Kentucky's defense busted some assignments at Tennessee but has still impressed Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Kentucky’s beatdown by Tennessee did not make Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz lose any respect for what coach Mark Stoops has done at Kentucky.
“He took a job in this league that had not had a whole lot of success and went and built an identity and stuck with his process,” Drinkwitz said. “They’re very tough, they’re very physical, they’re very long.”
Kentucky is a slight favorite at Missouri, which led No. 1 Georgia late in the game, despite its 44-6 loss at No. 2 Tennessee last week.
“I think Tennessee’s done that to just about everybody they’ve played,” Drinkwitz said. “Obviously the turnovers are something that’s not normal for a Kentucky football team.”
“But when you watch them on defense and you just watch the game without the scoreboard, there was a couple of busted assignments that were uncharacteristic of their team.”
The Missouri coach knows Stoops’ team will want to show it is much better than what it looked on national TV last week.
“They’re going to want to atone for last week. I know they’re all going to sit there and think this is a game they can come win, so it’s going to be important for us to play our best game,” the Missouri coach said.
However, Drinkwitz has done something that Stoops might need to consider. Last week he gave sophomore EJ Ndoma-Ogar his first start at right guard. Missouri responded with one of its best offensive line performances of the year in a win at South Carolina.
“If you do the same thing over and over again expecting different results, I believe that’s the definition of insanity,” Drinkwitz said. “At some point, you have to create some change and you have to evaluate whether or not it repeats the process and do it better, or do we need to give someone else an opportunity to help us? It felt like EJ did that.”
