Paul Finebaum discusses honest expectations for Missouri in 2024

After their best season in almost a decade, Missouri is going to be one of the many programs expecting to be a playoff hopeful out of the SEC. Paul Finebaum just isn’t as sold on that as the Tigers move on from 2023 into 2024.

Finebaum assessed Mizzou during ‘McElroy and Cubelic In The Morning’ on Monday. To him, he isn’t as demanding that they make the College Football Playoff as he is for other teams.

“I’m not quite as insistent,” said Finebaum.

Much of that opinion is because of how Finebaum feels that they performed last season at Missouri. While they went 11-2, he felt like that was them essentially hitting their absolute ceiling. That’s why he isn’t sure that they’ll be able to replicate that completely moving into this next year.

“I felt like they really overperformed last year,” said Finebaum. “You could argue that Missouri let a game get away against LSU. Beyond that, I thought they came up really throwing aces a lot of times. I mean they won that Kansas State game. They won a couple others, the Florida game. They really survived.”

Again, 11-2 was by far their best record in four years under Eli Drinkwitz. It was also their best finish since going 12-2 in 2013 and 11-3 in 2014. It included four ranked wins, including one over Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl, and just a pair of losses where they let one go versus LSU and then a justifiable one in Athens against Georgia. That all got them ranked highly by the end of the season, including at No. 9 in the final playoff ranking.

Still, repeating that again is going to be a task for Missouri. It also doesn’t help them that they’re amongst several in their league who are hoping to do the same thing as them as far a berth in the dozen-team field.

With that, Finebaum thinks highly of the Tigers but isn’t as optimistic on them going in as others may be.

“I think they are in playoff contention. I’m just not as confident,” Finebaum said.

“I’m also not one of these guys – and you’ve probably had them on. We had some guy the other day that was talking five, six SEC teams. I mean, if you look at it objectively, that’s very difficult to pull off,” said Finebaum. “I mean we can all be optimistic but this is not the College World Series here that we’re talking about where you earn your way in.”