Missouri’s football season ended in a way fitting of 2020: a change of plans three days before a scheduled matchup. The program announced Sunday that, due to an increase in positive COVID-19 tests among both the football players and staff, it would not be able to face Iowa in the Music City Bowl on Dec. 30. While this marks the first Missouri football game to be canceled this season, it’s the eighth of 11 to be altered in some way from its original schedule, either in date, time or location. The Tigers will finish the first season of the Eli Drinkwitz era with a record of 5-5.
The news sparked a flood of questions and accusations about the root of Missouri’s coronavirus spike. The team’s decision to allow players to travel home for Christmas, in particular, drew backlash. Drinkwitz and athletics director Jim Sterk met with the media via Zoom on Sunday afternoon to shed light on how and why the Tigers had reached the point of what Drinkwitz called a COVID-19 outbreak.
Ultimately, Drinkwitz emphasized that he wouldn’t have done anything differently if allowed to relive the last week, but if fans wanted someone to blame, it could rest on his shoulders.
“I don't feel like there's any personal thing that I could have done differently,” Drinkwitz said. “We've experienced a high number of positive cases in the last seven days that have affected support staff, staff and players. We've followed CDC guidelines to the extremes, we’ve tested as in the SEC protocol, we’ve rapid antigen tested on top of what was standard protocol. We've done everything we could to try to prevent an outbreak, but we came up short on this one, and ultimately, that rests with me.”
Drinkwitz didn’t say how many Missouri players and staff members have tested positive for COVID-19 since the team’s regular-season finale on Dec. 19, but he did say that a recent round of testing revealed double-digit positives. He also couldn’t pinpoint the origins of the outbreak, but there’s reason to believe it might have had more to do with the road trip to Mississippi State than the decision to allow players to travel home.
Prior to Missouri’s season-ending contest, the team had one person test positive for COVID-19. Drinkwitz didn’t specify who, but running backs coach Curtis Luper didn’t travel due to COVID protocols. When the team returned to Columbia last Sunday, tests revealed “several” more positive tests. Drinkwitz said those players and staffers who tested positive were isolated, but everyone else was allowed to travel home on Monday. When players returned to Columbia on Christmas evening, the team administered two tests, one rapid antigen test, which yielded results quickly, and one PCR test, the results of which wouldn’t be available until the next day. After practicing on Saturday morning, Drinkwitz said team officials “were made aware that we were starting to have some positives.” For the first time all season, the PCR tests returned more than 10 positives at once, so the school had them re-tested. Once the results were verified, Drinkwitz said he “turned things over to the experts.” At that point, the decision to play was out of his hands, as protocols dictated the team had to stop football activities until at least Jan. 2.
“At that point, it became a local county health officials’ and team doctors’ decision that we needed to pause for seven days to try to prevent the spread and prevent any more outbreak, and for us to try to travel this team to Nashville would put the public health at risk,” Drinkwitz explained. “Our staff and players wanted to forge on. We were committed to trying to do everything possible. This has nothing to do with total numbers, scholarship numbers, anything like that. This is a local county health and doctors’ decision that we posed a public health risk if we were to continue to practice and move forward.”
Because COVID-19 generally takes at least two days after exposure to cause symptoms or be detected by a test (and can take as many as 14), Drinkwitz thinks it’s more likely that Missouri’s outbreak resulted from its travel to and from Starkville than players going home for the Holidays. He called travel “extremely difficult” all season. That said, even if allowing players to leave campus for a few days contributed to the number of positives, Drinkwitz said he’s okay with the decision.
“If allowing our players, who sacrificed so much throughout this season to play 10 games, if allowing them to go home for Christmas ultimately cost us the ability to play a bowl game, I’ll live with that choice,” he said.
Once it became clear that Missouri would need to shut down football activities, Sterk said he reached out to Iowa and Music City Bowl officials. There was some conversation about trying to postpone the game, but the schedule for the Tennessee Titans, who play home games at Nissan Stadium, the bowl site, made doing so impossible. The Music City Bowl announced Sunday afternoon that the game would be canceled instead of finding an opponent to replace Missouri. All ticket purchases will be refunded in the next seven to 10 days, per a release. Friday morning’s explosion in downtown Nashville did not factor into the cancelation, Sterk said.
Sterk said he did not know yet whether the Tigers’ inability to participate in the postseason would impact the amount of bowl revenue received by the athletic department from the SEC. Two other SEC teams, Tennessee and South Carolina, have had to forego scheduled bowl appearances due to COVID-19 this year.
Drinkwitz said the majority of Missouri players have reported mild symptoms such as loss of smell or taste. At least four who have tested positive have exhibited no symptoms of the virus. A few staff members have experienced symptoms “maybe not as mild as some of the others,” Drinkwitz said, but he expects everyone to make a full recovery. Those players who have not tested positive or been placed in quarantine due to contact tracing will be allowed to travel home again. The team will resume workouts Jan. 17.
Drinkwitz said there was “no softening the blow” when telling his players that Missouri wouldn’t be able to participate in the postseason for the second year in a row. He said the team had earned an opportunity to play in a bowl game and was looking forward to the matchup, despite finishing the regular season with consecutive losses.
Now, his focus will shift forward. While Drinkwitz said he was proud of his debut season, he spoke multiple times about “closing the gap” between Missouri and the teams at the top of the SEC. His focus Sunday evening will be recruiting, both of high school prospects and the players currently on Missouri’s roster. The NCAA ruled that 2020 wouldn’t count against any player’s eligibility, so all players, including seniors, are eligible to return to Missouri’s roster. Wide receiver Keke Chism announced on Twitter he will return in 2021. Punter Grant McKinniss has announced his intention to return as well, and Drinkwitz hinted that there could be a few other seniors coming back, too. He said he would give those players a few days to finalize their plans for after this season.
“Anybody who wants to come back is going to have to make a total commitment to closing the gap,” he said. “Those guys have played a lot of ball, and they know what it takes. And they’re going to have to get their minds and bodies right if they want to come back after this year and do it again. So that's a tough decision that I don't think you can make in just the snap of the fingers, so we'll let those guys have the proper time to digest it.”
Get 25% off your first year and a $75 Nike or adidas gift card with our holiday specials
Talk about this story and more in The Tigers' Lair
Make sure you're caught up on all the Tiger news and headlines
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel for video and live streaming coverage
