Eli Drinkwitz addresses challenge of rebounding from Texas A&M loss

Missouri took a licking from Texas A&M over the weekend, losing 41-10 in a game that was never really competitive. And head coach Eli Drinkwitz knows that bouncing back from that loss — and that feeling — is key.

Speaking with reporters ahead of Missouri’s Week 7 contest, Drinkwitz explained that the hardest moment is first addressing the team in the locker room after the game. But from there, he said, things have gone as he’d hoped as the Tigers look to right the ship.

“It’s always really tough in the locker room after a game, because you come face to face with something that you never expect,” Drinkwitz said. “You don’t go into a game expecting that. And you really don’t go into a game expecting the way it turned out. And so the locker room’s always a really tough place.

“But what gives me a lot of confidence in our football and our staff is the way we handled ourselves after the game. There wasn’t finger pointing. There was not assigning blame. There was no — we call it BCD: Blame, complain or defend poor performance. There was a responsibility and an accepting of, ‘Hey, I had ownership in this and it starts with me.’ And we’ve gotta work to improve and that’s how you bounce back. That’s how you ignore the noise. You don’t deflect, you don’t place blame on anybody else, you take responsibility for it.”

Drinkwitz also addressed the need to be able to bounce back more effectively in-game.

He didn’t think his team lacked for effort in trying to do that against the Aggies. But the plays that could’ve helped the Tigers climb back in to the game just didn’t get made.

“I didn’t see anything on the film that told me we had a lack of effort and I’m keenly aware to look for that, because that would tell me that there’s a deeper issue,” Drinkwitz said. “We did not respond on either side of the ball with making the plays that we needed to, which again goes back to did we put those guys in the right situations on offense or defense? Which is my responsibility. And we just weren’t able to land that counterpunch. I thought we did, obviously, but it got taken off the board. And, again, we have to respond in a better manner. I think we all see that, recognize that, take responsibility for that.”