No. 20 Mizzou football looks to avoid ‘relief syndrome’ in final non-conference clash
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
After a difficult and physical week in Southeastern Conference action, a non-conference game could be a bit more relaxing for Mizzou football coaches and players, right? Wrong.
That's the very mentality that Tiger head coach Eli Drinkwitz is hoping to combat with not only his team, but the fan base heading into Saturday's homecoming game against 0-3 UMass.
"The biggest challenge for team, staff, fans, community and the University of Missouri is not to have relief syndrome, right? To think because we won an SEC game, that we're going to step out of conference, that you would decline in intensity or loss of focus or complacency. That really, for us, is the challenge. Instead, we need to work to improve our process. You see when guys lose, they tweet out 'back in the lab.' We need to be back to the lab after we win. We need to be back to the process after we perform," Drinkwitz said. "You've heard it said before that more people die on the descent of Everest than do on the ascent to Everest. That's because there's a lack of focus and concentration once they reach the summit. By no means are we at the summit, we're just a few short steps into the climb."
You can watch the full press conference with Coach Drinkwitz in the video player below.
There's one clear are a that the Tigers would like to see improvement in: the secondary. In Saturday's nine-point win over South Carolina in the SEC opener, all of the Gamecocks yards came through the air. After limiting SC to an abysmal -9 rushing yards, Mizzou proceeded to allow preseason All-SEC quarterback LaNorris Sellers to throw for 302 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
A lot of those yards came off of explosive plays in critical moments, as Sellers longest throw was for a 49-yard touchdown to take the lead in the second quarter.
"The main thing is bad eyes in our zone coverage. You know, the touchdown we gave up on third and 15, obviously first off you can't jump offsides and then you get into a reaction of play in the play. We should have been in a version of cover two, that was our original call. Our safety on that on the divide, never got off and left Toriano [Pride] in a vulnerable position. So, that's one we can't jump offsides on third and 15 and give a team a free play," Drinkwitz said. "Two, we gotta play the play once the ball is snapped...The wheel route on the naked, we were in cover two. We didn't have a holistic understanding of who was covering the sit route, so our divide safety one and two crossed him. He saw one open, so he thought he needed to cover that, didn't expand his vision and left the wheel route open. You know, that's both the player and the coaches responsibility. You got to understand the whole part whole. He understood the part, but didn't understand the whole and that's on teaching...I think the challenge for us is we have a lot of volume and we need to eliminate some volume and get good at what we do. We don't have to be the best at everything. We have to be the best at what we do and right now we're trying to be a jack of all trades and master to none. That's got to get cleaned up."
Tiger safety Daylan Carnell mimicked his head coach's diagnosis of went went wrong against the Gamecocks. He said a lot of it comes down to communication and getting each player on the field on the same page. The captain added that there is a clear emphasis that that needs to get fixed quickly.
When asked about one of the major problems being 'bad eyes,' Carnell said that's just guys getting greedy with their eyes and doing things that aren't necessarily their jobs.
"Just trying to really do things that's really not their play," he said. "So, getting that cleaned up. We talked about it yesterday and Sunday, so it'll get cleaned up there."
You can watch the full press conference with Carnell in the video player below.
On the flip side, the Mizzou defense, once again, had a tremendous amount of success stopping the run, on Saturday.
Defensive coordinator Corey Batoon's unit limited South Carolina to -9 rushing yards, which is the fewest that the Tigers have allowed in an SEC game since joining the conference in 2012. Linebacker Josiah Trotter said that that success comes down to guys sticking to their jobs.
"You know, guys just being playmakers," he said. "Sometimes you just gotta have a guy just whip another dude, so that's what it comes down to in the run game, just playing with physicality I feel like that's the biggest thing right now."
You can watch the full press conference with Trotter in the video player below.
However, Mizzou's real bread and butter through the first four weeks has been its own run game. The Tigers have a one-two punch with running backs Ahmad Hardy and Jamal Roberts, who have combined for 902 yards through four games.
Hardy has stolen the show, as the nation is buzzing about his ability to break tackles and rip off big runs at a moment's notice. His 600 yards on the ground ranks No. 2 in the nation and No. 1 in the conference.
In Saturday's win against the Gamecocks, the sophomore running back rushed 22 times for 138 yards, making him just the second tTiger in program history to run for 100 yards in four-straight games.
"Teams are scared. Teams are really scared. They're more scared of our run game than anything," wide receiver Marquis Johnson said. "When I go to block [defenders], I'm blocking them the whole team and then during the play like Ahmad will have the ball and they're like 'oh my god, can someone please tackle him, someone tackle him, please.' It's funny because I'm just sitting there thinking like, you know, they're not tackling him."
You can watch the full press conference with Johnson in the video player below.
Although the playmakers tend to get all of the glory for those explosive runs, they couldn't happen without the play of MU's offensive line through the first four weeks. After a rough outing in week one, the unit has continually focused on growing their communication.
Specifically, after the season-opening win against Central Arkansas. Coach Drinkwitz harped on the line's difficulty in allowing free rushers, which is something they've managed to clean up.
"I think every week we continue to get better because if you get beat on something in week one, teams could do it the next week to try to get you the same way," offensive tackle Keagan Trost said. "We do a lot of blitz pickup and just really getting on the same page and communicating. If you see something, make sure that everyone's on the same page."
Mizzou will look to continue seeing growth in game five of the season versus UMass. Kickoff is slated for 6:30 p.m. on Saturday.
