Eli Drinkwitz reflects on loss to Mississippi State, how Mizzou is preparing for Florida
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
Eli Drinkwitz and Mizzou suffered their first loss of the season in Week 4 as the Tigers fell to Mississippi State 31-24. Kamario Taylor passed for 360 yards and three touchdowns, and Fluff Bothwell ran for 122 yards as the Bulldogs upped their record to 4-0.
“The tale of the tape for us was a slow start and a slow finish,” Drinkwitz said. “In between, I thought the fight was tremendous. I thought the way our guys battled, stayed together was good. It just wasn’t good enough execution in the fourth quarter.”
That fourth quarter did the Tigers in. Taylor engineered a 14-play, 73-yard touchdown drive as the Bulldogs tied it at 24-all with seven minutes remaining. On their next possession, Mississippi State marched 85 yards in just five plays to take the lead for good with just under four minutes left.
“We had two miscommunications in the secondary off of motions that really allowed them to have explosive plays,” Eli Drinkwitz said. “Obviously, the double move was an excellent catch, but we were supposed to be in a different coverage off that motion, and we didn’t get that adjusted out. That’s an execution thing that we can fix moving forward as coaches.”
Up next for the Tigers: a confident Florida team. The Gators led Ole Miss 17-3 in the second quarter and 24-21 with 5:21 left in the third quarter, then put the game away by scoring 28 of the next 35 points for a 52-28 victory.
“This is a whole brand-new team coming together and trying to figure some of this stuff out together, and I’ve been proud of the way they respond,” Drinkwitz said. “This is a really, really good football team we’ve got coming in here, so we’ve got to speed up the response, and we’ve got to have a bounce-back factor for sure.”
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
