Gary Pinkel, Missouri Tigers Struggle for Answers After Latest Collapse

In retrospect, I can think of endless ways in which I could have better spent my Saturday afternoon.

It was the perfect late spring, er, I mean early autumn, day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. Faurot Field was soaked in mid-afternoon sunshine. Tailgaters littered every crevice of the Missouri campus.

And the unseasonably beautiful conditions in Columbia had more than 65,000 at Memorial Stadium feeling it.

The setting for my first game since leaving MU as a graduate some seven years ago couldn't be beat.

The mood seemed so jovial and carefree. And when kickoff between Missouri and the hapless Baylor Bears commenced shortly after 1 p.m., an easy Tigers win seemed all but imminent.

Nearly four hours, infinite official reviews, and an early November sunburn later, I was sorry I hadn't chosen to pour bleach into my eyes instead.

After all, when compared to what I saw take place on the field, it would've achieved roughly the same goal, only it could be argued the lingering effects would be less painful.

Teams, good teams—heck, even mediocre teams—just don't lose to Baylor at home. The Bears have won just two Big 12 road games since 2005.

Even better, prior to Saturday, Baylor had racked up a mere 10 total conference victories over the past eight-plus seasons—and only 13 since the inception of the Big 12 in 1996.

And a team like Missouri—one that looked dominant a week prior in an attempt to jumpstart its season—certainly doesn't go down to the current edition of the perennial cellar-dwelling Bears.

Injured quarterback Robert Griffin III , without doubt the best player on the team, was a spectator on the sidelines. In each of its three previous conference games, all losses, the Bears had failed to score more than 10 points. Baylor was ranked at or near the bottom of the Big 12 in almost every major statistical category.

To boot, the Tigers had beaten Baylor the previous seven meetings by an average of 15 points.

When you think about it, this should have been a mismatch. And for a half, it surely was. But those stats and history were all thrown out the window during the final 30 minutes.

Plus, anyone who follows Missouri football is well aware of the program's penchant for falling apart at the seams in second halves of games.

The 2009 Tigers are certainly no exception. And at no other point this season was that clearer than in Saturday afternoon's inexplicable and demoralizing 40-32 loss to Baylor .

In fact, the only thing more preposterous than the Tigers' latest second-half collapse was the weather, which reached a sometimes uncomfortable 80 degrees some three weeks before Thanksgiving.

Two weeks ago, I fired off some unbridled anger in a rant following Missouri's lopsided loss to Texas. However, given the inferiority that had characterized Baylor's season through its first eight games, this game may register more so on my bitch-o-meter.

And for good reason.

Before I begin, I certainly don't want to discount the Tigers' offensive proficiency in the first half, which was impressive despite another sad performance from the running game.

Quarterback Blaine Gabbert looked as good as he has all season, completing 11 of his first 12 passes for an awesome first two quarters that produced 322 yards, including 84 alone on a touchdown toss to receiver Danario Alexander .

Alexander piled up 171 first-half yards en route to a career-high 214 yards on 13 catches.

Speaking of Alexander, the senior continues to make his case for Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year. Through nine games, Alexander is third in the conference in catches (71) and second in receiving yards (1,038), trailing only Jordan Shipley of Texas, and he is on pace to blow by Jeremy Maclin's single-season yardage record (1,260) set last season.

And then there was the duo of Jared Perry (7 rec., 145 yards) and Wes Kemp

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