Here’s why Mizzou football’s next few weeks off the field are crucial for the season
The Missouri Tigers are finally at their last several-week step before the season kicks off, a relief after months of uncertainty because of the COVID-19 pandemic. When MU coach Eliah Drinkwitz’s squad breaks preseason camp Monday, the Tigers will gradually answer a few important football questions.
But the next few weeks aren’t about just the on-field product. As students move into dorms and apartments this week for the upcoming semester, another element of what MU athletic director Jim Sterk calls the “X-factor” unfolds.
The Tigers conducted workouts and walkthroughs this summer, but they did so in a Columbia largely devoid of students. That meant less mingling and fewer chances for the MU players to catch the novel coronavirus in classes or hanging out in social settings. With the students’ arrival now comes concern about a potential new COVID-19 outbreak.
“The next few weeks are very important,” MU linebacker Jamal Brook said. “If everybody at Mizzou does what Mizzou asks them to do — wearing masks, wash your hands, just the little things — I think we’ll come out on the right side of things and where we want to be.”
Other students’ arrival on SEC campuses is a major reason the conference pushed its football schedule back to a Sept. 26 start, Sterk said. If a football team has a COVID-19 outbreak during camp in the aftermath of their fellow students’ return, they’ll have extra time to get it under control before the season begins.
The Tigers, for their part, are urging one another to avoid any activity that could harm the team, Brooks said. That conversation was started by defensive tackle Kobie Whiteside, according to Brooks, and has spread.
“We have a dream; we have a goal in place,” Brooks said. “To do that, we need to put things that are going to harm the team away. That’s just been a constant conversation daily. Reminding each other, ‘Wear your masks, do the little things,’ because in the long run the little things are going to add up.”
Mizzou wide receiver Barrett Banister said the team has talked about what happened at other campuses, such as Rutgers in the Big Ten. Players there were reportedly going out to house parties, catching the virus and spreading it to others.
College football finds itself in a state of general uncertainty as the Big Ten and Pac-12 have shut down all fall sports while the Big 12, ACC and SEC march on. Banister said the Tigers need to do their part in keeping COVID-19 cases in Columbia down so the league isn’t forced to shutter its season.
“You’ve just got to weigh what means more to you,” Banister said. “If guys on the team think that going to house parties and going to bars is more important than the season, then there will probably be a spike in cases. If we all do what we’re supposed to do and do our jobs, then we can keep it how it’s been.”
Mizzou offensive lineman Case Cook cited some of the positives that have come from the Tigers’ unusual summer workouts and mini-camp. Cook said players usually do their own thing in their off-hours, but this year they’re hanging out together, with one another for accountability, while they’re outside the team’s facilities.
Cook said this has led to better team chemistry and avoidance of bars or clubs.
While Mizzou added some heavy hitters to this fall’s revised 10-game schedule in LSU and Alabama, the players said they’re embracing the challenge.
“You come to the SEC to play big-boy ball,” Brooks said. “I come from Alabama, where that’s SEC country through and through. To play 10 of those games, one of them being from my home state, they’re coming to us. I told the guys, ‘If you weren’t locked in yet, it’s about time.’”