Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Eli Drinkwitz said he wasn’t yet ready to “push the panic button,” even though Missouri’s defense ranked No. 129 out of 130 FBS teams against the run and No. 117 overall through its first four games. Over the course of just 14 snaps with the unit on the field Saturday, panic set in at Faurot Field, then gave way to resignation.
Missouri’s defense disappeared against Tennessee, surrendering 28 points in the first quarter, 45 in the first half and 62 in the game during a 38-point drubbing that dropped Missouri (2-3) below .500 on the season. The Volunteers racked up 677 total yards, including 452 on the ground. Missouri hadn’t allowed that many total yards since a 2017 loss at Georgia and the run defense was its worst since the loss to Auburn in the 2013 SEC championship game.
Tennessee’s offense, installed by former Missouri offensive coordinator Josh Heupel, figured to challenge the Tigers with its spread formations and lightning-fast pace of play. Missouri defensive coordinator Steve Wilks countered with a new formation that featured three down linemen, three linebackers and five defensive backs. Different defensive linemen manned the middle linebacker spot, most often Jatorian Hansford and Mekhi Wingo. Drinkwitz said the idea behind the scheme was to give Tennessee pause and force the Volunteer ball carriers to bounce more runs outside.
“Just to try to throw them off balance,” Drinkwitz said. “We thought we could fit the gaps and maybe get them, the runs, to bounce a little bit. But weren’t able to maintain our gap integrity and gave up some big runs.”
The new-look defense produced familiar results, providing little resistance to Tennessee. The Volunteers’ offensive line consistently moved Missouri’s defensive front to create massive holes, and when a Missouri defender did get in the way of a ball-carrier, he often missed the tackle. With the ground game rolling, quarterback Hendon Hooker threw just four incompletions, hitting on 15 of his 19 passes for 225 yards and three touchdowns.
Tennessee’s first score came when quarterback Hooker hit JaVonta Payton for a 35-yard touchdown on their fifth offensive snap. Eight plays into their next possession, tailback Tiyon Evans scored from eight yards out. Then, one snap after a Missouri punt, Evans ran around the right end and broke free for a 92-yard score.
Evans, who predicted Tennessee would “have some fun” against Missouri’s woeful defense during the week, scored for a third time in the first quarter after Jeremy Banks picked off Connor Bazelak and returned the interception to the one-yard line. He finished with 156 yards on 15 carries. The touchdown made the score 28-3. At that point, the game hadn’t even reached the end of the first quarter, and Tennessee had only held the ball for three minutes and 24 seconds. After the game, Drinkwitz acknowledged that after Tennessee’s fourth score, the outcome was essentially decided.
“At that point it’s an uphill battle, kind of changes the way you’re trying to attack everything,” he said.
By the end of the first half, Tennessee had already scored its most points against SEC competition since it hung 63 on Missouri in 2016. The Volunteers never punted Saturday, and only once did a Tennessee drive not result in points, when Missouri managed a goal line stand on fourth and goal from the one-yard line in the fourth quarter.
Defensive back Kris Abrams-Draine said the Missouri defense entered Saturday feeling prepared, and that the Tennessee offense didn’t show the Tigers anything unexpected. The issue, he said repeatedly, simply came down to execution.
“We had a lot of good practices, for real,” Abrams-Draine said. “We were ready for it, but just didn’t execute the game plan.”
A forlorn Drinkwitz put the blame for the loss on his own shoulders, saying he didn’t have Missouri well enough prepared. He called the performance uncharacteristic of Missouri. The defensive struggles, however, have become an every-week occurrence. The Tigers are now allowing an average of more than 300 yards per game on the ground. In the past five seasons, only two FBS teams have surrendered that many rushing yards per game for a full season.
Asked whether he would consider making a change at the defensive coordinator position, Drinkwitz didn’t exactly leap to the defense of Wilks, although he did preach that Missouri’s players and coaches can’t “point fingers” and blame one another.
“I just stepped off the football field,” Drinkwitz said. “I haven't even considered anything like that. So I have no comment or anything like that.”
Missouri quarterback Connor Bazelak summed up the loss after the game. “It sucks,” he said. “There’s nothing else to it.” While vowing that his team would bounce back, Drinkwitz said Missouri “took a step back today.”
“To say I'm disappointed is an understatement,” Drinkwitz said. “It's my responsibility to have this team prepared, ready to play, to represent this university in the right way. I didn't do my job today. We'll go back to work tomorrow, to get corrected. This was uncharacteristic of this football team. This football team has been a team that fights, and we didn't, we weren't ready today. And that’s on me as the head football coach.”
Abrams-Draine scores on special teams
One of the few highlights for Missouri came when Abrams-Draine returned a kickoff 99 yards for a touchdown. Abrams-Draine found room to run down the right sideline and accelerated away from everyone. The score marked Missouri’s first touchdown on a kickoff return since Marcus Murphy had one against South Dakota State in the first game of the 2014 season.
Abrams-Draine credited his blocking for making the score possible. He wasn’t touched on the return.
“It was really everybody else but me, everybody doing their job,” he said. “It was just everybody on that unit doing their job, playing as one.”
Badie hits milestone
Tennessee largely succeeded in bottling up star tailback Tyler Badie, limiting him to 68 yards from scrimmage on 24 touches. But Badie did make Missouri history during the first half. When he took a screen pass for 17 yards, Badie eclipsed 1,000 receiving yards in his Missouri career, making him the first player in program history to amass 1,000 yards as both a rusher and receiver. Badie leads Missouri’s team in both rushing and receptions on the season.
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