Missouri Tigers College Football Pregame Quote, 09/02/2025

DRINK: “First, I just want to acknowledge the passing of a friend and Mizzou — I don’t even have the words to describe him. But Thursday after the game, I received that news, and it was difficult to move on in the press conference because of how much Ben (Arnet) meant to so many people, including myself. He was a great man, a great True Son, and somebody that I know everybody in this room will miss greatly. It seems inappropriate to just move on, but Ben would know that there’s a story to tell. Our story’s not finished yet. We’ll keep his family and friends in our thoughts and prayers and tell the story of Mizzou just like he would.

“Wanted to recap our performance on Thursday night. First thing I want to say is how much I appreciate our fans. What an awesome way to sell out and start the season. The environment was tremendous. The students were loud. They were early, and that student section was rocking.

“I can’t thank the administration enough for the new lights. I think the new lights and the ability to create an atmosphere was tremendous. I think the construction workers stole the show from their seats, and then the suites and made people jealous, which was awesome. I think the construction’s just a continued sign of our commitment to growing and developing as a program. I know there were some hiccups there with the concourse and all that stuff, and I know our athletic department is working really really hard to fix it. But I know we’re looking forward to another Saturday in Faurot and continuing the things that our fan base has built.

“On tape, I liked a lot. There were a lot of things to be proud of, but more importantly, there is so much to correct, and so many things that we can improve on, starting with myself, our coaching staff, and then trickling down to our players, top to bottom. That’s really the name of the game, improvement. It doesn’t matter how good you are right now, it’s, how much better can you be? And can you close that gap? That’s what we’re looking for this week, is to close that gap of becoming the best team that we can be.

“So there’s a lot of things to improve on: offensively, at the line of scrimmage, ball security in the pocket, blocking on the perimeter, protections with the tailbacks; defensively, tackling in space, setting the edge, not getting washed in the interior, having better space in coverage in the secondary; and on special teams, being more physical and having fewer penalties that set us back. Tons of stuff to improve on, and that’s what we’re focusing on this week.

“From an injury standpoint, you love the game of football, and you hate it. You absolutely hate injuries in which there was a way that they were not part of it, but they are. Sam has an injury that’s going to keep him out for an extended period of time. I’m not going to get into specifics but he will be out. I don’t know how long yet, but he will miss an extended period of time. Blake tore his ACL. He had surgery to repair it this morning. There was a slight hope that it wasn’t quite as bad, but he has a full tear repaired this morning. He’s on his way to recovery, but he will miss the remainder of the season.

“What that means moving forward, we’ve actually added Ryder Goodwin to our football team and roster. He was a junior-college transfer. He joined us yesterday, fully cleared, and practiced with the team yesterday. We also added Brett Brown, a former walk-on quarterback. He actually played in the spring game. He was the second quarterback two years ago. Brett is back. He practiced with the team yesterday. Fortunate for us, we had the space in our 105 and made the corrections that we needed to make and had the ability to get these guys onto our team, and we did that.

“Field goals moving forward will be Robby Meyer, place-kicking will be Oliver Robbins, and Ryder will compete to see where he’s at as quickly as possible, but he did kick with our field-goal unit yesterday. We’re excited that we were able to get him.

“Onto this week’s game, obviously it’s an important game to a lot of people, and our team is fully aware of the importance of this game to our fans, the state, what it represents nationally, and what it represents in a historical significance. We’ve embraced it, we understand it, we’ve taught about it, we’ve made sure our team knows about it, we’ve had guest speakers.

“I’ll say this, I have a lot of respect for coach Lance Leipold, what he’s done, and the job that he’s done. He’s a national championship coach. He’s gone to two other previous programs and transformed them into winning programs, and you can see, with what he’s done in a short amount of time at Kansas, what a terrific coach he is, and his entire staff. They’ve got some really good players. They did an excellent job rebuilding the roster from last year.

“I think their quarterback is a terrific player. He’s back to his former self. I think maybe two years ago, going into the preseason, he was number two in the preseason Heisman rankings. He’s returned to that form, in my opinion. He’s got some weapons. Emmanuel Henderson and (Cam) Pickett, I think both of those guys are elite wide receivers. Henderson has great speed, catches the ball, is really difficult to tackle, was a high school running back. Pickett, they use him a lot of different ways. I think he’s scored three touchdowns in two games, so they know how to get him the ball.

“Defensively, Dean Miller, Justice Finkley, Trey Lathan, Lyrik Rawls, D.J. Withers, all these guys are disruptive. I think their defensive line is the strength of their football team, between Dean Miller, Justice Finkley, and D.J., I think they do as good a job as anybody rushing the passer. They’ve got great length. They chase the ball. Trey Lathan is a transfer from West Virginia. He does a really good job playing linebacker. He’s a guy we looked at in the portal. He’s a physical player and runs really well. Lyrik Rawls, the safety, he had the interception against Fresno (State). He does a lot for them. They do a lot with their defensive scheme. They have four-down, they have three-safety, they have bear, they have six-man fronts. They’re very disruptive.

“I think the team is very well-coached, very disciplined in how they play, and will certainly be a challenge for our program and our team because of what they do. We’ve got our hands full between understanding the rivalry and the intensity of the game, and understanding that the game has to be played on the field. We’ve got a lot of work to do.

“With that, I’ll open it up for questions.”

Eli, what did you understand about this rivalry before you took the job? How long did it take you to gain an understanding of what it is?

Drink: “I obviously understood the rivalry. You go back to probably the two biggest games, in ’07 and ’08, and I remember watching those games on TV. I wasn’t in college coaching at that point. I was still a high school coach. I remember coach (Mark) Mangino and his ability to turn that program around, and obviously had a tremendous amount of respect for coach (Gary) Pinkel because Ashton Glaser was on the roster.

“So I was aware of what it was all about, and taking the job, I understood its importance. I’ve been to the home basketball games when we’ve hosted KU. I understand it, and our team and guys understand the importance of it.”

Coach, you’ve mentioned previously that you’ve brought in guest speakers to talk to the team about this game. Andy Hill was one of them. What were some of the key points they mentioned and told the team?

Drink: “We did a lot of different things talking about it. We’ve talked about the historical significance and context of the game. We talk about what it was like for him, both as a player and a coach. But really, those things, I didn’t ask him if he was OK with me sharing what he said to the team. It just needs to be know that we understand what it’s about.”

What do you want to make sure that the players understand about the rivalry as you get ready for this week?

Drink: “It means a lot to a lot of people. It’s a privilege to wear the Mizzou on your chest, and when you wear Mizzou, you’re representing the 6 million people in this state, and that’s just currently. There’s also past and present. We’re Team 136. There’s a lot of importance, and this is our chance to write our part of the story. We’re going to continue to play this game, so it’s just one part of it, but it’s an important part.”

You have your other rivalries within the SEC and otherwise, but when you think about a game with this history, is it part of the fabric of what makes college sports what it is? Do you see it that way?

Drink: “I think anything that stirs the passion of your fan base is important, especially when you’re asking fans to do so much. We ask our fans to do so much from a financial contribution, from a time contribution, from an engagement contribution. So anytime you get a chance to stir their passion for bragging rights and whatever other rights might be on the line with this game, I think it’s important that your team’s ready to play.”

Coach, you’ve mentioned the importance of this rivalry, but who have you leaned on and what have you learned about what it’ll be like to coach in this game?

Drink: “I would just say, the biggest thing I’m telling my team, you have to understand it, but once the ball is kicked, you have to play the game. You have to play the game with execution, fundamentals, and technique. The most important thing for us, right now, is to improve from last week’s performance, technically, fundamentally, and execution wise. So going back to, like, have I asked about coaching in this game — we’ve coached in rivalry games before, we’ve been a part of rivalry games before, so I think we have an understanding of what the intensity is going to be, but there’s been no certain schematic thing we have to do because it’s a rivalry game. You just have to stay calm, stay present, and just coach the game.”

Is there anything you do differently the rest of this week or on game day to help players get into that state, where they can channel the intensity?

Drink: “No. We’ve done all that. Now it’s about execution. I think there’s a fine line between over-hyping and getting so emotional that we don’t have poise or control. You want to have an energy, but you don’t want to be emotional. We want to have great positive energy and be excited to play, and I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. I think our players are going to be excited about Faurot Field being sold out. I think they’re going to be excited about playing a quality opponent and testing where they’re at as a team. I don’t know that on game day — like I tell the team all the time, the pregame speech isn’t going to execute in the fourth quarter. It’s all good for SEC Now and to put it out there and the mini movie is going to capture it, but at the end of the day, man, in a two-minute drive, on a swing eight, or a money down, ain’t nobody thinking about, ‘Man, coach Drink said this,’ or ‘This guest speaker said this.'”

On Thursday night, you weren’t quite ready to talk about Matt (Zollers) being the backup quarterback, but how do you feel about his readiness and what you’ve seen out of him for the last 7-8 months?

Drink: “A lot of confidence in Matt, especially after going in and performing the way he did (last Thursday). I thought he handled it pretty well. I think our staff has done a really good job of growing Matt while also allowing Beau (Pribula) and Sam (Horn) to compete for the job, and we really didn’t hinder his reps or performance while we were doing that. We were actually very cognizant in fall camp, during the summer, walk throughs, and during spring to make sure he was growing and developing. Make no mistake about it, Matt Zollers is the future for us at that quarterback position, so we knew he needed to continue to grow and develop. I think the maturity question, that’s what I actually spoke to him about maybe a week ago, then brought him in to talk about it again this week. There’s got to be a maturity and growth now. He’s no longer a freshman who’s just having a good time and going out — of course, he wouldn’t go out to Harpo’s because he’s underage — but now he’s focused on what he’s got to do in order to be prepared, because at any point, he could go into the game.”

Beau was talking about after the game his running style and how he’s always wanted to embrace contact as a runner. With Sam being out for an extended period of time now, do you think that style has to change?

Drink: “Beau’s going to be Beau. I don’t need Beau to change anything. You can’t control injuries. You can’t be afraid of them. Whatever makes Beau the best quarterback he can be, that’s what Beau has to be. That’s what he’s going to do. I mean, is he going to have an opportunity to get out of bounds? Sure. Would we love for him to do that? Absolutely. Will we ask him to? Correct. But Beau’s going to be Beau. I don’t want him thinking. I want him doing. I want him playing.”

Eli, with Robert, what stood out about him as a prospect and what are the challenges for a true freshman kicker to be able to step in there?

Drink: “Well, one, he’s got a great leg. It’s just confidence and understanding conditions, right? He’s always been able to kick. He just has to have confidence that he can do it in front of a sold-out crowd, which is always a nervous thing to do, and then conditions change, so being able to adapt to wind, cold, humidity, dampness, all those things that affect a kicker and the ball flight. Those are things he’ll have to adjust to as we continue to practice.”

Eli, I’m curious, throughout the game, how do you feel like your offensive line progressed?

Drink: “First drive obviously was very good. I don’t know if it was the second or third drive, but we had a couple of issues. One was a communication issue on the slide. We thought we were on the slide side but we weren’t. Then one, we just got beat. Look, first time to ever play left tackle here, that’s going to be part of the growth process, but I was more concerned with the interior movement that we weren’t able to get. There was a fourth down where we didn’t get the movement that we needed in the A-gap and we weren’t able to secure the backside of the outside zone the way we need to in order for that play to be effective. That was more concerning to me than the pass pro. I vividly remember, two years ago, against Middle Tennessee, Javon Foster giving up a sack on a third down that was pretty poor. He was a daggum good player, a draft pick, and I think he’s with the Bengals now. That’s part of it. We’ll get better. We’ll grow. We’ll develop there. Like I said in my statement, the entire focus between Week 1 and Week 2 is improvement, it’s identifying mistakes and weaknesses, and knowing exactly where you’re at against true competition and figuring out how much better you have to be. That’s the name of the game at this point.”

Can you share with us a few of the other speakers, or how many speakers you had some in and talk about the rivalry?

Drink: “We had several. I don’t think it’s necessarily important. I didn’t necessarily ask those guys if that was OK for me to put out, that they were here and spoke about it. The point of it is not what they said, the point is to make sure that our fan base and our players understand the significance historically, we understand the importance, we’re not overlooking or undervaluing this game, we know it’s an important thing to our team. But during the week is not when you get it going. During the week is when you focus on the execution of your assignments, because you don’t want to be emotional, you want to execute. We got all of that out of the way.

“We understand. We know there’s a trophy for it at the end of the game. Our goal every year is to win our trophy games. This is a week where we have a trophy on the line, a tangible thing that you’re playing for. In college football, you don’t always have that after a game. Sometimes you just have an attaboy. There ain’t no attaboy after this one. There’s a daggum war drum and several other stuff out there. If you win it, you get it. If you don’t, you don’t. If you’re a competitor and there’s something on the line — I don’t care if you’re playing against a buddy at home in one-on-one — if there’s a Diet Coke on the line, you want to stinkin’ win, because it’s painful if you don’t.

“Our guys understand it. That ain’t the issue. The issue is, are we going to be able to execute? Are we going to be so focused on the crowd doing this that we forget about that? It’s about hands inside. It’s about executing your assignments. It’s about having eyes on your keys. It’s about communicating the formation adjustments. It’s about, offensively, making sure that we’re all on the same page on identifying the fronts that they’re going to be in. That’s going to be way more important than a guest speaker that told us about 1854 or 1960.”

Because of the kicking news, how does the offensive play-calling change?

Drink: “It doesn’t. It doesn’t change. We’re going to play the game. Robby can kick. I’m not going into it thinking he’s not going to be able to do something that I know he can do and that he’s shown me in practice. Now, do we have to adjust after we see things? We’ll figure that out, but I’m not putting limitations on players going into it. He’s practiced. He’s performed. He’s kicked in big moments in fall camp. Again, I hate injuries. They stink. I hate that. But there’s a lot of players on our team, that are all scholarship players, that have opportunities to come in here and perform. That’s why they’re here. It’s not like we’re having open tryouts because we don’t have anybody else on the roster that’s never kicked. We just went and signed someone from junior-college.”

What’s the respect you have to show Jalon Daniels as a passer and trying to get pressure on him, but also with his ability to scramble?

Drink: “That’s the conundrum you’re put in with him. He’s played a lot of football. He’s seen a lot of different things. There’s not a lot of things that you’re going to do that’ll confuse him. He’s an excellent thrower of the football. They do a really good job of moving the pocket, which I think is very subtle but really helps him because he’s already moving, so then if he decides to take off running, he’s already got momentum. When he’s in the pocket, you really have to work to constrict the pocket, but you have to stay in your rush lanes. We’ve played several of these styles of quarterbacks before. In the SEC, that’s becoming more and more popular, but we’ve never played anyone like him or anyone as good as him. He’s a really, really dynamic, good player.

“The toughest thing about a quarterback is a quarterback with maturity and experience because they don’t get rattled. You look around college football this past weekend, it’s guys who maybe haven’t seen it before that have a little bit more growth. This guy’s been through the highs and lows of college football. He’s not going to be distraught about going on the road. He’s not going to be distraught about playing a good defense. He’s played SEC defenses before. We’re just going to have to do a really good job of tackling, we’re going to have to do a great job of covering, because at the end of the day, if his wide receivers are open, he’s going to throw it to them.”

Coach, what does your offensive line have to do to stop guys like Dean Miller and D.J. Withers?

Drink: “We have to focus on our technique and fundamentals. Those guys — Dean Miller’s really tall. He’s got burst off the edge. His length is a problem because in his one arm stab, he’s able to get on you before you can punch, and if he’s able to get that one arm stab going, now he’s got counter moves off of it. I think D.J. Withers is a very explosive, twitchy. He’s got a little bit more bull rush, in my opinion, to him. He’s excellent at pursuing the football, and even if you are able to sit down his bull rush, his secondary move I think is really good. Our guys are going to have to understand it’s not just a one-punch fight. You’re going to have to stay in a good, proper position, you’re going to have to work to counter move, and you’re going to have to make sure you have to great balance. It’s going to be a challenge, for sure. Those guys can play.”