Eli Drinkwitz didn’t take the bait.
Somebody at his press conference Tuesday wanted to know if Missouri’s game plan needed a tweak, since Ole Miss has years of history with quarterback Austin Simmons and wide receiver Cayden Lee.
The Tigers coach pointed the finger the other way.
“I mean, I’d be more concerned with what we know about them. Austin’s been going against that defense for three years. Cayden Lee went against that defense for three years,” Drinkwitz said.
He wasn’t done.
“The difference is what they know against those guys was based off a system that they ran while they were there,” he said. “We don’t run anything like they ran, so we have our own system.”
The Southern translation? Nobody in Columbia is losing sleep over a scouting report built on old plays.
Drinkwitz also didn’t pretend Saturday would be just another day for his two former Rebs.
Emotions will be part of trip to Oxford
“I mean, there’s always going to be emotions. I think you got to have emotional consistency,” Drinkwitz said. “So it’s going to be new for them. I think they’re gonna have to rely on teammates who have gone through this before.”
That’s the way things work in college football these days.
Players move and rosters flip every single year. The guy you shared a locker room with in January can be lined up across from you by October.
Simmons and Lee packed up for Columbia back in January. Today, the Missouri offense leans hard on both of them.
The No. 13 Tigers visit the No. 9 Rebels at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Tailgating will start early but not before dawn.
These two haven’t played since 2019, and Missouri hasn’t set foot in Oxford to play a game since 2013.
Neither coach is building an excuse out of this reunion despite a lot of media asking the same question, just phrasing things in a different order, waiting on a different answer. Both are talking up the talent instead.
Golding knew them from other sideline
Pete Golding’s link to this pair is a little different than you might think.
He saw Simmons and Lee every day in practice. But Golding was running the Ole Miss defense back then. He didn’t have direct coaching control over either offensive player until he took over the program for last year’s playoff run.
That still gave him plenty to work with. Golding admitted this week his staff has a feel for what used to throw the two off on the practice field. The Rebels also have a read on how each one thinks and carries himself.
None of that was to knock them, though. He did just the opposite.
Simmons got the first compliment. The Ole Miss coach called it “scary to know how good he is and how talented he is.”
“You see him get better week in and week out,” Golding said. “Relating it back to when he’s here, there’s certain things you gotta go back on from a scrimmage standpoint and all those things. What affected him? What didn’t?”
That isn’t trash talk. That’s a coach doing homework on a quarterback he respects.
Cayden Lee is guy to find on every snap
Lee is drawing the same kind of respect.
In Golding’s eyes, Missouri’s throwing game “goes through” the receiver.
Golding’s group is “going to have to know where he is on every snap he’s in the game,” he said.
That’s strong praise from a coach whose defense covered Lee in practice for years.
It also shows the Rebels aren’t leaning on old notes. Drinkwitz says the system is new. Golding says the players got better.
That’s really just basic coach-speak for what we hear every week in one form or another.
Kewan Lacy matters more than any reunion
Of course, this transfer road runs both ways.
The biggest name on the Ole Miss roster who started at Missouri is Lacy, the star running back. The Rebs are probably crossing their fingers he’s fully healthy for this one.
A healthy Lacy changes what the Ole Miss offense can do. That’s worth a lot more than knowing which practice drills bugged Simmons.
In the end, nobody’s hiding behind familiarity.
Drinkwitz trusts his system and Golding is relying on what tape is telling him.
Saturday in Oxford will sort out the rest.
