For momentous day in Columbia: ‘The past is the past, and the future is ours to take’
Cruel and unusual as 2020 has been, it also has served to concoct some intriguing scenarios. Consider what’s going to take place on Saturday at the University of Missouri:
For the first time in school history, MU research suggests, the football team and men’s basketball team will play host to top 10 opponents on the same day in Columbia.
In the “before time,” this would have made for a crackling and otherwise potentially momentous day on campus and around town.
“The whole city would be lit,” senior forward Mitchell Smith said, adding that he wishes “COVID wasn’t going on.”
The twist, of course, is that neither game would be going on just now if not for the scheduling jumble provoked by the pandemic.
MU football (25th in the College Football Playoff poll) was supposed to play Georgia (No. 9 CFP) last month, not at 11 a.m. Saturday at Faurot Field. On this date, MU basketball was supposed to at last be resuming its series with Kansas here in Kansas City … only to be playing sixth-ranked Illinois in the annual Braggin’ Rights series in Columbia for the first time since 1978 (with the help of a coin toss, no less, to determine which campus site in another COVID concession). The schools last played on one of their campuses in Champaign in 1979 and have been playing annually in St. Louis ever year since 1980, though the game wasn’t played at all in 1982.
St. Louis is where it belongs, MU coach Cuonzo Martin said.
But in this tilt-a-whirl type of year it’s better to embrace what you still can have than lament what you don’t get to do, isn’t it? And here’s what MU has in its grasp on this day: fertile opportunity for a perception-altering breakthrough victory, or two … without either being make-or-break situations.
Beat Illinois (4-1) for the third straight time in their series, and MU (4-0) surely will be ranked for the first time in the Martin era and since early 2014. But whatever the result, it’s evident that Martin’s fourth MU team is his best and embodies why Mizzou hired him.
In contrast to these uncertain times and conditions, the Tigers are emerging with a certain clarity and identity (and talent level) we haven’t seen come together for a while. A gritty, cohesive, versatile and veteran group (the oldest in the Southeastern Conference) has beaten perennial NCAA Tournament behemoth Oregon (in Omaha), won at Wichita State and beat a salty Liberty team that previously had beaten Mississippi State and South Carolina.
In short, so far it sure looks like this team is a tier better than 10th in the SEC as projected by the media. Martin has been named ESPN national coach of the week once, suggesting more accomplishments ahead both for the program and someone who’s proven over time to be one of the most astute and admirable men in the business.
Meanwhile, in just his second season as a head coach overall and first at MU, Eliah Drinkwitz already deserves accolades for how he’s animated a cast largely inherited from Barry Odom and asserted his own imprint on the program to have the team (5-3) winning five of its last six entering the game against Georgia (6-2).
Most compellingly, Drinkwitz’s ledger includes two chaotically dramatic late wins, 45-41 over defending national champion LSU and 50-48 last week against Arkansas, that could go a long way towards rewiring the mindset of a fan base haunted by such moments going the other way.
All with the pandemic clogging up any normal path towards installing a new system and his own culture … and even with it yet ever-lurking: In his news conference on Tuesday, Drinkwitz said MU had only 59 scholarship players available this week because of COVID-19, opt-outs and injuries.
Somehow or another through the mist and the muck, though, he’s set a template with a program picked to finish sixth in the SEC East. Instead, it has second place in reach with a win Saturday over a program thought to be simply entrenched above MU.
“The past is the past; it has nothing to do with your future if you learn from it,” he said. “So I’m not surrendering anything to anybody. If I (were) doing that, I wouldn’t have taken this job.”
All of which already is testimony to a case for SEC coach of the year, not to mention considerable currency toward fundraising for further facility growth in the never-ending space race of the SEC … and more credibility in the already successful recruiting messages.
That’s regardless of what happens against Georgia, really. But imagine the statement made if MU comes through against the Bulldogs, who beat MU 27-0 last season and are 8-1 against the Tigers with the sole blemish of Mizzou’s monumental 2013 win in Athens.
Certainly, it would resoundingly affirm what Drinkwitz tries to impress upon in-state recruits: “‘You don’t have to go elsewhere to be nationally recognized or to win championships.’”
Some already are fretting that Drinkwitz is on such a fast track to success that those very words could be applicable for him to heed in the not-too-distant future. That’s a column in itself if things keep shaping up the way they seem to be.
But any such prospect remains a long way from here.
And first things first.
A few days after the one-year anniversary of his hiring, Drinkwitz and his team have a chance to make a statement reminiscent of one of the quotes he likes to employ from legendary coach Bill Walsh:
“Champions behave like champions long before they’re champions,” Drinkwitz said. “They have a winning standard of performance before they’re crowned winners.”
So let the games begin on a day like no other in MU athletics history, a day that could go any number of ways but is there to be seized, too.
“The past is the past, and the future is ours to take,” said Drinkwitz, answering in the context of MU football’s place in the SEC ... but with implications for both games and beyond.
This story was originally published December 11, 2020 at 3:44 PM.