ATHENS, Ga. - The first two games of a college football season do not define a team, but they sure can reveal drastic differences from the year before.
Missouri is in its inaugural year under head coach Barry Odom, and the Tigers already look vastly improved offensively with new coordinator Josh Heupel and sophomore quarterback Drew Lock. The Tigers (1-1) lead the Southeastern Conference in passing offense with 379.5 yards per game entering Saturday night's home game against No. 16 Georgia (2-0).
A year ago, the Tigers finished last in the league in passing yards with a paltry clip of 165.5 per game.
"Through the first two weeks, we've seen much better quarterback play," Odom said, "and along with that, if the 10 guys around him are playing better, then you've got a chance of being a pretty good offense. We've been able to protect the quarterback to this point, but we still have a long way to go in a lot of areas.
"There is nobody in our program who has outworked our quarterback room. They prepare the right way and have taken ownership, and we've got some talent to go along with it."
Then there is the flip side to Missouri's 1-1 start that began with a 26-11 loss at West Virginia and continued last week with a 61-21 throttling of Eastern Michigan.
Last season Missouri's defense, which was guided by Odom when Gary Pinkel was in his 15th and final season as head coach, allowed 302.0 yards per contest and ranked second in the league to Alabama. This year's defense is allowing 461.0 yards a game, ranking just ahead of Kentucky within the conference.
"If you look at the first couple of weeks last year, we weren't great defensively," Odom said. "I think we've got an opportunity to be a really, really good defensive football team if we keep working and preparing and trusting the right way. We'll get there."
When Georgia and Missouri met last season in Sanford Stadium, the Bulldogs eked out a 9-6 victory in a game that was devoid of touchdowns. The Bulldogs were held to 298 yards of total offense, with that total dwarfing the 164 yards that Missouri compiled.
Missouri also played a 9-6 game last season against Connecticut, winning that one, but the Tigers were anemic offensively and solid defensively against Georgia and in other losses to Florida (21-3), Vanderbilt (10-3) and Tennessee (19-8) on their way to a 5-7 finish.
So how has first-year Georgia head coach Kirby Smart prepared this week for a program that could not look more opposite from a year ago?
"You always put more stock into what they're doing this year, and we've got two big games on that," Smart said.
Smart was a part of two convincing wins over Missouri as Alabama's defensive coordinator, with the Crimson Tide routing the Tigers 42-10 at Faurot Field in 2012 and 42-13 at the 2014 SEC title game.
A 6-foot-4, 220-pounder, Lock has completed 47 of 88 passes (53.4 percent) through two games for 730 yards with six interceptions and no interceptions. He completed just 49 percent of his passes last season, compiling four touchdowns against eight interceptions.
Lock also has a 12-yard carry this season.
"That guy can run, and they've got runs designed for him," Smart said. "I don't think they want him to run a lot, but he can run. When you get offered (scholarships) by college basketball programs, you don't normally have slow feet. He's one of those guys who, until I watched a lot of tape on him, I didn't realize how good he is.''
While the play of Lock has been a bright spot to this point, the productivity of junior defensive end Charles Harris has been disappointing. Harris led the SEC last year with 18.5 tackles for loss but has yet to collect his first this season.
Missouri's defense is under the guidance of coordinator Demontie Cross, who was TCU's co-defensive coordinator last year and is requiring more of a read-and-react approach.
"It's always frustrating when you - not to say anything bad - but when you change something that's been working so well, it's frustrating for everybody," Harris told reporters this week. "It's a matter of if you're going to adjust to it or if you're going to keep fighting it. We basically came to the conclusion that we've got to work with it.
"It's not like we can go back and bring back our old defense. No matter how much people want to, you can't do that. You've got to adjust."
Odom said the defense is adjusting to different terminology under Cross but that it's not that much of an overhaul schematically. This week Cross defended his system that employs gap schemes and does not allow its front to just turn things loose on every play.
"They're not eating up gaps as much as they're controlling their gap and then making plays within the scheme, because that's what we do," Cross said. "I know those guys have always been the guys who have gotten the glory, and rightfully so, because they've been so successful at getting a lot of stuff on the quarterback.
"We still want the same thing, but our structure is different in how we get there, and I think that's been the biggest adjustment and explains a little of the frustration."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.