One of the reasons cited for Missouri firing coach Barry Odom last season was his losing streak against Kentucky, which reached five games after last year’s 29-7 result.

First-year coach Eli Drinkwitz is up to speed on streak.

“We absolutely understand that it’s been a while since we’ve beaten these guys,” Drinkwitz said, and added, “That gives us extra motivation.”

Coming off the big win over LSU and then an unscheduled off week following the Vanderbilt postponement, Drinkwitz said, “Football will humble you if you feel like you have ever arrived.”

Drinkwitz was asked about Kentucky coach Mark Stoops laying out a blueprint on how to win in the SEC, especially for a non-blue blood program like Alabama or Georgia.

“I think he’s done a tremendous job, their lines of scrimmages look like SEC teams,” Drinkwitz said. “There’s zero doubt about that. I don’t necessarily know that his blueprint is a whole lot different than the league. I think he does recruit in some unique areas. But they’ve got tremendous talent from the Florida area, they’ve always done a great job recruiting Florida and I know they’ve done some Ohio recruiting and some Michigan recruiting. But I think the consistency that he’s developed with what he does defensively, how their offense complements what they’re trying to do on both sides of the ball, I think that’s a sign of a consistent football coach, a fundamentally-sound football coach, a guy who knows exactly who he is, who he’s trying to be, and he’s not a gimmick guy, he’s not chasing fads. He’s just a good old-fashioned football coach who knows exactly what fundamentally sound football teams, got teams ready to play.”