Mizzou prepares for first Top-15 showdown at Faurot Field in nearly 50 years

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

For the first time since 1979, the Mizzou football team is preparing for a Top-15 clash at Faurot Field. The No. 14 Tigers (5-0) will host No. 8 Alabama (4-1) in a game that will undoubtedly have College Football Playoff implications, on Saturday.

Although the Tigers come into the matchup in a five-game winning streak, MU has not beaten the Tide since 1975, as Mizzou will look for its first win over Alabama in its SEC era.

The good news? Head coach Eli Drinkwitz and company will come into that game mostly healthy. The biggest thing to watch will be the status of left tackle Cayden Green, who Coach Drink said will be listed as questionable this week. He added that the team will know more about whether Green will ready for action at the end of the week, after he missed both the South Carolina and UMass games following a minor surgery on his foot.

Over the course of the bye week, Coach Eli said his team focused on three goals: sharpening their edge, improvement and recovery. Although having two weeks to prepare for any game is always a good thing, teams do have to battle against rust coming off of a week off.

"Doing good-on-good, which we did quite a bit in the bye week and we did yesterday, we'll do it today and we'll do it tomorrow, so the speed of the game stays the same and the speed of decisions, the intensity," Drinkwitz said. "I mean, there's a fine line between recovery and, you know...we have a saying that we want to be tough, but we don't want to be dumb tough. So, it's trying to walk that line of not being dumb tough. Fresh horses run fast races, so we got to make sure our guys are ready for what lies ahead with this next seven-game SEC schedule. We can't beat them up in practice."

You can watch the full press conference with Drinkwitz in the video player below.

Coach Drinkwitz said that Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer has his team playing at an extremely high level right now, following that season-opening loss at the hands of Florida State.

However, the Tigers aren't basing all of their game planning solely off of the success that the Seminoles found against the Crimson Tide. Drinkwitz said over the course of the bye week he and his staff looked at every game that DeBoer and company have played, even dating back to last season.

"Starting with us and how they tried to defend us and did an excellent job," Coach Eli said. "Then, you look to see if there's common themes that people have tried to exploit. Obviously, Coach [Gus] Malzahn has his own type of system in place, which creates a little bit of challenges to try to replicate what he did. But, I think the biggest thing is to watch the jump from week one to weeks two, three four. They're really not even the same team, the way they played versus Wisconsin, Georgia and Vanderbilt, in comparison to week one."

Mizzou spoke highly of Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson, who leads the Southeastern Conference with 1,478 yards this season. He ranks second in the conference in passing touchdowns (13), third in completion percentage (70.3) and third in average yards per throw (9.4).

Simpson has quite a few weapons to choose from, too, including wide receivers Germie Bernard and Ryan Williams. Bernard is fifth in the conference with 392 yards on the year, while Williams is not far behind with 336 receiving yards.

The secondary, an area which Alabama loves to attack, has been an area of concern for MU football through the first five games. Of the 1,019 total yards of offense Mizzou has given up, 70 percent has come through the air.

"You know, improving in our zone cover. We've given up a lot of explosive passes in some of our zone stuff, so trying to make improvements to, you know, our zone distribution. Then, you know, we've had really too many penalties in the back end, too, so trying to get better at not utilizing our hands in inappropriate ways," Drinkwitz said.

One of the biggest things that Mizzou has said the safeties have been working on is eye discipline. Veteran Jalen Catalon said it's comes down to a pretty simple fix.

"If it's your man, focus on your man," he said. "If he's playing, you know, vision, focus on the vision that you have to have on whether it's this guy or that guy. That's the main thing."

You can watch the full press conference with Catalon, as well as defensive end Zion Young in the video players below.

One of Alabama's main focuses will be slowing down the one-two punch that the Tigers have utilized in the backfield. Between running backs Ahmad Hardy and Jamal Roberts, Mizzou has been terrorizing opposing defense.

Hardy, specifically, has been hard for guys to wrap up. In fact, he not only leads the nation in rushing yards, but also in yards after contact. Although he knows that from here on out, teams will be game-planning to stop him, specifically, he isn't changing his mindset.

"There's really nothing to prepare for," Hardy said. "We just do what we do. I mean, we prepare for what we do every week to execute, to come ready to play. This is what we do."

You can watch the full press conference with Hardy in the video player below.

There's been a ton of focus on Mizzou's success in the run game this season, but the Crimson Tide won't look past the talent Coach Drinkwitz has found in quarterback Beau Pribula. The Penn State transfer has the fourth-best completion percentage (75.9) in the country and the seventh-most yards (1,203) in the conference.

Pribula said after looking through the tape during the bye week, he feels like he's had a solid start to the season, but always sees areas that need improvement. One of those areas is his three-game interception streak that he will look to snap against the Crimson Tide.

"I think it's just being consistent in my decision-making," Pribula said. "Each interception kind of has it's own story, you know. It could be a different thing each team. Whether it's just a bad decision or putting myself in a bad decision...so it's just kind of seeing why they happen and then just fixing the different areas of why they would happen."

You can watch the full press conference with Pribula in the video player below.

During Tuesday's weekly press conference with the team, Coach Drinkwitz pointed to that mentality that Pribula comes in with each and every day. He said that he's one of the most coachable quarterbacks that he's ever been around.

The graduate student said that all stems from him wanting to be the best leader of this offense that he can be.

"I always want to get better. Even after a great performance, I'm my own biggest critic. I always look at the things I need to improve. That's just the inner drive of wanting to be the best version of myself," Pribula said.

No. 14 Mizzou and No. 8 Alabama will kickoff at 11 a.m. on Saturday at Memorial Stadium in Columbia.