Drink Mix: How Missouri’s Blueprint Bottled Up the Gators

Eli Drinkwitz didn't want to talk about streaks after Saturday. He wanted to talk about a plan. The one Missouri used to take Florida apart is on film now for every opponent left on the Gators' schedule, starting with South Carolina.

"We talked all week if we wanted to win this game, we need to be a tough team, and tough teams stop the run, run the ball, and cover kicks," Drinkwitz said in his postgame news conference. "And that's exactly what we did today."

Florida has a week to make sure nobody else can copy it.

Baugh never got going

Missouri told everybody its priority days before kickoff. "We have to stop the run first," Drinkwitz said at his Tuesday news conference, according to Sports Illustrated. "If you let two running backs rush for over 100 yards, we got no shot in the game because everything else in their arsenal plays off of your inability to stop that run."

Then the Tigers went out and did it. Jadan Baugh gained 12 yards on his first carry. According to The Associated Press, he gained 1 yard on his next 11. Florida finished with 42 rushing yards on 25 carries, and an offense that came in averaging 532.8 yards a game, per AP, left with 325.

None of it was improvised, Drinkwitz said. "We play outside zone, outside zone every day," he said. "... The more that this coordinator is on tape, there's more tendencies that show up. There were things that we could tell, hey, this is what's going to happen here."

Missouri did it shorthanded, too. Starting edge rushers Darris Smith and Langden Kitchen were out, so Drinkwitz slid Sterling Webb to the boundary as a 5-technique. Florida, he said, is a "predominantly boundary run team."

The Tigers had something to prove after missing tackles in last week's loss to Mississippi State. "After last game we came in and said we need to make tackles," Webb said. "We can't allow this guy to run for however many yards."

Drinkwitz kept his version short. "Guys are allowed to improve," he said. "... There's the thing called practice."

The counterpunch

Running the ball is the other half of "tough teams," and Jamal Roberts handled that part: 211 yards and three touchdowns on 24 carries, with a long of 80. "It takes all of us and for us to play as a unit to dominate the line of scrimmage, that's our identity," Roberts said.

Drinkwitz still pointed to the passing game. Austin Simmons completed 23 of 30 passes for 340 yards and two touchdowns, one of them a 47-yarder to Donovan Olugbode. Cayden Lee caught eight balls for 110 yards. "Our ability to throw the ball was the difference in the game," Drinkwitz said.

That's the part Florida should study hardest. Once Missouri took the run away, the Gators had nothing to come back with and went 6 of 16 on third down. Missouri did have an answer. Simmons averaged 11.3 yards per attempt.

Noise, and a handshake

The win meant plenty to Drinkwitz. According to AP, it was his first regular-season win over a top-10 team in 11 tries at Missouri, and it snapped the Tigers' nine-game losing streak against ranked opponents. He wanted no part of that conversation.

"That's just noise that people create on social media for no reason," he said. "... It's people searching for crap to talk about."

He made another point that fits Florida just as well: the game "isn't a summation of the season. This is just the next game." A week ago, his team was the one picking up the pieces.

So the Gators have homework. Missouri found tendencies on tape, which means Florida has to self-scout. When a defense commits to stopping Baugh, the offense needs an answer ready. And everything else turned into a guess once the line of scrimmage was lost.

South Carolina visits Gainesville on Saturday, Oct. 10. Kickoff time and TV network are still to be announced. Drinkwitz has already shared what he told Jon Sumrall in the postgame handshake.

"This league's tough. You have to have a bounceback factor," Drinkwitz said. "... That's exactly what I said to Jon when I shook his hand is, 'Hey, man, you got to have a bounceback factor.' That's life in this league."

Missouri quotes are from the Tigers' Oct. 3 postgame news conference video posted by Mizzou Athletics unless noted, read through YouTube's auto-generated captions with filler words removed. Drinkwitz's Tuesday quote is from Sports Illustrated (Killian Wright). Game statistics are from ESPN. Baugh's carry-by-carry split, Florida's season yardage average, Missouri's edge-rusher injuries and Drinkwitz's record against top-10 teams are from The Associated Press.