Kentucky football: Five things to know about the Missouri Tigers
Five things to know about Kentucky’s Saturday opponent, the Missouri Tigers:
1. Mark Stoops and Eli Drinkwitz have built a friendship
That’s what Stoops said on Monday during his weekly press conference. “Eli and I have built a friendship and I like him,” said the Kentucky coach. “He kicked our butt (last season). He kicked our butt. I’m not going to forget. That’s on my mind. He had his team more prepared than I was. Maybe he’ll have some compassion for me.”
The 38-year-old Drinkwitz is a native of Oklahoma and went to Arkansas Tech. He hooked up with former Auburn and current UCF coach Gus Malzahn at Springdale High School in Arkansas. In fact, Drinkwitz said this week he still talks to Malzahn two to three times a week.
Drinkwitz was quarterbacks coach at Auburn from 2010-11 before following Malzahn to Arkansas State in 2012. He left for Boise State in 2014, then became offensive coordinator at North Carolina State in 2016. He followed Scott Satterfield as head coach at Appalachian State in 2019, leading the Mountaineers to a 12-1 record. He directed the Tigers to a 5-5 record last year, his first as the head coach at Missouri.
2. Steve Wilks was a surprise hire as defensive coordinator
The 52-year-old Wilks had not coached in college since being the secondary coach at Washington in 2005. From 2006 when he joined Lovie Smith’s staff with the Chicago Bears, Wilks had been an NFL coach. His career took off under Ron Rivera at Carolina, where he was assistant head coach on the Panthers’ 2015 Super Bowl team, then defensive coordinator. He was head coach of the Arizona Cardinals for one season — 3-13 in 2018 — and defensive coordinator of the Cleveland Browns in 2019.
Wilks favors an aggressive defense that relies on man-to-man coverage in the secondary. The Tigers recorded nine sacks in their 34-24 victory over Central Michigan last week. Many of those sacks came on blitzes. Expect to see Wilks try to dial up pressure on Kentucky quarterback Will Levis on Saturday night at Kroger Field.
Wilks and Drinkwitz were both unhappy with Mizzou’s tackling against Central Michigan. Pro Football Focus reported that the Tigers missed 16 tackles against the Chippewas.
“When you really look at it, it wasn’t really a lot of problem runs,” Wilks told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “It was really one guy at one point in time not executing and doing that job. So we’ve got to do a much better job of really being disciplined, still working on fundamentals and technique and really just staying in our gaps.”
3. Kentucky knows Connor Bazelak well
The 6-foot-3, 212-pound sophomore quarterback out of Dayton considered Kentucky before ultimately signing with Missouri in 2019. As a redshirt freshman coming off ACL surgery, he replaced TCU transfer Shawn Robinson — Robinson is now playing safety — as the starter the third week of the season and helped engineer a 45-41 win over the defending national champs by hitting on 29 of 34 passes for 406 yards and four touchdowns.
A week later, Bazelak was 21-for-30 for 201 yards in the 20-10 win over Kentucky. The rest of the season, however, Bazelak threw for just three touchdowns with five interceptions. He ended up competing 67.3 percent of his passes for 2,366 yards.
The knock on Bazelak was inability to produce explosive plays. So, right out of the gate against Central Michigan, the quarterback hit Boo Smith with a 63-yard strike that set up a touchdown just 29 seconds into the game. At the end of the afternoon, Bazelak was 21 of 32 through the air for 257 yards with two scores and zero picks.
Said Stoops, “Connor’s a very good player that we know very well, we have great respect for him. He came in last year and did a remarkable job. I thought he was extremely poised. He has that ability to create space when he needs to, keeping his eyes down the field and extending plays. He’s one of those guys that are very good and aggravating to a defense. Does what he has to do, whether he has to scramble, buy time, moving the pocket, scramble for a first down. You name it, he’ll do what he has to do, very good player.”
4. A Rice transfer leads the Missouri defense
Or at least Blaze Alldredge did in the win over CMU, recording 10 tackles, including 3.5 sacks and six tackles for loss. Not a bad start for the 6-2, 220-pounder from Kissimmee, Fla., who has the unenviable task of replacing tackling machine Nick Bolton, the No. 58 overall pick by the Kansas City Chiefs in this year’s NFL Draft.
Alldredge took a long and winding road to Columbia. In 2017, he played at Pierce Junior College in Los Angeles. He transferred to Rice, where he was twice named the team’s Most Valuable Player and was a two-time All-Conference USA selection. Playing a full season in 2019, he recorded 21.5 TFLs, which ranked second nationally.
Of his performance against CMU, in which the Tigers recorded nine sacks, Alldredge said, “To be honest, I felt like I played pretty bad.”
One other note: According to his Missouri bio, Alldredge is “pursuing a master’s degree in positive coaching.”
5. The UK game has helped determine Mizzou’s season
The Tigers are 3-5 against Stoops at Kentucky. They won the first two meetings, 48-17 in Lexington in 2013 and 20-10 in Columbia in 2014. With Gary Pinkel as the head coach, Missouri went 12-2 in 2013 and 11-4 in 2014. They won the SEC East both seasons.
Stoops got his first victory over Missouri against Pinkel in 2015, winning 21-13 in Lexington. The Tigers finished 5-7 and Pinkel stepped down at the end of the season because of health issues. He was replaced by Barry Odom, a Missouri alum who had been a successful coordinator at Memphis and Mizzou.
Odom went 0-4 against Kentucky, losing 35-21 in 2016; 40-34 in 2017; 15-14 in 2018 and 29-7 in 2019. Overall, Odom went 25-25 during his time in Columbia, including just 13-19 in the SEC. He was fired at the end of the 2019 season and is now in his second season as the defensive coordinator at Arkansas.
This story was originally published September 10, 2021 at 10:54 AM.
