Eli Drinkwitz reflects on losing to Boston College in 2021, 'hard lesson' learned
Missouri is ranked No. 6 in the country. The Tigers shut out their first two opponents by a combined score of 89-0. They’re coming off an 11-win season that ended with their first-ever New Year’s Six bowl victory.
This is a high point for Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz. But as he prepares for a Bill O’Brien-led No. 24 Boston College squad this week, he reflected on a low point in his career. That came three years ago against BC in Chestnut Hill.
It started leading up to the game. Although he began a press conference remark by saying, “This is by no means any knock on Boston College,” and that the matchup would be a “tremendous test,” the always candid, and often-humorous, Drinkwitz gave his honest assessment of a trip to the Northeast to play BC early in the 2021 season.
“If I had my pick of it, I would love to play a regional matchup that was maybe more of a rivalry game,” Drinkwitz said at the time. “That would be maybe a little bit more exciting for recruits to watch from a TV perspective or, you know, maybe we’re playing in front of your family.
“I don’t know the last time Missouri signed a kid from the great state of Massachusetts. It’s been a while.”
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Although Drinkwitz tried to walk his comments back later in the week, the bulletin board material was already out there for BC, which always has a collection of Massachusetts players on its roster.
The Eagles ended up beating Missouri in overtime, 41-34. The game went back-and-forth, with the Tigers tying the score at the end of the regulation, thanks to a Harrison Mevis 56-yard field goal. But BC scored a touchdown in the extra frame and then immediately picked off Missouri.
The thrilling victory was followed by a field storming, as the Eagles had just beaten their first SEC visitor in 34 years and improved to 4-0 for the first time since 2007.
Jeff Hafley, BC’s head coach back then, began his press conference with a memorable one-liner: “It was a great day for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
Drinkwitz was in his second year as Missouri’s head coach at the time. The Tigers fell to 2-2 amid what turned out to be a 6-7 season.
“I just think at that moment, that game was hard for a lot of different reasons,” Drinkwitz said Tuesday. “I didn’t think we played particularly well. There was a lot of noise around that game for comments that were made by me. So I learned a hard lesson as a head coach there.
“And then obviously, the emotional swings of that game. We came back, tied it up. They scored in overtime, we throw a pick the first play. First time having to deal with a crowd rushing the field and trying to navigate your way off the field. So, a lot to it.”
While the Tigers won only six games in 2022 as well, they broke out under Drinkwitz last season. That breakout has carried over to 2024, as Missouri returned 82% of its offensive production from last year, good for 10th nationally, according to ESPN’s Bill Connelly. That group is headlined by quarterback Brady Cook and wide receiver Luther Burden III, of course.
Missouri’s in a much different, and better, spot than it was when the Tigers faced BC in 2021. So is Drinkwitz.
“No, I haven’t really thought about it,” he said Tuesday. “I try to definitely stay in the moment and understand that it’s a special thing to be at Faurot Field in a sold-out crowd, and I’ve actually acknowledged that to a couple of coaches who’ve been with us the whole time that are on the sideline, whether you’re talking about Coach Luper (running backs coach Curtis Luper) or Coach Smith (co-defensive coordinator/linebackers coach D.J. Smith) or Coach Link (special teams coordinator Erik Link), I’ve went up to them before the game and said, ‘Man, we’ve come a long way since we first got here.’
“But, I mean at the end of the day, Boston College is a really good football team. They were a really good football team in 2021. And so it’ll be a really difficult matchup for us. It’ll be a really good football game.”