Eliah Drinkwitz (SEC Twitter Photo)
Kentucky’s Southeastern Conference opener with Missouri September 11 in Lexington is seen as a pivotal game for the Cats this season if they hope to put together a special season. However, second-year Missouri coach Eliah Drinkwitz said Thursday at SEC Media Days that one of the critical steps he took in his first year was beating Kentucky.
“I think the critical steps we took forward, obviously, in order to have a chance to win the SEC, you’ve got to win your division first. They hadn’t beat Kentucky in five years. For us to beat Kentucky, I think was a big step in the right direction,” he said. ” Then to turn around and avenge the loss to Vandy, who the previous year had beat them, was extremely important. Hadn’t won at South Carolina since, I think, ’14, so to go on the road and win the Mayor’s Cup — again, to win the East is extremely important.”
Both Kentucky and Missouri are chasing Georgia and Florida in the SEC East, one reason the UK-Missouri game is so important to both teams and will be again this year.
“Whole lot of respect for coach Stoops and the job that he’s done at Kentucky. Probably the most consistent coach in our league outside of Coach Saban. Just have a lot of respect for who he is and how he runs his program,” Drinkwitz said. “Absolutely going to be a tremendous challenge on the road.
“First time going to face that kind of crowd, week 2 of the season, going to be a lot of unknowns. Obviously, they have a new offensive coordinator, so you’re not going to have a whole lot of tape on what they’re going to do. Going to be breaking in a new quarterback.
“Like any game in this league, it’s going to be a tremendous challenge. I think what you have to do is focus on who you are and what you want to become and play to your strengths. That’s obviously what we’re going to do.”
Drinkwitz said everyone in the East is chasing Georgia and Florida but that UK does have one edge over his program.
“Those programs have had a little bit of an advantage on us from a stability standpoint as far as Mizzou, and so has Kentucky, so we’re working really hard to recruit at a level that gives us the ability to compete with those guys, working on a player development way to compete with those guys, and look forward to a good matchup,” he said.
