Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz met with the media on Tuesday to talk about Mizzou's upcoming Week 8 opponent, South Carolina. He also talks about encouraging the team to tune out the outside noise, improving on things and more.

Here's a look at some interesting things Drinkwitz said with some insight to determine what it means.

On ignoring praise:

Drinkwitz's quote: "We can't be an emotionally driven team that relies on the emotional ups and downs of the team. I really challenge our guys to refrain from searching out the praise on social media and becoming numb to improvement. You know, we really have to improve. And I think what happens is you go looking for pats on the back instead of being critical or hard on yourself and saying, 'I need to be uncomfortable to continue to grow,' and that's really what our team needs to do to have success this week."

What it means: Make no mistake about it, Drinkwitz was thrilled with the win and how the Tigers played in the final three quarters, but the first quarter alone had a boatload of things the Tigers must fix. Not to mention some things that naturally happen even in a dominating three-quarter performance.

He wants his guys to treat praise the same way they'd treat being trashed. Honestly, that's probably the best thing they could do. The season isn't over, and they still have to play the games. It's easy to assume what their record will be going forward based on what they've already done, but again, games aren't won on paper. So, he just wants them to be humble and realize there are plenty of things to fix.

The team's success despite not playing a complete game:

Drinkwitz's quote: "It's hard to play a complete game. I think back to my head coaching career (and) I can think of maybe two or three (games) where a team completely played complete for four quarters. There's always going to be ebbs and flows and ups and downs. But I do think that there's still a significant amount of improvement that we can make as a football team.

"I think we're in the middle of that part of the season where you can either choose to be tired and choose to let the grind get to your mind or you can choose to improve. And that has to be a choice, and I can say it all I want, but we have to choose it as a team starting with Toughness Tuesday (practice). We got to choose to go out there and practice the right way. You know, winning doesn't negotiate I mean, it costs what it costs to win football games, and we have to pay the price."

What it means: Building off of the previous quote, Mizzou has obviously played well enough to be 5-1. It had a good chance to be 6-0, and while that's great, the team hasn't played its best ball yet.

On one hand, being able to win without playing your best ball is always good. On the other hand, the Tigers can't be satisfied with that. They can't win every game the way they've played in some of these games.

What Mizzou did Kentucky in a way is what LSU did to Mizzou a week prior. Mizzou got off to a hot start and led by 15 early in the second quarter and then LSU got back in the game and won by double figures. That performance obviously lost the game.

Missouri did that to Kentucky and won the game, but that doesn't mean it can do that versus South Carolina or whoever else is on the schedule and get away with it.

So, it's always a constant push to improve and get better for Mizzou.

The last line explains that the best.

The team has to do whatever it takes to win, and it only gets harder as the season goes on and the wear and tear on the bodies add up. It becomes more and more psychological to power through the week regardless of the result of the previous game.

Keeping Luke Bauer and players alike, who lose position battles in camp, engaged through the season for when the team may need those players:

Drinkwitz's quote: "We have two signs in our team room, (which are) 'Improve every day makes us better,' and 'Embrace your role with the team first,' and I think those two signs kind of describe exactly what Luke did. You know, just because you are denied at that moment in time doesn't mean you're denied forever. You just go back to the process of working and improving, and when your opportunity is called, you can take advantage of it.

"That's the growth of our football team. Multiple players are doing that with their roles. I'll say this, on Tuesday, Luke didn't punt worth a darn. In fact, we yanked him out to put Riley (Williams) in and yanked him out and put Blake Craig in there, and was trying to challenge everybody. We've got to be better. But we didn't lose confidence in him, and he didn't lose confidence in himself and understand that you're going to face trials and tribulations, and you've got to be mentally strong, and you got to focus on your technique and fundamentals, and deliver in the right moments. And that's what he did."

What it means: Players can check out once they lose a position battle, especially when they play a position that only allows one player from that position on the field at a time. Bauer stayed ready and that's why he was able to get the starting punter job in Week 4.

He still needs to retain it every day if he wants to remain the starter if he went all of last Tuesday's practice without really punting the ball. But he was prepared for the fake punt and his confidence has never wavered.

Adjusting to limited big play opportunities against Kentucky:

Drinkwitz's quote: "I was proud of the way our guys responded to the adversity of not being able to be as explosive as we would like to have been offensively. And I think we as a staff challenge ourselves. Maybe there were some things that we need to do better in the game planning (and) preparation or in some things internally that maybe aided in that factor.

"So I think, again, proud of our team, proud of our staff for finding a way to win and overcoming those challenges, but also took it as a learning opportunity for us to say, 'Okay, there are some things here that we didn't do that week that we can't allow to happen on the road again.'"

What it means: Drinkwitz was satisfied that the offense was able to adjust after Kentucky made the decision to take the deep balls out of play, but he believes some of that is on him and his staff.

It sounds like there are some ways around some of that or ways around some of the mistakes they made once it got in those situations where Kentucky wanted to limit the deep ball.

It makes you wonder if part of the struggles were communication-based issues since he's talking about fixing things specifically for road games.

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