Eli Drinkwitz makes joke about Connor Stalions, figuring out Tennessee plays

Eli Drinkwitz couldn’t help himself. After Missouri’s convincing 36-7 win over Tennessee on Saturday, the Tigers’ head coach raved about his team’s defensive gameplan while tossing in a slight jab at Michigan’s ongoing scandal.

“We had some of their keys. Jake Olsen, one of our analysts, had identified a couple of tendencies that they had — not signals, not Connor Stalions,” Drinkwitz said with a smile. “But, we had identified a couple of things that we felt like were going to be crucial for us.

“Coach [Kevin Peoples] and Coach [DJ] Smith and Coach [Al] Davis had a really good plan. We went to a sub-package, three-down front, and we kind of chopped up their front a little bit.”

Drinkwitz and Co. did more than chop up Tennessee’s offense. They turned it into a fine powder. In the win, Missouri only allowed 350 yards while squeezing three turnovers out of the Volunteers.

Tennessee’s seven points were the least it has scored in a contest this season. For reference, the Volunteers tallied 20 points against a grueling Alabama defense. The blowout win was a taste of sweet revenge for the Tigers.

In the teams’ previous two meetings, Tennessee scored a combined 126 points against Missouri. Drinkwitz wasn’t about to allow history to repeat itself.

“Our team came out, we wanted to stand on business last night,” Drinkwitz said during his postgame interview with CBS’ Jenny Dell. “We had some unfinished business from last year. And we came out and took care of business… Great win. Our defense kicked their ass tonight.”

Missouri bounces back from grueling loss

The win is even more impressive considering the team lost an exhausting battle against Georgia in Week 10. In the loss, Missouri gave up 30 points and forced zero turnovers from the Bulldogs. Drinkwitz praised his team’s resiliency following the win.

“Can’t kill us. We’ve already been killed,” Drinkwitz said. “We’ve been at the bottom, I mean we were in hell last year, losing some of those games the way we did. They don’t get much worse than that. So this team just said that you can’t kill us. We’ll fight our way out and we’ll fight for each other.” 

With two capable SEC opponents left on their regular season schedule, the Tigers must continue to fight. On Saturday, Missouri will square off against Florida at 7:30 p.m. ET. The game will be broadcast on ESPN.