but it’s certainly doable with the way that that program has manifested itself over the last few years.”