The biggest topic for Mizzou football hasn't been which bowl game the Tigers will play in; heck, it's not even the fact that the Tigers are looking for their first win in Norman, Oklahoma, since 1966.
It's been the future of current Tigers head coach Eli Drinkwitz. On Tuesday, Drinkwitz addressed this topic before any reporter in the room could ask him about the subject.
"I'm not going to comment on message board chatters, tweets, sources," Drinkwitz said. "I've maintained with you [the media] and our team that my complete focus is on the task at hand. "Last week, people were tired of me because I couldn't win the big game. People had me meeting with my team and telling them that I was going to another school, none of which were true.
"All of this stuff is just a distraction. I would like to remind everybody, including our fans, that we absolutely love Mizzou," Drinkwitz said. We love what we're building. We've been to six straight bowl games. We got the sellout streak going. Our administration has been nothing but phenomenal to me."
Other schools, including Penn State, Auburn, and LSU, are three of the schools linked with Drinkwitz, and from the obvious perspective, there are vacancies at those positions. Brian Kelly, Hugh Freeze, and James Franklin all were shown the door, and since, Franklin has been the lone coach to have found a job elsewhere.
Another obvious point, the fact that Mizzou football's chances at the College Football Playoff have gone down under for this season, this topic will remain a prevalent one, even with this response by Drinkwitz.
Since he went down with an ankle injury against Vanderbilt three games ago, Beau Pribula has also occupied the airwaves of Tiger faithful, especially after this past weekend, from his pre-game warmups before the Tigers' 49-27 victory over Mississippi State.
No ankle brace and no more limited movement were what was seen in Pribula's warmups at Faurot, both being rather intriguing developments after how gruesome the injury was against the Commodores, confirmed by the fact that Pribula was carted off the field after remaining on the turf.
"Beau Pribula is currently working through his rehab process, and with the oversight of the doctors and the training staff, we're going through a protocol," Drinkwitz said. "He has been allowed to practice with certain limitations, which is why he appeared on the SEC availability report last week, and why you saw him on Saturday in pregame warm-up. We will see how he progresses this week, and it will be updated on the SEC media report or by apparently now Matt Zenitz or Pete Thamel tweets."
Moving forward, in the midst of Pribula's recovery, Drinkwitz had this to say on whether Pribula is the starting quarterback of the team when he returns from his ankle injury, as opposed to the Tigers' current starter, the true-freshman Matt Zollers, whom Drinkwitz said will remain the starter this weekend.
"My anticipation going into [this game], is that Matt will be our starting quarterback this week," Drinkwitz said. "Beau Pribula is currently working through his rehab process...We don't have a Drew Bledsoe-Tom Brady thing brewing here yet. Beau is our starter. Beau is our starting quarterback. Matt Zollers has been awesome, and Matt's currently our starting quarterback."
With those topics addressed, the Tigers now look forward to their matchup against a No. 11-ranked Oklahoma Sooners squad, which is currently in position to make the CFP and is high off a win against Alabama. The rivalry will be renewed this Saturday once again.