COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz was in no mood to talk about the Tigers’ recent history against ranked opponents on Saturday.
Not the first time he was asked about it. Definitely not the second or third.
For good reason, too: There were far too many positives to take from No. 25 Missouri’s 45-17 trouncing of eighth-ranked Florida.
There was Austin Simmons, who was 23 of 30 for 340 yards and two touchdowns, slinging the ball to all corners of the field with his strong left arm. There was Jamal Roberts, who carried 24 times for 211 yards and three scores, including two long runs late to put away the game. And there was a defense that held the Gators more than 200 yards below their season average.
So that nine-game skid against the AP Top 25? The fact that Drinkwitz had been 0-10 in the regular season against top-10 foes?
“Doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “That’s noise people create on social media for no reason. It has no meaning on anything. It’s people searching for crap to talk about. Each game is a life of its own, opponent of its own. We try to make it the best matchup we can.”
They sure made it a lopsided one on Saturday.
After giving up a 12-yard carry to the Gators’ Jadan Baugh the first time the nation’s second-leading rusher touched the ball, they held him to one more yard — for the entire game. After allowing the Gators to convert three times on third down on an opening drive that ended with a field goal, Missouri held them to 3 for 13 in that crucial situation the rest of the way.
The Tigers had three sacks and 11 tackles-for-loss, dominating the vaunted Florida offensive and defensive lines, and they made the Gators’ Aaron Philo so downright uncomfortable in the pocket that he finished with just 197 yards passing.
“We’re just a hungry team,” Missouri safety Kensley Louidor-Faustin said, “trying to prove something.”
They accomplished that much. It was the Tigers’ first win over a ranked team since beating No. 24 Boston College on Sept. 14, 2024, and their first win over a ranked conference opponent since beating No. 13 Tennessee on Nov. 11, 2023.
(Just don’t remind Drinkwitz about that part.)
Oops.
“It’s a good win against a really good team today. That’s all it was,” he said. “Nobody in our locker room could care less about that. I couldn’t care less about that. ... I really couldn’t care less. The SEC is a hard league, and yeah, I’m done with that.”
OK, back to talking about the game.
The Gators struck first with that field goal, and they tied it 10-all on Philo’s touchdown throw with 4:26 left in the first half.
Then the Tigers scored 35 unanswered points.
The game was largely decided those last couple of minutes of the first half and the start of the second. Rather than run out the clock on the first, the Tigers pressed when they got the ball with 1:33 left, and Blake Craig drilled a 50-yard field goal for a 20-10 lead. Missouri proceeded to score on four straight possessions — three of those TDs — to start the second half.
And to think, the Tigers put together that kind of performance after a deflating loss last week at Mississippi State — a ranked team, by the way — when they blew a second-half lead by allowing two fourth-quarter touchdowns in a 31-24 loss in Starkville.
“It kind of seemed like we never played that game last week,” Simmons said, “throughout this whole week of preparation.”
The Tigers had talked about that this week, how bouncing back in a league in which one loss can easily snowball into three or four is not just helpful but imperative. To do that, the Tigers blocked out the noise — all those people talking about all those losses to ranked opponents, for example — and focused entirely on themselves and what they needed to do to improve.
Then they went out and did it.
“Noise doesn’t bother me. I don’t look at too many feeds, the critics or whatnot. I’m ready to play football with my guys, the brotherhood,” Roberts said. “All the social media posts, it’s all good one day, all bad the next day. Just blocking out the noise, there’s nothing to it. Just staying the course, pretty much.”
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Dave Skretta, The Associated Press
