Everything Eli Drinkwitz Said to Preview Mississippi State

The Missouri Tigers are looking to bounce back against the Mississippi State Bulldogs in Week 12, following a 38-17 loss to No. 3 Texas A&M.

In anticipation of that, Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz spoke to the media to look ahead to the matchup. The Tigers currently stand at 6-3 on the season, while the Bulldogs are at 5-5.

In the second year of the Jeff Lebby era in Starkville, the Bulldogs have shown some promise, making their showdown in Columbia against the Tigers a little more intriguing.

Here's everything Drinkwitz had to say to preview Missouri's matchup with the Bulldogs.

Opening statement

“Good afternoon. Today is Veterans Day, and I just want to tell them that we appreciate their example, their sacrifice, their vulnerability, their wisdom and the courage they continue to lead with, inspire us and protect us. They protect the most sacred gift that we have, which is life, liberty and freedom, and for that, a simple thank you is the words I'd like to give them today.

Senior Week. 20 men who are here for their final home game in Faurot Field. Want to first thank the fans for making Faurot Field such a special place this season, and for selling out all their home games and really making it a remarkable place to play, I know that the seniors have a very special feeling about Faurot Field, and because of that, this will be a very emotional game for Vince Brown, Kevin Coleman, Daylen Carnell, Jalen Catalon, Stephen Hall, Bralen Henderson, Khalil Jacobs, Tommy Lock, Xavier Loyd, Chris McClellan, Henry McDermott, Logan Muckey, Triston Newson, Drey Norwood, Toriano Pride, Connor Tollison, Keagen Trost, Sterling Webb, Connor Weselman and Zion Young. This group of men have worked extremely hard. Some have been here for a long time, some have been here for a short time, but all have contributed to the success of Mizzou football, and we're going to work really hard to show our appreciation to them.

One of the things that we're currently working on, I think one of the coolest traditions that Mizzou has, is after senior day, if you win, you get to go grab a rock and the teammates carry you off the field. We are currently constructing a rock M on one of the grass spots in front of Brock Olivo’s name, so that we can continue that tradition should we happen to earn that with the win this week. And it's going to be a very difficult challenge. Mississippi State is a team that’s improving, year in over year out. I think coach [Jeff] Lebby has got that program going in the right direction. They have five wins, looking for their sixth win to become bowl eligible. Got their first conference win two weeks ago versus Arkansas. Obviously, played a very tough team in Georgia last week, but you can tell that program is growing, going in the right direction. Offensively, very dynamic and explosive run-based RPO offense that utilizes tempo, creates explosive plays, utilizes space really well. Defensively, have remade their defense, but very multiple, very aggressive, very attacking. Nine seniors on that side of the ball. They got a lot of experience, which creates its own challenge for us. And so it'll be a very difficult game for us, and one that we have to prepare for, but one that we are excited about.”

On Texas A&M knowing their plays before snapping the ball

“My reaction to that is, obviously, we've got to do a better job with some of our signaling and communication, and obviously, we got to go back and check our tendencies. We came back off of the bye week, felt like we had a pretty good handle on our tendency stuff. We run a lot outside zone. I think that's probably pretty predictable. So we just got to go back and make sure that we're doing the best job we can to check our stances, check our wording and verbiage to make sure that we're clean on that.”

On giving Donovan Olugbode the start against Texas A&M

“It was just the right time.”

On what he wants to see week-to-week from Matt Zollers

“For us, it's about getting comfortable earlier in the game and creating some easier opportunities for him to get into a rhythm. We never really got him into the rhythm offensively, and so we've got to do a better job of creating some offensive rhythm and not putting him in situations where he feels the entire pressure to play. So that's something that we can do. Obviously, Matt didn't play a senior year because of an injury. [The] game against UCA and UL was the first time he's really played in, and then Vanderbilt. So I knew there was going to be some things that we got to continue to work on. I think his confidence in yesterday's walkthrough was better. I think his confidence in practice will be better. And now we've got building blocks on what we can build upon. But it's unfair to expect Matt to carry the load. I've got to do my job of carrying the load for Matt. Our staff’s got to do their job, and then our whole team's got to continue to do their job.”

On the special teams unit this season

“There's room for improvement in some of the phases. Appreciative of the big return kickoff return that [DaMarion] Fowlkes had that really got us going and got us back into the game after we scored on that drive, make it 21-7. There's been some ups and downs, but we're all working each week to try to find a way to improve that. And, we're working this week to try to improve our special team phases.”

On Mississippi State’s blitzing ability

“Each one of them are usually unique. They play a lot of odd front to 11 personnel. They play more four down front to 12. So when you're 11 personnel or 10 P sets, you get a little bit more open. And then they what we call simulated pressure, where they're bringing a fourth person, but it's really not technically a blitz for us, because you should be designed with five offensive linemen to pick up four in the back to scan for the fifth. So some of those numbers can be a little bit deceiving on the amount of pressures that you're getting. For us, we have to do a better job of making the pocket cleaner. For Matt, I do think that we were able to do that early in the game. Obviously, the end of half play on third-and-9, we did not do a good enough job of that. And those long yardage situations create situations where they can play press man, there's not much move, there's not much separation, and then the pressure, your quarterback has to hold the ball a little bit longer to create that separation. So, if we can stay out of those long yardage situations, that would be beneficial for us, into beating pressure and then catch and run opportunities, something that we haven't really generated a lot of something that we can look into.”

On play calling against Texas A&M

“In any game I've ever been a part of, whether it's a win or a loss, whether I've been calling plays or not calling plays, whether I've been a GA, I've never had an offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, not come in and say, I wish I would have handled this situation a little bit better. I wish I could have done this differently. And I don't think there's anything about Saturday

that we all don't go back and say, I wish I would have done this differently. I wish I would have said we would have been in safe punt on the third down. So the assessments, really, for all of that stuff, for me, happens at the end of the year. We're all working right now to try to find a way to improve, figure out what we can do better, how we play to our players strengths and find a way to win versus Mississippi State.”

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