‘Disappointed is an understatement’: Missouri suffers worst defeat since joining SEC
Eliah Drinkwitz entered his press conference following Saturday’s game and stood at the lectern at the front of the room with his head down, hands clutching at both sides of the wooden frame.
The head coach stayed like that for nearly a minute as he tried to gather himself, in clear agony following his Missouri football team’s 62-24 loss to Tennessee on Faurot Field.
“To say I’m disappointed is an understatement,” he began. “It’s my responsibility to have this team prepared and ready to play and to represent this university in the right way, and I didn’t do my job today.”
The Tigers looked anything but “ready to play” in the embarrassing defeat — and embarrassing might be putting it too lightly. They gave up 45 points the first half, matching the most given up by the program in a half since a 69-21 loss to No. 7 Nebraska in 1990.
The 38-point loss is arguably Mizzou’s worst since joining the Southeastern Conference in 2012. There have been similar deficits — a 35-point loss to No. 9 Georgia last season, 37 points to No. 15 Auburn in 2017 and 34 points to No. 13 Georgia in 2014 — but all of those were to ranked teams. Tennessee entered Saturday’s game with a 2-2 record.
Coincidentally enough, Mizzou allowed more points to Tennessee in 2016, but that 63-37 loss wasn’t as bad of a blowout at 26 points, and that Volunteers team was ranked.
“Very deflating,” Drinkwitz said. “We want to protect Faurot Field. I know people work really hard to pay their money to buy tickets and we disappointed them today. But we’re not gonna let it define us. We’ll fight.”
While there have been a fair share of blowout losses at the hands of ranked opponents, there aren’t many that have come to unranked teams in recent program history that were worse than what happened on Saturday. Let’s explore a few, shall we?
There was a 55-7 loss at Michigan State on Dec. 1, 2001, in which Mizzou allowed 639 yards to just 241 of its own. The Spartans entered that game with a 5-5 record and the trouncing of the Tigers put them over the top to earn bowl eligibility. MU entered that game with a 4-6 record and finished the season 4-7.
Another 4-7 season in 1999 saw Mizzou suffer a 37-0 defeat at Oklahoma, where none other than current Volunteers’ head coach Josh Heupel was quarterback. The Sooners had a 5-4 record prior to the game and earned their first shutout win in six years.
There are sure to be more if we go back further, but that’s besides the point. The point is this: Saturday’s loss was a step backwards for a Missouri program that seemed to be heading in the right direction in Drinkwitz’ second year after going 5-5 in a pandemic-laden season in 2020. It’s one thing to suffer close losses on the road with clear fight shown from players, it’s another to disappear from a game in the first quarter and proceed to allow a team to shell-shock you on your home field.
“It sucks,” said quarterback Connor Bazelak, who threw two interceptions in the loss. “It’s not good, so yeah.”
While the offense struggled, the defense was even worse. The unit, led by defensive coordinator Steve Wilks, gave up 677 yards to the Volunteers and allowed them an average 8.8 yards per play. A whopping 452 of those yards came on the ground, continuing what has been a glaring issue all season — Mizzou ranked 129th out of 130 FBS teams in run defense (269.2 yards allowed per game) entering Saturday’s game and should now surely be last.
Fans had already expressed frustration with Wilks throughout the year. Those qualms are now even louder, as the loss to Tennessee marked the most yards given up all season and was a downright dismal defensive display. But when asked following the game whether he is considering making a change at that coaching spot, Drinkwitz didn’t have much to say.
“I just stepped off the football field. I haven’t even considered something like that,” Drinkwitz said. “So I have no comment or anything like that.”
There were expectations for six or seven wins, eight for those who were optimistic, entering this season, but now there’s a long road ahead for Mizzou to even achieve bowl eligibility. The Tigers need four more wins to get there and only have three games left against unranked teams, two of which are at home, starting with North Texas next week.
“We got a long way to go. We got a long way to go,” Drinkwitz said. “But it starts with me and it starts with doing everything I can to make sure that we make forward progress, and we didn’t do that today. We took a step back today. But it doesn’t have to define us, we can keep moving forward.”
This story was originally published October 2, 2021 at 5:40 PM.
