The Missouri Tigers continued to put distance between themselves and their 0-2 start to the 2020 football season on Saturday as they won their third straight and fifth out of the last six by beating Arkansas 50-48 at Faurot Field in Columbia.

The Tigers (5-3) claimed the Battle Line Trophy in a game that was a cross-divisional matchup in the SEC and moved from Nov. 28 to Saturday because of COVID-19 situations.

Mizzou won the game with a 32-yard field goal by Harrison Mevis as time expired.

The SEC West's Razorbacks, meanwhile, are heading the other way as the loss was their third straight and dropped them to 3-6 on the season. The loss was a killer as Arkansas had grabbed a 48-47 lead on a two-point conversion with 43 seconds to go.

The Tigers were led by their 1-2 offensive punch of quarterback Connor Bazelak and running back Larry Rountree III.

Bazelak, who is now 6-1 as a starter, passed for 380 yards. He was 32 of 49. Keke Chism had six of those catches for 113 yards.

Rountree carried the ball 27 times for 185 yards.

The Mizzou defense was not nearly as tough as it was a week ago in the 41-0 rout of Vanderbilt but played well enough on Saturday when it mattered -- in the final quarter when it made enough stops to enable the Tigers to come back from a 40-33 deficit with just under 10 minutes to go.

Arkansas got bad news before the game when it was announced that starting quarterback Feleipe Franks would not play because of a rib injury. Franks was coming off a career-high 339 yards against LSU. He had passed for 200 yards or more in every game this season.

Getting the start and playing the whole game in Franks' place was KJ Jefferson.

Jefferson, getting his second start, played well. Almost well enough to get his team a victory. He completed 18 of 33 attempts for 274 yards and three TDs.

Treylon Burks caught 10 balls for 206 yards for Arkansas.

Trelon Smith had a big game, rushing for 172 yards on 26 carries.

The two teams combined for over 1,200 total yards.

Next Saturday, the Tigers play a home game against the Georgia Bulldogs, who entered the weekend ranked No. 8. Arkansas will host top-ranked and undefeated Alabama. Both games were rescheduled because of COVID-19 situations.

Dec. 12 was originally supposed to serve as an open date in the SEC schedule.

--Field Level Media