As an unseasonable heat wave raised the temperature around the country, Mizzou football had the heat turned up on their season. The 2024 season that was promised is no more.

Visions of dancing joyously into the 12-playoff at 10-2 or 11-1 have gone up in flames. The warning signs from weeks 3 and 4 are now full-blown emergencies, and the Tigers will have to rally to meet their goals.

It was a complete and total system failure. The preparation was poor, despite a bye week, as shown by Texas A&M's ruthless execution on offense. The team's motivation and mindset were lacking, evidenced by a few humiliating moments. Execution was completely missing; not one unit of the team had a good day (except for punting).

Did the Tigers expect to walk into College Station and be handed a win instead of earning it?

All off-season we have talked about this team making the inaugural 12-team playoff field. Not only is the team now squarely behind the 8-ball for achieving that goal, they have not played to a level of performance that deserves to make it. As Sam wrote in his Sunday pourover, this season can no longer be judged through the lens of 2023. Take it only as a five-point data set and ignore your priors.

Eli Drinkwitz said something potentially illuminating in his press conference, a line that will be like the proverbial unfilled glass of water: is it half-full or half-empty? He said "our season starts now."

What do you make of that? Are you annoyed by the admission that the team treated a few imminently losable games as warmups? Or do you believe THIS is the week the team locks in and belatedly shakes off the rust?

If it is the latter, Drinkwitz's track record at Mizzou should give you reason to believe. Both the 2021 and 2022 teams easily could have folded -- plenty of ball clubs in similarly tough situations have. We have seen every year that his teams are tough, have excellent chemistry, and play to the final whistle.

That is what makes Saturday's result so concerning. For the first time I can remember, other than a dud late in the COVID season, a Drinkwitz team had never completely no-showed like this. Some teams laid an early egg and rallied late - 2022 at Auburn, 2023 at Kentucky. Some got blown off the ball and were severely outclassed - mostly 2021 - but the effort and body language were never as poor as this week.

Those teams had Javon Foster, Darius Robinson, Kris Abrams-Draine and Ennis Rakestraw. Some of them had Cody Schrader. The best college teams are player-led. Missouri had excellent player leadership for the first few Drinkwitz years.

I am holding onto hope that they still do. Brady Cook, Theo Wease, Chuck Hicks, and Kristian Williams are team captains and all have received praise for their leadership. I hope there are some other veterans too, like a Cooper, Noel, Bryant, McClellan, Flagg or Carnell who also are ready to be a supporting voice.

There are a lot of things that need to happen for this team to have a successful season, a realistic goal that is still on the table, even if their biggest dreams now seem impossible. Many of them are tangible, football related challenges. But for the intangibles, it's time now for Drinkwitz and his veteran leaders to exhibit again the ability to rally a wounded team.