Eli Drinkwitz jokes about defensive gameplan vs. Alabama: ‘We’re going to try Dan Lanning’s approach and play 12’

The Missouri Tigers are gearing up for a challenge against the Alabama Crimson Tide and, ahead of that challenge, Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz joked about how the Tigers are going to put together a defensive gameplan for the game.

Drinkwitz pulled his defensive gameplan from a recent move by Oregon head coach Dan Lanning, who stopped Ohio State in their game by playing 12 players at one point to manipulate the clock, and shared that he might take a similar approach to stopping Alabama.

“We’re gonna try Dan Lanning’s approach and play 12,” Eli Drinkwitz joked. “Just see. Add an extra rusher. See if anybody notices.”

On the play late in the Oregon-Ohio State game, the Ducks had 12-men on the field to stop a pass. In doing so, they gave up five penalty yards but the clock didn’t reset and Ohio State lost valuable time on the play. In that way, Lanning was able to manipulate the clock.

While that strategy could create problems for Drinkwitz given that the NCAA has since pushed to close the loophole in the 12-men penalty that Lanning took advantage of. So, even in the rare circumstances it could help, that won’t be the case anymore. So, instead, Missouri is going to need to focus on what they do defensively.

“We’re going to go play football,” Drinkwitz said. “There’s no magic to it. It’s not like we’re gonna come up with new schemes. We’re gonna do what we do and they’re gonna do what they do and we’re gonna have a great practice today.”

This Missouri defense has been excellent this season. The Tigers are 10th in the country in scoring defense, giving up just 15.6 points per game. For their part, the Alabama Crimson Tide enter the game against Missouri as the 19th-ranked team in the country in scoring offense. They’re averaging 38.1 per points game this season. So, it should be a good battle between the two units.

In recent weeks, Alabama has gone through some struggles, losing two out of three games. That’s included some issues on the offensive side of the ball, in particular with turnovers. In fact, in the last two games, Alabama has turned the ball over four times.

Missouri and Alabama are set to kickoff at 3:30 p.m. EST in Tuscaloosa on Saturday. It’s a game that comes with some massive College Football Playoff implications, as the Crimson Tide already have two losses, and the Tigers already have one loss on the season.