Coach Drinkwitz apologetic for Mizzou's poor performance

The Missouri Tigers experienced an extreme wake up call on Saturday when they suffered a beatdown at the hands of Texas A&M.

Playing at Kyle Field is never an easy task, but for Mizzou to lose 41-10 was an embrassing result in its first big test of the season. Coach Drinkwitz was not pleased with his team's performance, taking responsibility for the defeat.

"Just a really poor performance by my football team, and it starts with me, and I apologize to our fans," Drinkwitz said. "It's my responsibility for us to be better."

The Tigers came out strong hitting on a 26-yard completion to Luther Burden before things took a turn for the worst. On the same possession, Mizzou went for a 4th-and-two in Aggie territory and were denied a pass interference call after discussion amongst the officials.

"We can't let one play dictate the rest of the game," Drinkwitz said. "Obviously it was a momentum play, but we had plenty of other opportunities."

Earlier in the week, Drinkwitz made it clear that Mizzou was preparing for Marcel Reed to start at quarterback for the Aggies, but right before game time, Coach Mike Elko went with Conner Weigman instead. This ended up being quite the decision as Weigman played a near perfect game, giving the Tigers' defense fits all day.

"Really good player. He was very accurate today," Drinkwitz said regarding Weigman's performance. "He did a great job scrambling the football. We weren't ever able to make him uncomfortable."

As for the flip side, the Tigers' offense struggled to gain any sort of momentum. Brady Cook had a rough outing, finishing the day 13-31 for just 186 yards passing. It'll be a big week of practice for Cook, who has looked flustered in his last couple of starts.

Mizzou's starting defensive tackle Kristian Williams was not happy with how his unit looked today.

"Coaches told us we have two options: either respond or dwell on the past, drop your head, and fail to grow from this," Williams said. "In my opinion, we are going to respond. We are going to keep going, keep growing, because at the end of the day, to us, our season has just begun."

Mizzou will look to pick up a bounce back win next week when they travel to UMass for its final non-conference game of the season.