Missouri Tigers football rallied around center Mike Maietti to become bowl eligible
.JPG "Missouri tight end Daniel Parker Jr., (center) holds up the ball as teammates Michael Maietti (left) and Javon Foster (right) celebrate his winning catch in overtime against Florida, Saturday, Nov. 20, 2021, in Columbia, Mo.")
Missouri football coach Eliah Drinkwitz began to tear up after last Saturday’s overtime win over Florida as he talked about what it meant to send off his group of seniors with a home victory that clinched bowl eligibility.
“All week we just talked about, man, this is senior week. These guys deserve that chance to grab that rock. And that was special,” Drinkwitz said, his voice cracking. “I promised Mike Maietti he’d go bowling if he came back. It’s the only reason he came back, cause he’d never been to a bowl game. And we came through with that today.”
Mike Maietti, the Tigers’ starting center and leader on the offensive line, spent the first four seasons of his college career at Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights went 7-39 across 2016-19, never even coming close to the postseason. The West Orange, New Jersey native transferred to Mizzou ahead of the 2020 season, and though the Tigers were bowl eligible, COVID-19 issues kept them from playing in the Music City Bowl. So after talking with Drinkwitz, he came back for his sixth season of college football as a graduate student.
“It was huge for the team,” quarterback Connor Bazelak said. “Huge for me obviously, you know, him being the center and quarterback, that’s a big deal. But I think that was the main reason why he did come back, because he’s never played in a bowl game before in six years of playing college football. And him being my roommate, it’s special for him to be able to do that and in the fashion that we did on senior night at home, it’s just really cool.”
Missouri players rallied around getting Maietti to that coveted bowl game this season. Though they entered the year with high expectations in Drinkwitz’s second season, the Tigers started 3-4 and were one of just five teams in the country without a win over a Power Five opponent through the first seven games. But they’ve gone 3-1 since their bye week, picking up victories against Vanderbilt, South Carolina and Florida to reach the six-win mark.
Drinkwitz said that players and coaches were upset by how people were questioning their effort and fight through some of those early games. “That really bothered us,” he said. “We work way too hard not to give it everything we’ve got.”
Al Davis stepped in as defensive line coach and coaches threw the depth chart out the window following a 62-24 blowout defeat to Tennessee on Oct. 2, hoping to produce more competitiveness in practice.
The team then recommitted itself over the bye week, during which Drinkwitz said he saw players put their egos aside and start playing more for each other as they continue to build their culture as a program.
“Everybody’s got to be able to push in the same direction,” Drinkwitz said. “When you have the best teams, you sacrifice a little bit of your individuality and you sacrifice a little bit of your ego and you realize it’s not about you, it’s about what we can accomplish together. And I think it took a little bit of humbling for our football team and our football program to get to the point where we got to do it together, we can’t do it by ourselves.”
Though preseason hopes of competing towards the top of the SEC East were no longer within reach, the team set its sights on reaching the postseason.
When running back Tyler Badie was asked about moving up the program’s single-season rushing list following the win over South Carolina two weeks ago, a bowl game was the only thing he was focused on. And he wanted to do it for one of the guys who blocks for him every Saturday.
“Right now, you know, Mike Maietti [is] like 35 years old, never made it to a bowl game yet,” said Badie, known for his sense of humor. “So my biggest thing is just to get him to a bowl game so he can enjoy the experience.”
Though it remains to be seen who it will be against or where it will take place, Maietti will finally get that bowl game experience this season, thanks to the team’s turnaround.
“Mike was pumped,” offensive lineman Javon Foster said of Maietti’s reaction after the game. “He was excited to finally be able to get a bowl game. And we were all glad to give it to him. That’s what we were fighting all four quarters for that game and we were fighting to get our seniors another chance at a bowl game.”
Locked in to go bowling, the Tigers now have a chance to end the regular season with a winning record and bragging rights in the Battle Line rivalry game at Arkansas, which kicks off at 2:30 p.m. Friday.
