No. 23 Mizzou kicks off back-half of season with trophy game against Arkansas

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Over the course of a much-needed bye week, Mizzou football coach Eli Drinkwitz stressed two things to his team: urgency and accountability. Those will be two crucial ingredients in the No. 23 Tigers' hopes of making a strong push in the back half of the 2026 campaign.

Despite going into the bye week off of a 28-point loss to a Top-10 Ole Miss team, there's still a lot of opportunity that lies ahead of the Tiger football. The group sits at 5-2 on the season and has five games left on the docket, against Arkansas, No. 11 Texas, No. 3 Georgia, No. 9 Kentucky and Oklahoma.

After that loss in Oxford, Coach Drinkwitz said his team lost, but all is not lost, as there's still a lot of high-stakes football games to be played.

"We needed to be urgent," Drinkwitz said, when asked about how his team mentally reset during the bye week. "You know, an urgency is a movement with a purpose. We need to be urgent in proving as a team, as a group. And improvement for everybody was a lot of different things. Some people need to improve their health, some people need to improve their performance, some people need to improve their fundamentals, some coaches need to improve their coaching. You know, everybody had to have an urgency to accomplish what they needed to. And then there was accountability to each other, accountability to the Brotherhood, not to just identify it, but to fix it. We'll find out if we did. You know, that shows up on Saturday night. So, I liked the way our guys attacked the bye week. I thought that there was an urgency and intensity to what they needed to do. I thought yesterday's practice was good when we got back, but look, all that's just a bunch of talk. We've all figured out coaches, players, everybody's figured out how to talk to the media. The result is, you know, the measuring stick is how do you perform on Saturdays. And at the end of the day, that's what we got to do. Our performance last time was well short of what we know we're capable of doing and, you know, it doesn't have to define you as long as you learn from it and grow from it."

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

There were lots of things that Mizzou needed to improve upon, after that loss at Ole Miss, but immediately after the game Drinkwitz pointed to red zone efficiency as one of the bigger issues. In Oxford, MU went 1-for-3 in the red zone, putting points up with just one field goal from Blake Craig.

Through seven games, the Tigers have a 75 percent conversion rate in the red zone and a 50 percent touchdown rate, which ranks 117th in the nation.

"It's not good enough. I mean, obviously we're not scoring touchdowns at a high enough rate. We are somewhat predictable in the red zone and there's, you know, just the inefficiency to score points," Drinkwitz said. "You look at the reason why we've lost two games and it directly reflects in both sides of the ball, inefficiencies in the red zone. Defensively, inefficiency to get stops and third down stops in the red zone and offensively an inability to score red zone touchdowns. So, there's a lot of things we have to improve. It starts with coaching, it starts with the calls that we get in and goes all the way down to execution, and everybody's got a piece of ownership in that, and I think we're all trying to be better."

As Coach Drinkwitz noted, that responsibility to get better falls on each member of his team. In fact, each position group took time to self-scout during Mizzou's bye week.

Defensive end Daeden Hopkins said that his unit watched the film from the Ole Miss game and believed they could have done more as a pass rush. That's something they keyed in on in the bye, along with taking time to get healthy.

"We struggled, I'll say," Hopkins said, when asked about the pass rush at Ole Miss. "I didn't play near to the standard that I need to play to, but, you know, that's a part of it. You learn each and every day and you just got to take away, you know, what you did right, what you did wrong from that game and move on."

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

Punter Brunno Reus also had some areas that he wanted to focus on during the bye week. Through seven weeks, he's tallied 33 punts for 1,477 yards, which is good for a 44.8-yard average. He said he feels confident about the start to the year that he's had.

Reus really has had one 'bad' punt all year against Texas A&M, where he felt like something was off with his drop. He said he fixed through that game against the Aggies, but focused more on it in the bye week.

"The things I focused on was the drop on my punt. I feel like it was inconsistent throughout, after the three weeks. I feel like my nose was coming up and I tend to hit out of the side of my foot," he said. "With the special teams [as a whole], like field goal operation, we made sure everything was on point."

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

And for the offensive line, there was also a big emphasis on balancing getting healthy, but learning from how to Rebels were able to shut down running back Jamal Roberts in that match up, as well.

Ole Miss limited Mizzou to just 39 yards on 26 carries in the team's second loss of the season.

"We just got to stay on schedule. We just got to be able to run the ball and execute, all five of us doing our job and then having the bye week just to improve on stuff like that was really helpful," offensive lineman Tristan Wilson said. "[After watching the tape, it was] just communication and pad level. All five of us doing our job and just staying on page, staying on track and not getting behind the chains."

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

Wilson had played a key role in the overall success of MU's front five, this season, as he's in the midst of his first full season as a starter for his hometown team. The left guard has worked to help the Tigers average 438.2 yards of total offense per game this year, as well as about 35.8 points per game. Wilson has not allowed a sack in his first year as a starter and has just one QB hit and one hurry through 181 passing-block snaps, according to Mizzou Athletics.

The road to becoming a starter wasn't always easy, though. The Missouri native had to patiently wait for his turn to come, playing in just one game in his first two seasons. After that, his production went up in 2024 and 2025, working into 21 games as a reserve. And now, that patience has paid off.

"I'm from Lebanon, Missouri," he said. "Coming to Mizzou was a big, big thing for me because coming from a single-parent household and letting my mom come to every home game and being able to watch me, it was really important for me. And then, you know, just the locker room, just sticking around, just building relationship with these guys."

Wilson has been efficient in protecting Simmons from opposing defenses this season, as Mizzou's starting quarterback ranks No. 4 in the Southeastern Conference with an average of 253.2 yards per game through the air, as well as 14 touchdowns.

Simmons said the offense's focus during the bye week was just playing clean football and making sure they execute the plays that are handed to them, following that loss to his former school.

Now, for him and the rest of the team, the page has turned to a rivalry game against the 3-4 Arkansas Razorbacks. However, it's clear that Simmons, as well as the rest of the team, aren't taking any match up lightly. After all, the Tigers are looking to bolster their road SEC record, as they sit with an 0-2 mark through seven weeks.

"They are talented football team, they're in the SEC and this is a tough league we play in," Simmons said. "So, just make sure we go out there and execute our game plan. Go out there and win."

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

Now, as Coach Drinkwitz said, it's time to put all the talk of improvement and urgency to the test. The Tigers will meet Arkansas on Saturday, Oct. 31 at 6:45 p.m. in Fayetteville.