The timeline of Mizzou football’s many 2020 schedule alterations in a wacky season
Missouri coach Eliah Drinkwitz doesn’t want to jinx his Tigers’ test results, which is why he knocks on his wooden podium during his news conferences. Nobody can blame him; one COVID-19 test can completely flip a team’s fortunes around.
After Mizzou returned from its Tennessee road trip Oct. 3, the second game of the season, it had its next four games altered for one reason or another. The Tigers have been at the heart of the SEC’s schedule alterations because of the novel coronavirus (including an assist to Mother Nature) despite low positive-test-result numbers for Drinkwitz’s program.
But such changes were the expectation coming into this altered 2020 SEC season, one that features 10 conference games and played during a pandemic.
“I game-planned for three different teams last week,” Drinkwitz said Tuesday. “It’s just a product of the situation we’re in. … You gotta control what you can control and maintain focus on what you can do right now in this moment.”
Starting Oct. 6 and for the subsequent 10 days, Drinkwitz’s team went through the gauntlet of modifications. It started with Hurricane Delta moving the LSU game from Baton Rouge, Louisiana to Columbia. That official announcement came three days before kickoff as Mizzou downed the defending national champs on the Faurot Field turf.
Then the Vanderbilt game was postponed because of COVID-19 positives within the Commodores’ program that moved the game from Oct. 17 to Dec. 12. That news came the Monday of game week on Oct. 12 (and MU initially found out something was up when the local bus company contacted them).
Finally, Mizzou saw its next two opponents, Oct. 24 at Florida and Oct. 31 vs. Kentucky, make a U-turn because of positive cases within the Gators’ program. Now it’s Kentucky on Saturday; Florida for Halloween. That decision came last Friday, eight days before MU was set to host the Wildcats. Hence, the three teams Drinkwitz game planned for last week.
That’s four straight weeks and opponents where Mizzou’s original 2020 schedule saw some kind of mix-up. Some of it sudden, some of it even giving MU an edge in an extra home game, but abnormal nonetheless.
“Never had an unscheduled bye week before,” Drinkwitz said of the oddities of 2020. “Monday (on Oct. 12), you had three-fourths of your game plan done and had a game. Then get the plug pulled on that. Then have another game get pulled then switched.”
MU will keep a watchful eye on if Florida will be able to play the Halloween showdown. Florida coach Dan Mullen said on the SEC teleconference Wednesday his team plans to be back in the facilities on Oct. 26, the Monday before Saturday’s game day.
By then, the Gators will have been out of their facilities for nearly two weeks. They shut down and started working remotely on Oct. 13 after a spike in COVID-19 cases. Florida also had another COVID-19 positive from Tuesday’s round of testing. That brings the total up to 25 players, two assistants and Mullen himself contracting the virus since Oct. 13, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Mullen said Wednesday he was feeling fine after announcing last Saturday he tested positive for COVID-19. It’s unclear how many Florida players are also in quarantine through contact tracing. Florida had to postpone its Oct. 17 game against LSU because it had dipped under the 53-player threshold the SEC instituted before the season.
Drinkwitz, in his first year at the helm at Missouri and currently with a 1-2 record, has taken all the adjustments and changes in stride. He’s stressed to his team “control what you can control,” and that’s the mindset the players have taken through not just past few weeks, but ever since the pandemic started affecting the U.S. in March.
“Our lives have been changed since March, it’s kind of one of those things that you adapt to,” MU linebacker Nick Bolton said. “We’ve been adapting to new guidelines, new schedule changes, schedule getting pushed back, fall camp getting pushed back. It’s just another thing, another day.”
Mizzou used the extra off week from the postponed Vandy game to heal from injuries and get players back from COVID-19 quarantines. Drinkwitz said Tuesday the Tigers are currently at zero coronavirus-related cases.
But, again, “knock on wood” because they still have two more rounds of testing ahead of the Kentucky game.
Mizzou hosts the ‘Cats at 3 p.m. Saturday at Faurot Field, then it still has another six games to go in the 2020 season. The Tigers will take whatever alterations the SEC throws at them.
“I challenged our staff and our team last week that everybody’s gotta develop,” Drinkwitz said. “With seven games left, we’ve already experienced a good number of injuries and opportunities for other people on this team to make contributions. In 2020, you’re going to see all kinds of contributions from all kinds of players.”