Eli Drinkwitz Reacts to Texas A&M Defense Predicting Mizzou's Play Calls

Missouri's offense was clearly outmatched by the Texas A&M defense in Week 11.

Those challenges came not only after the snap, but even before the snap. Missouri offensive tackle Cayden Green said the Texas A&M defense was able to call out Missouri's plays at the line of scrimmage before the ball was even snapped.

"They made some good adjustments," Green said of the Aggie defense after the loss. "They started to kind of key on what we were doing."

Green believed the Aggies were able to do that by reading Missouri's formations and stances along the offensive line. That's especially concerning considering Missouri had a whole extra week to create a game plan for Texas A&M thanks to a bye week leading up to the game.

Drinkwitz attributed the Aggies' ability to call out play to Missouri's pre-snap signaling and communication, plus predictable play calling from the Tigers.

"Obviously we've got to go back and check our tendencies," Drinkwitz said. "We came back off by week, felt like we had a pretty good handle on our stuff. We run a lot outside zone, I think that's probably pretty predictable. So we just got to go back and make sure that we're doing the best job we can to check our stances, check our wording and verbiage to make sure we're clean on that."

The loss to the Aggies was the first game where Missouri was game-planning for true freshman Matt Zollers to start at quarterback. The former four-star prospect was called upon to fill in for Beau Pribula, who suffered an ankle injury against Vanderbilt in Week 9.

Zollers completed just 7 of his 22 passes for just 77 yards. He attempted eight passes of 20 or more air yards and completed just two of those, according to Pro Football Focus.

Zollers looked as about as overwhelmed as you'd expect for a 19 year old making his first career start against an elite defense. Missouri's game plan and pass protection didn't help.

"We let him down as coaches tonight with the protection plan," Drinkwitz said after the loss. "It’s not like he was throwing the ball up for jeopardy and putting us in terrible spots."

Zollers completed just 3 of his first 11 pass attempts. None of Missouri's first three drives of the game lasted longer than five plays or made it past Texas A&M's 40-yard line. That shaky start led to Zollers and the rest of the offense looking rattle from there on.

"It's about getting comfortable earlier in the game and creating some easier opportunities for him to get into a rhythm," Drinkwitz said of operating with Zollers. "We never really got him into the rhythm offensively, and so we've got to do a better job of creating some offensive rhythm and not putting in situations where he feels the entire pressure to make the play."

Going forward, Missouri is searching for ways to better play to Zollers' strengths, while a more complete overview of the offense will come following the season.

"I don't think there's anything about Saturday that we all don't go back and say, 'I wish I would have done this differently,'" Drinkwitz said. "The assessments, really, for all of that stuff for me happens at the end of the year. We're all working right now to try to find a way to improve, figure out what we can do better, how do we play to our players' strengths and find a way to win versus Mississippi State."