What Significance Does the Music City Bowl Hold for Mizzou?

The 2024 season didn't go exactly the way the Missouri Tigers 'all dreamed it' would;

Sep 7, 2024; Columbia, Missouri, USA; Missouri Tigers head coach Eli Drinkwitz watches play against the Buffalo Bulls during the first half at Faurot Field at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-Imagn Images / Denny Medley-Imagn Images

NASHVILLE — Eli Drinkwitz sure is a big country music fan, but Nashville is certainly not where he hoped, nor was expected to, have his season end with the Missouri Tigers in 2024.

To say that was the case in a season coming off a win in the Cotton Bowl over Ohio State and the opportunity to earn a spot in the first 12-team playoff would be revisionist history.

"It hadn't gone exactly the way we all dreamed it this this season, right?" Drinkwitz said in a press conference following Missouri's win over Mississippi State in Week 13, the Tigers' only road Southeastern Conference win of the 2024 season.

That's not to say, however, that this game can't be an exciting opportunity for Missouri to celebrate the contributions of its senior class, with key members of the program's last two seasons playing in their final games. And a second-straight season with double-dight wins is nothing to snuff at either. It would be just the the third time in program history accomplishing such.

There's no need for Drinkwitz and Co. to dwell on this season once the clock hits zero. There's no time too — Missouri players will have an additional five day window after the conclusion of the bowl game to enter the transfer portal.

But, this was the last rendition of the era of players serving as a bridge between Drinkwitz's early years that included three-straight losing seasons and the past two seasons, featuring a combined record of 20-5.

In this era of college football, going into a season with a quarterback entering his third year as the program's starter, a star wide receiver who has taken major steps over his three year career, and returning multiple other key pieces is rare.

Missouri seemed poised to take advantage of that favorable situation. The trip to the Cotton Bowl gave the team itself reason to believe they were capable of it.

And for as ugly as the Tigers' road showings against Texas A&M and Alabama were, they arguably weren't far off from a playoff berth. Just one more defensive stop against South Carolina in Week 12 could've made all the difference in Missouri's postseason fate.

Ultimately, the Tigers' season will end in a game that Drinkwitz was not afraid to call an "exhibition" match. They're put in a similar situation as Ohio State was in the Cotton Bowl last December.

Dec 28, 2023; Arlington, Texas, USA; Ohio State Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day and Missouri Tigers head coach Eliah Drinkwitz talk behind the Field Scovell Trophy during a press conference prior to the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic at AT&T Stadium. / Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK

Win or lose, that game was much more important for Missouri to put a cap on its best season in nearly a decade. For Ohio State, just over a month removed from the soon-to-be National Champion Michigan, it was a reminder of their missed playoff chances.

A win against Missouri would've been nice for head coach Ryan Day, but a loss certainly wasn't too significant for the Buckeyes either.

This week in Nashville, Drinkwitz isn't adding any dramatization meant for a country heartbreak tune for what this bowl game means for Missouri. If anything, the best benefit was a few additional weeks of practice.

"If you are fortunate enough to win, it catapults you into next year," Drinkwitz said in Sunday's press conference. "If you don't, then you came up short and you fly back. home and celebrate the new year, and you start all over."

The players main motivations to play in this game is the team. There's undoubtedly disappointment on their end on falling short of expectations this season, but the connection the group has built doesn't fade with the stakes of the game. It's the same mindset the team carreid in the final two weeks of the season when their playoff hopes were extinct.

"We play for each other, we play for our team," quarterback Brady Cook said in a press conference following a loss to South Carolina. "But at the end of the day, you also got to play for yourself too. You're not going to get a lot of these opportunities back once in a lifetime deal, and there's only a few games left."

Nov 16, 2024; Columbia, South Carolina, USA; Missouri Tigers quarterback Brady Cook (12) and teammates celebrate after a touchdown against the South Carolina Gamecocks in the second half at Williams-Brice Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Blake-Imagn Images / Jeff Blake-Imagn Images

This team has embraced the idea of playing for each other each of the past two seasons. The message was dominant in the final weeks of practice.

"It's the last opportunity we get to play with this team, and that's what we've been preaching this whole week is we're gonna finish with a win," wide receiver Theo Wease Jr. said in a press conference. "We gotta finish this season the right way."

In the team's final showing in its current form, there's not as much on the line as the Cotton Bowl when Drinkwitz claimed a "wilderness brotherhood" was formed.

The stakes aren't as high this season. But growth is never linear. And even if the record shows a drop off in success, the lessons learned in the season will undoubtedly guide Drinkwitz and the roster moving forward.

Even if that brotherhood was solidified as a relentless group in that 14-3 win, it had really been built in the moments of Missouri's three-straight losing seasons. The moments like in 2022 when the Tigers had to battle tooth and nail with Arkansas just to be eligible for a bowl game they'd end up losing to Wake Forest.

The Gasparilla Bowl in 2022 though, was not just a bowl game to that team in 2022. The journey to that game, and the loss itself, were turned into lessons for Drinkwitz and how he wanted to reform the culture he had created.

Though not as dire, Missouri's journey that led them to Music City Bowl, and the actual matchup with Iowa, is just another chapter in the work of Drinkwitz to build a program. It's another reminder that the journey is more important than the destination. There'll be many more lessons to be learned from Missouri's tumultuous trip through the SEC than its final stop.

The game itself serves as a bridge into the next season for Misssouri. An opportunity to take a better evaluation of some of its younger, unproven players. During the same weeks of the preparation, each team is constantly adding to its future through the transfer portal.

"That's the calendar in college football —building for next season while finishing this season with the bowl game," offensive coordinator Kirby Moore said.

This bowl game is another step in that roster evaluation process going forward. Namely, wide receivers Joshua Manning and James Madison III along with linebackers Jeremiah Beasley and Nic Rodriguez will see extra opportunities, hoping to prove themselves ahead of spring practices.

"Both those guys [Rodriguez and Beasley] will springboard into bigger opportunities with the amount amount of seniors that we have walking out the door at that position," defensive coordinator Corey Batoon said.

It's a different step than was expected at the start of the year. But one that Drinkwitz and the roster he takes forward will have to learn to respond to.

Read more from the Music City Bowl:

Mizzou Music City Bowl Practice Report - Sunday
Mizzou Underclassmen Presented with Chance for More Playing Time in Music City Bowl