Eli Drinkwitz explains disconcerting signals penalty on defense

The Missouri defense has had the unfortunate distinction of getting called multiple times this year for an infrequently called penalty: disconcerting signals.

The Tigers were penalized in a loss to the Georgia Bulldogs on Saturday on a drive that would ultimately result in the go-ahead score for the Bulldogs.

Coach Eli Drinkwitz attempted to break down the penalty this week during a news conference.

“Disconcerting signals means that the offense’s cadence is protected from the defense, right?” he explained. “So if your cadence is, ‘Set, hutt,” then the defensive players cannot say, ‘hutt.’ Well most people have a clap as a cadence now, so when you’re a defensive player and it’s loud and you’re trying to get the attention… so what happened was we were in the wrong front and (Ty’Ron Hopper) is trying to get the attention of the defensive line to shift the front.

“You can’t hear. You’re yelling but they can’t hear you, so what’s something that can get their attention. (Claps). Try to, ‘OK, why am I hearing that, why is someone clapping?’ I’m clapping and they go on the clap, that’s a disconcerting signal. So that’s what occurs.”

That’s exactly what occurred against Georgia, with the Bulldogs getting into their pre-snap cadence and quarterback Carson Beck also clapping just before he received the snap. As or just after he did so, Hopper clapped to try to get his defense lined up right.

Out came the flag.

It’s not the first time Missouri has been penalized for disconcerting signals this year; the team was twice penalized for it in a loss to LSU.

“We’ve talked to our guys about not clapping and giving it to the offense and allowing them to have that,” Drinkwitz said. “But I think in the heat of the moment when you’re trying to get somebody to move that’s not hearing you, there’s not a lot of other things you can do out there. If vocal cords aren’t enough, I don’t know that tapping on your helmet’s going to get it done either. So we’ve got to figure out a different way to maybe communicate. But it’s a challenge.”

While it might seem simple enough to avoid clapping, it’s harder to do in real time in the heat of the moment. And some offenses don’t actually use the clap as their protected signal.

That can make things even more difficult on the defense when it comes to avoiding disconcerting signals.

“You can only protect one. You can only have one,” Drinkwitz said. “So let’s just say that you give a verbal cadence to the O-line to let them know that, ‘Hey, we’re fixing to clap,’ so that the O-line’s not just sitting there the whole time like for 40 seconds with their hand on the ball like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s fixing to come.’ So maybe you say something like, ‘Ready,’ then they know after that the clap can come anytime. But if the other team says, ‘Ready,’ you can’t protect ready and the clap.

“So there’s some good gamesmanship going on right now.”