RECAP: Mizzou walks away with exciting and disappointing takeaways from season opener

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Mizzou football coach Eli Drinkwitz walked away from his team's season-opening, 40-point win against Arkansas-Pine Bluff with mixed emotions, on Thursday night.

"It was was a perfect night for me to be able to be excited in the first half and really mad in the second half," he said.

On one hand, the first two quarters of the Tigers' 2026 season went about as good as anyone on the MU coaching staff could've hoped. Quarterback Austin Simmons looked sharp in his first start in more than 360 days, completing 89 percent of his passes for 252 yards and four touchdowns. As a whole, the offense racked up 376 yards in the first half, alone, and the defense held the Golden Lions to just six total yards of offense, which led to a 40-point lead for the Tigers at halftime.

"Obviously, it was an emphasis for us to be able to throw the ball," Drinkwitz said. "I felt like Austin really handled himself well, especially in third downs. We had multiple third and longs early with an inability to run the ball at the efficiency that we need to, but for him to be able to trust  the scheme, find the throws, wide receivers to get open was really good." 

However, after halftime, the energy shifted. In fact, there was a lack of energy on the field for Mizzou in the final two quarters, as Arkansas-Pine Bluff out-scored Coach Drinkwitz's team 7-0 in the third quarter and out-gained them, as a whole in the second half.

"Very disappointed in the third quarter, from an overall intensity standpoint, a coaching standpoint," Drinkwitz said.

After the game, the leader of the Tigers did not shy away from the fact that there were quite a few areas that needed to be cleaned up, including some undisciplined penalties that go against, what Drinkwitz said, is the standard of the program.

"I've got a lot of things to coach on, and I promise you the staff meeting tomorrow will not be a lot of fun when you have, you know, some of the mistakes that we made that is a hallmark of what we do not do in our program," he said. "You know, we don't have multiple numbers on the field. We don't run into kickers, we don't do that stuff. And so that was really disappointing for me." 

Mizzou will look to build on both the good and bad that came out of Thursday's season-opening win before taking on a team with a real pulse, on Friday, as the Tigers will make the trip to Lawrence, Kansas for rivalry action.

You can watch ABC 17 Sports Director Nathalie Jones' full recap of Thursday's Tiger win on SportsZone at 10:30 on KMIZ.