Everything Eli Drinkwitz Said to Preview Texas A&M

No. 19 Missouri is entering the game that will determine what will be at play for the remainder of its season, with the Tigers set to host No. 3 Texas A&M. An upset win would put the college football world on notice and revive Missouri's hopes for a spot in the College Football Playoff.

It will also be the first career start for true freshman quarterback Matt Zollers, replacing Beau Pribula, who suffered an ankle injury in Week 9 against Vanderbilt.

Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz spoke to the local media Tuesday to preview the matchup and discuss his confidence in Zollers. Here's a full transcript of what he had to say.

Opening statement:

"We have a great opportunity here versus No. 3 Texas A&M, very excited about the opportunity to play a top team in the country here at home, another sellout, which is a tribute to the great fans that we have, and appreciate our student section, our fans, for making this just an awesome environment.

It's going to be a challenging matchup. I think (head coach) Mike Elko has done a tremendous job in two years at Texas A&M. He has built a very good, talented, deep roster. He's done an excellent job, not only high school recruiting, but also does a really good job out of the portal. He's combined those things. They have a very talented football team that's also a tough football team. You can tell that his culture and fingerprint is all over it from top to bottom.

Offensively, (offensive coordinator) Colin Klein, leading the way, does an outstanding job offensively. I think Mizzou fans know all too well about Colin and his job as a player, but also as a coordinator. We've battled him many times. He's developed that quarterback and developed the offensive system around Marcel (Reed), who's developing into what I think is a Heisman-type season. He is playing at a really, really high level. Distributes the ball really well, not only vertically, but horizontally. And then, man, his added dimension when he runs is really, really impressive. It's got some Lamar Jackson-esque type qualities to it from when I was in the ACC, going against him (Jackson) in that 2016 season.

They're wide receivers, they attacked the transfer portal. (K.C.) Concepcion is a tremendous player, along with Mario Craver, those two guys are dynamic, great speed, open space, catch the ball well, attack it. Well, they use them in multiple ways. Offensive line, I think the strength of their team, four returning starters, do a really good job establishing the run. They have a little setback with losing their star tailback (Le'Veon Moss), but you don't really notice because the depth that they have with everybody else there. So, I mean, tremendous challenge, offensively.

Defensively, physical, tough-minded defense, very multiple. Do not want to be in third downs against these guys, they do an unbelievable job. Second in the country in third down defense, only converting about 20% of the time. They're No. 1 in the country in sacks. Again, they did a really good job of attacking holes through the transfer portal, getting some local guys here that we missed on with Cashius Howell and William Lee, went got some other guys that have played some really, really good football for 'em. So, very, very challenging.

For our team, it's really about us focusing on helping Matt execute at the highest level possible. We're excited about Matt's opportunity and what he's earned. He has done a really good job in practice of leadership, stepping up, embracing the moment, embracing the opportunity. There was a time in the early part of the season where Beau was a little bit beat up and Matt was getting extra reps with the ones, and those are going to pay off now for us. So that's that's been a real positive. We really were adamant throughout spring, throughout the summer, and even in fall camp, to really focus on three spots to make sure that Matt was getting developed because we knew he was the future of the program as a quarterback position, but the future is now. I think it's important for us not to put too high of expectations on that. He does not have to win this game by himself, he's got a really good core players around him. We just have to play complementary football in all three phases. Defensively, got to do a really good job of slowing them down. Special teams has got to do a great job covering kicks. And then offensively, everybody, coaches, players, everybody has to reduce the friction that Matt feels. And so that'll be the challenge this week. He just needs to be himself. We're excited for the opportunity."

On the challenge of attacking a team with as many strengths as Texas A&M

"They do a lot of different things well, whether it's their punt return game is really good, their kickoff return game is really good, their vertical pass game is really good. They're able to claw you out, run the football. Defensively, they're able to stop the run, force one-on-one matchups make you execute for four quarters. It's a really well-built SEC football team, and it reminds you of going against the big time teams in the past, like with Georgia and Alabama, and those kind of games have been, where you knew that any one mistake could lead to a break in the dam and that it was going to be a 60 minutes where every inch was earned, and that's why I'm so complimentary of how quickly he's (Elko) been able to build that kind of roster."

On how the playbook and play calling changes with Zollers

"It's not really the full playbook, it's about playing to what his strengths are. Are there things that we're going to add? Probably, not because we hadn't had a ton of reps of it. But are there things that he's more comfortable with than maybe Beau was? Absolutely. So we can push those things in the playbook that maybe haven't been shown. There were things that that we thought Beau did really well, that's what we kind of emphasized, and there's things that Matt did well that we will emphasize moving forward."

On Texas A&M’s third-down defense

“As long as I've gone against coach Elko, which started in 2016, he's always had a really good third-down package that starts with attacking protections. He's going to try to get a five-up presentation, where you as an offense have to dictate, ‘We're either going to man this or slide this.’ And what happens is, during the course of the game, whatever you practiced is usually what you stay with through the course of the game. And he, in my opinion, the first one, he tests you — he sends one out there, and then, now that he has the iPad, he goes up there, and he's super smart, and he realizes, ‘Okay, their plan was four-man slide, so this is the beater,’and he'll call ‘okie sword.’ Or he'll realize that, ‘Oh, wait, they're manning it, so here's the man beater, we’ll bring two to this side.’ And so it's really a cat and mouse game. He does a really good job of setting up tendencies too. So like last year, going into the Arkansas game, there was one player who had not blitzed the entire five-game package. So you would just say, ‘Hey, that's the one guy that's always going to drop out in coverage, so we'll account for everybody else.’ And then the first third down versus Arkansas, he coffee-housed (stunt blitz) him where he acted like he was going to drop, and then blitzed for a sack.

So he's got a really good feel for how to attack you, and does a really good job of calling it and then adjusting his calls. And then, that's when it gets really challenging, is you felt like you had a really good plan, and he busts you in the mouth with something different. Same thing happened to us in 2016 (when Drinkwitz was the offensive coordinator at NC State), we felt like we had something all dialed up in the first one, he broke his tendency. So we gotta be willing to adjust.”

On how the situation with Zollers is similar to one Drinkwitz faced in 2015 as the offensive coordinator at Boise State when true freshman Brett Rypien had to take over:

“There's absolutely some lessons there. I think there's some things that we did to make it a little bit easier on him, that we tailored the playbook towards. Brett was a different player than Matt, but very cerebral, came in early enrollee, battled all through fall camp, we knew he would be ready to go. And was similar in that he was the third quarterback, but once (Ryan Finley) got hurt, we knew we were going to him in the future, and he handled it well. There were good days and bad days, and that's part of growing as a quarterback. So we got to try to limit the exposure of Matt, not to put him on an island. And that kind of happened to us, looking back at Brett, when we played Air Force, and had to learn the hard way from that.”

On Zollers’ development over the offseason

“Look, the No. 1 talent that Matt has is his arm. I think the way the ball jumps off his hand, I think we all can see it. He's got a really good arm, arm talent. There's no defense for the perfect throw, that's just the reality of it. And so that always gave him a chance. Then it was just about processing the playbook and processing the timing of plays and understanding pockets and understanding defense and not throwing into those coverages,and all of that stuff takes time in reps, and we were able to really get those. There were bad days in fall camp, and there have been a lot more good days recently in our good on good. I thought last week, Matt had one of his better weeks of practice, just in the whole sense, the good on good, the skelly, the two-minute drive, the dirty show, like he's in command. So I think our team has a lot of confidence that he's going to be ready. Again, we got to make sure we don't put too much pressure on him.”

On Zollers’ maturity

I think there's just something about quarterbacks that just have this innate ability to lead and they're ready. They have a belief in themselves. They're kind of a gunslinger, fighter pilots, quarterbacks. And Matt's got all those attributes, and it's his time, so he's ready to roll.”

On what Jude James could provide if Brett Norfleet has to miss more time with injury

Very consistent. Obviously, he's got playmaking ability with the ball in his hand. Does a really good job running routes. Physical. Is a guy that we identified as an ‘athlete’ because he played defense, was a key special teams guy that we thought could help us and knew he could play as an H(-back), and has really embraced the opportunities that he's had.”

On how Beau Pribula has remained involved with the team after his injury

“He's been awesome. Voted captain for a reason. Addressed the team on last Tuesday, I thought, in a powerful way. Has been around, will be around.

Got some good news in yesterday's X rays. He'll be in a walking boot. Should be able to be on the sideline for the game, so that's a good start towards his recovery.”

On how other young players — James, Donovan Olugbode and Robert Meyer — are managing pressure

“I don't think it's a pressure, I think it's a privilege and an opportunity for them to play. They've earned it. We addressed the team yesterday — if you would have told us when we started the fall camp that we would be ranked coming out of the second bye week with an opportunity for everything we want in front of us, we get to play a top-10 team at home, which everybody signed up for, and we all said yes. And so the opportunity that we wanted is right here, right now. We have to take advantage of it. And every journey never goes as planned. There's never been a journey that I've been on, whether it's taking family vacations or whatever, that goes exactly as it's planned. And so our job is to adapt and adjust. Don't make excuses and go attack it. And everybody that's on our football team in this organization has earned the right to be here, and they just gotta lean into it, and they got to lean into their opportunity. Don't make it bigger than it is. Trust their training, trust the elite edge preparation that they've gotten, and go attack it. There's really nothing to fear. It's just a hell of an opportunity laying out there for us, and we're going to go attack it and go have fun doing it.”

On the challenges of going against Cashius Howell

“He is a really, really good player out of Rockhurst. Complete whiff on me for us not to try to take him out of high school, went to Bowling Green and had a heck of a career, and then transferred to A&M and, really regret that we didn't do a better job evaluating that.

He's a dominant football player in this league. Every team, it feels like, has one, and he's as good as any of them. So it's going to be a real challenge for our offensive tackles. Obviously, we have to account for it within our game plan. But the reality of it is, he is elite, but when we played South Carolina, they had elite ones, and when we played Alabama, they had elite ones, and when we played Auburn, they had two elite ones, and then when we played Vandy, they had an elite one — so every team we play has got DEnds, and we've got two really good ones too. That's what makes the SEC — I know every coach talks about how challenging our league is, but until you get in here and have to go every week and say, ‘Holy cow, I gotta block that guy,’ nobody else understands it, and they never will.”

On the improvements of Texas A&M quarterback Marcel Reed

“Last year got me in trouble, because I said he was the future and they played Conner (Weigman) and he killed us. But I’ve believed in Marcel Reed for a long time. I was first on the bandwagon. So he's a really good player. You can tell the guys love playing for him. They love playing around him. When he makes a mistake, he just bounces back, keeps on going. Moment’s never too big. Obviously, led a big game-winning drive versus Notre Dame. He's got a great quarterback coach and an offensive coordinator who sees it through his eyes and calls the game for him I think, which is really fun when you're watching it, not going against it, but fun when you're watching it, because you see that camaraderie. So, yeah, I'd like for Marcel to recognize that I was on the bandwagon first.”

Read more Missouri Tigers news: