On the opening drive, Missouri marched down the field 75 yards to the K-State 5-yard line, but had to settle for a field goal when their drive lost its feet. Going up 3-0 in under five minutes, Missouri's offense had K-State on its heels the whole way.

That was the tone of the entire first half of Saturday's contest. The Tigers' offense put up 259 yards on the Wildcat defense and took a 17-6 halftime lead.

K-State had a few promising drives, but was plagued with mistakes from the word "go." On the Wildcats' first drive, Brandon Banks caught a short route inside the 5-yard line and fumbled through the end zone for a touchback. Combined with a series of penalties and defensive miscues, the Wildcats could not seem to find an answer for this rejuvenated-looking Missouri team.

Josh Cherry put two nice-looking field goals through in the first half to keep K-State alive. With the first from 47 yards and the second at 34 yards, he improved to 9-15 this year with the only K-State points in the first half.

The Wildcat secondary continued its baffling loss of stopping power as the Tigers marched all over K-State in the second half. Giving up another 80 yards in the air in the third quarter, K-State put itself out of the game by not being able to score.

Kicker Josh Cherry pulled the Wildcats within five points near the end of the third quarter with two more field goals, from 35 and 33 yards, respectively.

"It was definitely fun but the fact that we lost really takes away from it," Cherry said. "I hate losing and I'm pretty sure everyone else on this team does to. No one wants to be at home during the off season. This game had a lot riding on it. Making four field goals is great but I would rather have those field goals be PAT's."

K-State's struggle, although offensive, was not putting up yards. The Wildcats continued to churn out first downs and yards as they knocked out 30 or 40 a drive, but found themselves wanting every time they got to the red zone.

Daniel Thomas was stymied Saturday by the heart of the Tiger defense as he tried and tried to make it happen, but couldn't, finishing the game with only 79 yards on 23 carries.
Without being able to push the defense back, the rushing game simply had no credible threat all day. Grant Gregory worked the field for over 200 yards in the air, but wasn't able to put together any long connections to keep the Wildcats in it to win it.

Mistakes were the problem Saturday though, as everyone would agree. The defensive effort being lackluster and not getting any pressure on the quarterback, combined with the loss of three turnovers to the Tigers made it into a long afternoon for a saddened last-home-game crowd.

As the student section made its way out of the stadium halfway through the fourth quarter, it felt like the team had given up for the day. Missouri improved to 6-4 on the season 2-4 in the Big 12 Conference and K-State moves down to 6-5 on the season, 4-3 in the Big 12.

K-State will play in Lincoln, Neb., next weekend against the Cornhuskers for the Big 12 North title. The winner of the game will look forward to playing a likely undefeated Texas team Dec. 5 in Cowboys Stadium.