Simmons spread the ball around instead of leaning on one target. Donovan Olugbode caught two of his touchdowns, from 14 and 25 yards, and finished the game with 8 catches for 116 yards. Shaun Terry II and Cayden Lee each hauled in scoring passes too, and Jamal Roberts punched one in on the ground — starting in place of All-America running back Ahmad Hardy, who is still working back from a gunshot wound suffered in the offseason and wasn't going to be rushed into a season opener against an FCS team Missouri was never going to need him for.
Arkansas-Pine Bluff never found a rhythm to slow any of it down. The Golden Lions split snaps at quarterback between Garrison Davis and Jack Schierholz and got nothing consistent from either — their only points came in garbage time, a fourth-quarter touchdown pass from Schierholz and a 27-yard touchdown run from Za'Marion Webber that dented the shutout but nothing else. This was the kind of buy-game mismatch a market prices as a formality, and the board treated it that way — the spread's odds got more expensive on Missouri right up to kickoff, not less.
The story here isn't really the final score — it's what Missouri's season opener showed about the pieces around Simmons. A No. 25 team that lost its starting quarterback to the portal over the summer just watched his replacement complete 17 of 19 passes and spread touchdowns to four different receivers in under a half of work. Hardy's return is reportedly still weeks away, but on this showing, Missouri didn't need him to make the trip worth the price of admission.