Mizzou Football: Eli Drinkwitz will have tough start at Missouri

After a revised schedule, Mizzou football now has an incredibly tough slate to start the 2020 season, which is unfortunate for first year head coach Eli Drinkwitz.

Initially, the Missouri Tigers had a pretty manageable schedule for their 2020 campaign, but COVID-19 put a damper on that unfortunately. Mizzou football went from playing a lot “meh” teams early on to now getting the likes of Alabama, Tennessee, and LSU in 3 straight weeks to kick off the Eli Drinkwitz era, more than likely resulting in an 0-3 start.

Drinkwitz, the former Appalachian State head coach, came to Columbia after just 1 season at the helm for the Mountaineers and there was a lot of optimism that he’d be able to turn things around pretty quickly. This probably won’t be the year it happens sadly due to that brutal stretch to start the year and honestly, the entire schedule doesn’t look to have many potential wins for the Tigers.

The game we’ll focus the most on for the next few days is the one against the second ranked Alabama Crimson Tide, who will come into Faurot Field this Saturday in what’s surely going to be a lopsided score where the Tigers are overmatched by a much tougher team. Starting 0-1 is nearly a given at this point, as Mizzou finds themselves as 28 point underdogs heading into their date with the Crimson Tide per Dave Matter of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

That game is going to be ugly and while it’ll get a little easier for Missouri after they face Alabama, it won’t be by much. Tennessee starts the season ranked 15th in the country after some up and down seasons and the following week is against the reigning National Champion LSU Tigers. LSU isn’t as scary this season due to them losing a lot of talent to the NFL, but they’re still the reigning champs and still have a lot of really good players.

Eli Drinkwitz will have his work cut out for him early on as the head coach for Mizzou football.

I feel bad for Drinkwitz, but no one could have expected things to have unfolded like this when he was hired. Originally he was supposed to eased in a little more against teams like Central Arkansas (their original home opener) and Vanderbilt while also not having to play Alabama or LSU. The revision definitely hit Missouri hard and this season could be a rather ugly start to the Drinkwitz era.

While Vanderbilt follows that tough 3-game stretch, things get tough again afterwards with Missouri then facing fifth ranked Florida, 23rd ranked Kentucky, and fourth ranked Georgia. The good news is that things really do clear up after that with the Tigers facing South Carolina, Arkansas, and Mississippi State to finish the year.

Barring something unusual, Mizzou should be able to beat Arkansas, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt (though they’ve struggled against South Carolina and Vanderbilt in recent years) and they have a shot at taking down Mississippi State too. That’d give them 4 wins on the year and while that’s less than what they were initially looking at, it’d be easier to give Drinkwitz a pass in year 1 given what he’s had to deal with in his first year at the helm.

What do you think, Mizzou fans? How will Eli Drinkwitz fare in year 1 as the head coach for the Missouri Tigers?