Everything Eli Drinkwitz and Mike Elko Said Following Missouri at Texas A&M

Both head coaches had plenty to say after a surprising 41-10 blowout victory at College Station.

Oct 5, 2024; College Station, Texas, USA; Missouri Tigers head coach Eli Drinkwitz looks on In the third quarter against the Texas A&M Aggies at Kyle Field. Mandatory Credit: Maria Lysaker-Imagn Images. / Maria Lysaker-Imagn Images

COLLEGE STATION, Tx. - After a rather shocking 41-10 defeat at the hands of No. 25 Texas A&M, the Missouri Tigers have some evaluating to do.

The Tigers were outworked and out-executed in every phase of the game and on both sides of the ball, from the performance of the offensive line to the defensive backs. With the loss, Missouri drops to 4-1 on the season and 1-1 in conference play. The Aggies sit at 5-1, with a 3-1 SEC record.

Here's everything head coaches Eli Drinkwitz and Mike Elko said after the matchup:

Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz

Opening Statement

"Just a really poor performance by my football team and it starts with me and I apologize to our fans. It's my responsibility for us to be better. The start of the first half, not being able to convert third downs, not being able to stop them on third down. Ultimately, the difference in the game."

On the beginning of game issues

"Everything. All my responsibility."

On the first fourth down stops impact

"We can't let one play dictate the rest of the game. So obviously, it was a momentum play, but we had plenty of other opportunities. We got him down eight yard line and they went 92 yards and scored, so really had nothing to do with it."

On Conner Weigman and the decision to change quarterbacks

"Really good player. He was very accurate today, did a great job scrambling. Threw the football extremely well. We weren't ever able to make him uncomfortable."

On the lack of pressure on the quarterback early

"He was very accurate today, did a great job scrambling and threw the football extremely well. We weren't ever able to make him uncomfortable."

On the amount of pass attempts

"We were just trying to attack the vertical. Obviously the started the game with one, but then after that, there weren't enough completions."

On Drinkwitz' message in the locker room at half time

"You got one or two choices. You can fall apart, or you can dig deep and find resolve to get better. The season really starts today and how we respond will determine what kind of football season we're going to have."

"At the end of the day, this is one loss, and it's a tough loss and we're embarrassed by the performance, I'm embarrassed by the performance. But it's just that it's one game and there's a really a whole heck of a lot of football left, and it's going to be up to us to either seek comfort and placing blame or have resolved to get it fixed."

On reassesment of national standing

I've never even considered any of that stuff like that. We're just trying to be 1-0 each week and right now, we weren't. There's a lot of reasons why and we got a lot of lot of other things to worry about."

On Texas A&M's defensive line

wWe weren't able to protect the passers as well as we needed to and weren't ever able to establish a rhythm with the run game. When the score got lopsided, we really weren't able to even try to run the football. So they put a lot of pressure on the offensive line and let them do what they do best."

On the response of the team

Come out the first drive of the second half and let up a 75-yard touchdown. Wasn't much of a response."

On the crowd at Kyle Field

"They had great crowd but at the end of the day, there's a 100-yard football field and you're responsible for being ready and prepared. I'm responsible for making sure that happened and we didn't get it done."

On self evaluation and what needs to change

It's all on the table. I mean, we got to compete. We didn't. We weren't competitive and that's not Mizzou football. That's not what we worked really hard to be about. So we're not competing and that's on me and I got to get that fixed. So everything's on the table."

On preparation through the bye week

"We did more good-on-good in the past two weeks than I've probably ever done as a head football coach. So maybe I did too much."

On looking ahead to Auburn and Alabama

"I have no idea. Every game's a totally new matchup. Every team's different. Everything's unique. We're going to have to get on the plane, get home, figure out this game tomorrow, put it to bed on Monday and then focus on the next opponent, which is UMass. You know, all the future stuff, like, not worried about any of that right now. Worried about on this team, figuring out how we can improve."

Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko

Opening Statement

"I'm proud of our guys. We challenged them to come out and play a complete game. I thought we did that. It was a very good Missouri team, and we knew we were going to have to play start to finish. We started fast. We stayed on them, made a lot of stops on defense in the first half. We really kept the game in rhythm. Connor (Weigman), obviously came out and had a heck of a day, 18 for 22. Le'veon (Moss) again, running the ball for 11.5 yard average. We dominated the rushing game. We won on third down. We won on touchdowns in the red zone. We did the things that we need to do to be successful playing the game of football. And so, proud of our guys. This was a six-game stretch, for sure, that was a challenge, with them coming off of a bye week, and us coming off of having played four power five teams already at this point. I thought our kids responded to that challenge. 

The last thing I'm going to say, and I'm going to say this because it needs to be said. You can challenge Connor for how he plays, and you can be upset about Connor for how he throws a football. Some of the stuff that has been said about this kid and written about this kid is embarrassing. It's absolutely embarrassing, the stuff that gets out there on this kid. This kid's a winner. He's a competitor. He does everything that he needs to do for Texas A&M football. And there's a lot of people right now that need to stand up and recognize what they've said over the last three weeks and take some ownership in it."

On when they knew Weigman would be starting

"We had an idea was going to be Connor. He was able to take a full week of practice. We were really happy with how we practiced. We kind of wanted to just get into today and make sure pregame he had the zip that we hoped he would have, and he did. So once we saw him throwing the ball around the way he's capable of, we felt good that that's the direction we wanted to go."

On Crowd Noise and Texas A&M's defense

"I think the 12th man certainly heard some of the statements made about how easy it was to play in Kyle Field, and that was good. They were certainly riled up. We always appreciate them. We knew they'd be there strong this week. We're capable of being a really good defense when we communicate, when we do things the right way, when we play the game that we're capable of playing, we're capable of being a really good defense. So for the most part, we did that today. Still some things to fix and clean up, but we just if we keep progressing, we have a chance to be a pretty good defense."

On if they can play better than this

"We're 5-1, 3-0 headed into a bye week, that's all we are. Can we play better? Yeah, I think we can play a lot better. I still think there's a lot of things out there that we can play and fix and do better, and so we're in a growth mindset. That's how we talked about this thing. We were going to get into this season and put our head down and try to grow every single day, get better, and ultimately, just try to reach the capability that this team has, whatever that is, whatever that ultimately amounts to. We didn't flinch when we didn't get the job done against Notre Dame, we just kept grinding. Again, these aren't statements. I'm not trying to make statements about anything, but we just got to keep going. We're where we want to be right now. We couldn't be in a better spot responding after Notre Dame and but at the end of the day, we still have half of the season to play, and there's this thing can still go a lot of different ways. So we're going to still keep working."

On disrupting the Brady Cook and controlling the line of scrimmage

"These are the games where you're going to get sacks. When you get a big lead, and the quarterbacks kind of got to sit back there and throw the ball, and that puts him in a lot of risk, and that's really challenging. So, we were able to pressure him quite a bit today. I think we got him six times. He's a talented kid. He's a really good player. We knew we had to try to make him uncomfortable with all the skill that we had, and I thought we were able to do that today."

On maximizing home field advantage

Football is about the focus that you have to do what you're supposed to do every single play. That's the challenge of the game of football. It's hard. It's hard for 19-year-olds to stay dialed in for three and a half hours amidst all of the challenges and the elements out there. But when we do that and we play to our capability, we have a chance to be really good. I think the kids are starting to at least believe that a little bit, that if they'll just stay focused on the things that are important and do the things that are important, we have a chance to have some success."

On the comments about Connor Weigman

"You can criticize him as a quarterback. He stood up here. He owned his performance. We're all in this arena to be criticized that sport, right? When you start taking personal shots on a kid, and you start talking about personal things that are grossly fictitious and grossly false, and those things become stories and start running, that's embarrassing."

On the Notre Dame Game

"We owned what happened against Notre Dame. We played bad. We played bad on offense. Everybody stood on this podium and said it. We called a bad game. I coached a bad game. The receivers played a bad game. Quarterback played a bad game. We played bad and everybody in our program owned it. So I don't know that it's anything other than we had a bad night and we went back to work to get better, and we're seeing progress moving forward since then. Today, we played better. So now we've got to keep doing that. This doesn't become a statement. We've got to keep doing it because we're going to have other big opportunities here where we're going to have to go up and we're going to have to perform it. We're going to have to play football the way we know how."

On the feel in the locker room in the weeks leading up to the Mizzou game

"I think we were just trying to move forward and get better. The first hurdle, obviously, was going down to Florida and winning the SEC road game. We were able to do that, then we struggled to close out the Bowling Green game the way we wanted to. With Arkansas games, it's always a hard fought game, we knew that was going to be that. We just talked all week this week about the last three games we played that we won. We had moments where we played really well, and then moments where we didn't, and we had to eliminate the poor parts of our game, and we had to kind of focus the play at our level the way we could. Today was maybe the first time we did that a little bit more consistently. And I think that's maybe what we're capable of."

On the effort in the game

" I think it starts with committing yourself to strain every play. If you pour everything you have into something, you have a chance to be really good at it. If you kind of half step your way through things, you can't be what you're capable of being. That's why I was so riled up for the defense at the end, even though they got that field goal just for them to continue to play the way they did down the stretch at that point, 41-7. But keep playing, keep trying to get that stop. I felt like that deserved the round of applause it got and so it's what we want to pride our program on. I told you guys when I got hired at the opening press conference, we want to be a blue collar group, that maximizes our potential and effort, it's certainly a starting point to that."

On Tyler White's punt

"Tyler's been punting the ball really well. I don't know how he got it to screwball like that. That was pretty impressive to slide out on the half yard line. That was really big for us. But he's becoming a weapon. Those things matter and field position matters, and he's doing a great job helping us control it."

On the red zone defense towards the end

"I think at that point it was just more about I was proud of their will to continue to play. At that point, the game wasn't in doubt, but we kept playing. I think that's a step we needed to take coming out of some of the other games that we've played this year, where maybe we didn't finish the way we wanted to. So I was just proud that they just kept going and kept playing."

On the blanked and card given to Theo Wease

"My suggestion would be that you guys should go ask Eli (Drinkwitz) where that came from, because I have a strong feeling that that came from the other side and had nothing to do with Texas A&M, Will Lee or anybody over here, so you should point that one on the other side."

On reacting to the assumptions made about Texas A&M

"We don't ... None of that has any impact on what we do, how we do things ... We can handle all that stuff. None of that stuff affects us."

On the offenses' tempo

"I think it's funny how offense works. When you make plays or you're having success, you kind of get into a rhythmic flow. You call the game faster. You can run some tempo plays. You're making first downs, and it all looks like it's going well, and then everyone says, 'Well, why don't you just do that all the time?' I think what happens is you get stalled, you don't get the first downs, you don't throw, you mean, and it doesn't get in rhythm, and then you can't it doesn't look the same, right? So I think that's what we want it to look like. We've tried to push tempo a little bit throughout the year at different times. I think we realized it was giving us an advantage, and so we've maybe pushed it a little bit more. I don't know if it was the heat or the early kickoff, we just felt like he was giving us an advantage. They weren't quite ready for it, but I think that all comes from success, right? You hit a first down, and you can go, you make a good play, and you can go like if you're not having some of those early down successes, it's really hard to play like that."