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    • Texas A&M Football exposes Missouri as a fraud. Are Aggies real?
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    Texas A&M Football exposes Missouri as a fraud. Are Aggies real?

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    • The mask didn’t so much slide off Missouri’s face as Texas A&M ripped it off. Missouri is a playoff pretender and the Aggies might be a contender.
    • Conner Weigman makes Texas A&M football multi-dimensional in return start for Texas A&M.
    • Silver lining for Missouri: Florida shouldn’t covet Eli Drinkwitz after this dud.

    The mask didn’t so much slide off Missouri’s face as Texas A&M ripped it off.

    Missouri waltzed through the offseason and into September as a participant in the College Football Playoff.

    The masquerade ball ended Saturday in College Station, Texas.

    The No. 9 Tigers are pretenders.

    No. 21 Texas A&M trounced Missouri, 41-10, with such ruthless ferocity that I wonder if a playoff contender actually emerged. It just wasn’t Missouri (4-1), which saw its eight-game winning streak end under the din of Kyle Field.

    Aggies fans waved towels and sang as the points piled up and “Mo Bamba” played on loop on the stadium speakers. In the fourth quarter, the home fans chanted, “Overrated! Overrated!”

    Do you think? If the Tigers are ranked at all at the end of the weekend, it would be generous after this dismal showing.

    Texas A&M, not Missouri, emerges as a playoff candidate

    Texas A&M (5-1) played like a transformed team after a season-opening home loss to Notre Dame. The Aggies are fielding a playoff-caliber defense. Their linemen continually tore into Missouri’s backfield.

    The question hinged — for years, actually — on whether an Aggies offense would develop.

    Quarterback Conner Weigman showed off some of the NFL talents that analysts have long insisted he possesses.

    The Aggies won three straight games behind backup quarterback Marcel Reed while deploying a run-first offense as Weigman recovered from a shoulder injury.

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    But Mike Elko trusted his initial instincts when he put the reins back in Weigman’s hands on Saturday. Weigman gives the Aggies more upside.

    Weigman threw for 276 yards, rushed for another 33 yards, and my only criticism is that a guy who has been sidelined for multiple games due to injuries over the past two seasons should slide more often when he gets into foul trouble.

    Weigman enjoyed clean pockets, releasing arrow after arrow from a quiver that never ran out. On the rare occasions he hit a bull’s-eye, his receivers took good care of him.

    “This is what we thought we got from him today,” Elko, the Aggies’ first-year coach, told ABC about Weigman.

    I didn’t know what to think of Missouri after last week’s double-overtime breakout against Vanderbilt, but I wasn’t expecting this absolute stinker. Missouri has turned high-wire winning into an art form over the past thirteen months before this spectacular high-wire freefall.

    Brady Cook found Luther Burden III for a 27-yard gain on the first play of the game. Beginner’s luck. The Tigers looked a mess after that. On rare occasions, Missouri found green space and could expect to be derailed by a yellow handkerchief.

    Silver lining for Missouri: Eli Drinkwitz looks a little worse for Florida now

    Weigman’s return as starter made the Aggies multi-dimensional, while running back Le’Veon Moss continued to fumble. He ran 75 yards for a touchdown on the first play after halftime, with only one Tigers defender getting a paw on him.

    By then, it had become clear that Missouri was getting away with fraud by navigating through September undefeated, while baffled pollsters consistently ranked the Tigers in the top 10.

    As Moss trotted across the goal line, a Missouri fan in the stands laughed in disbelief at the deficit that had grown to 34-0 just 13 seconds into the third quarter.

    Another Tigers prop buried his face in his arms, unable to continue witnessing a team withered in its first road test.

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    Take care, Missouri fans. A silver lining emerged.

    No Florida executive who has seen this one would want to plunder Missouri coach Eliah Drinkwitz for an eight-figure annual price when the Gators are looking for a new coach.

    Drink up, Missouri. He’s all yours.

    Drinkwitz and his Tigers head home with masks in hand as the Aggies take their place in the playoff conversation.

    Blake Toppmeyer is the national college football columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

    Subscribe to read all his columns.

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