The SEC made a change to its roughing-the-kicker rule after last season, and the change was largely due to a call that cost Missouri a win last season.

Down 4-points to Kentucky late in the 4th quarter, the Wildcats mishandled a snap. When Kentucky’s punter tracked down the ball and tried to get a clean punt off, he was tackled, but roughing the kicker was called and Kentucky got a first down and was able to run out the clock.

The new rule stated that officials will no longer call roughing-the-kicker or running-into-the-kicker if contact is made more than 5 yards from where the kicker was originally standing.

Ahead of the meeting between Missouri and Kentucky, Eli Drinkwitz was asked his thoughts on the rule change. He explained his thoughts and the process behind the rule change. Drinkwitz also said that despite the call in last year’s game, Missouri had other opportunities to win.

“I think it was obvious that the judgement there needs to be changed, if somebody was going to misinterpret or misjudge that,” Drinkwitz said during the SEC coaches teleconference Wednesday. “I was at the National Football Foundation dinner where Steve Shaw came up to me and said, yeah, they were going to have to make a change, because that was clearly not the intent of the rule. So if it’s for the betterment of the game, great. At the end of the day, that’s not what costs us. If the result of the play wasn’t a touchdown, we still would’ve had to go score, and there was plenty of opportunities for us to win that game outside of that play. So again, that didn’t dictate the outcome of the game. The fact that we were so porous on offense in the first half, 2 turnovers, ultimately, that’s what decided the game.”

Drinkwitz is hoping for better results against the Wildcats this season. Missouri has been solid through 6 games, taking its first loss to LSU last weekend.