By Ben Krakow

The Missouri Football team lost their season finale on Wednesday night with a bowl game loss to Texas in the Texas Bowl at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas.

The Tigers were plagued by turnovers as they turned the ball over four times with 3 lost fumbles and one interception. One of the fumbles was lost by Missouri running back Ish Witter and returned for a 38-yard touchdown by Texas linebacker Anthony Wheeler.

The Tigers also committed a safety after Missouri quarterback Drew Lock was not ready for a snap and the ball ended up out of the back of the end zone.

Missouri Head Coach Barry Odom said after the game that the team committed too many turnovers in the game.

“You can’t walk away from an evenly matched game and be minus four in the turnover margin,” Odom said.

Missouri struggled to generate much offense in the first half as they trailed 21-7 at halftime with the only points for the Tigers coming on a 4-yard touchdown run by Witter.

But then, on the first offensive play of the second half, Lock connected with wide receiver Johnathon Johnson for a 79-yard touchdown pass to bring Missouri within 21-13 after the extra point snap was dropped.

The Tigers were never able to gain much traction on offense after that mustering only a 28-yard field goal by kicker Tucker McCann. Texas ran the football and chewed the clock.

The star of the game on the Texas side was punter Michael Dickson. The junior from Australia was named the MVP of the game after having 10 of his 11 punts land inside in the Missouri    20-yard line with many of them being marked inside the five-yard line.

Dickson won the Ray Guy award this year. The award is given to the nation’s top punter in college football. Dickson has already announced that he will leave Texas early to enter the NFL draft this year, a very rare occurrence for a punter.

Missouri linebacker Cale Garrett said after the game that Dickson will have a lengthy career playing on Sundays in the NFL.

“He is gonna have a great career in the NFL, I imagine. A good, long 20-year career. He’s a very good player,” Garrett said.

Both teams finish the season with a 7-6 record, but Texas gets to take home the Texas Bowl trophy to Austin.