Missouri football mired Tennessee in hell. It was the best moment of the Drinkwitz era | Kwiecinski
The celebration was jubilant. Every member of the Missouri football team was smiling, ear to ear.
Offensive lineman Cam'Ron Johnson stood near the logo at midfield of Faurot Field waving goodbye to the visiting Vols, who were just whipped by the hosting Tigers 36-7.
The celebration was triumphant, if not a bit provocative. But Missouri did not care.
This was the moment the Tigers had been waiting for. They all took turns force-feeding the hell they had endured all of last season to a team that put them there.
"We were in hell last year," MU head coach Eli Drinkwitz said. "You lose some of those games the way we did, it don't get what much worse than that, you know?"
It always seemed to get worse last year. Auburn. Florida. Especially Tennessee. This year, the wins keep becoming more meaningful.
On Saturday, it didn't get any better than what Missouri did to Tennessee. It was the biggest moment of the season, and it was the best moment of the Drinkwitz era.
"This team just said, 'Hey, you can't kill us,'" Drinkwitz said. "We're going to fight our way out.'
Saturday was a long time coming for Missouri.
The Volunteers have eviscerated the Tigers for the last two years. Tennessee scored 128 points over those two years and made sure they let Missouri know about it.
Missouri, mired in its hell, couldn't say much. The occasional quip would arise but in a hushed tone because of those two outcomes.
"Karma's a bitch," a person close to the program said of Tennessee's 63-38 loss to South Carolina, which was a week after UT's 66-24 win over MU.
On Saturday, karma came around for Missouri. That's because every Missouri player had their chance to hold Tennessee in the same hell they endured for an entire year.
The offensive line didn't control the line of scrimmage; they owned it. There were times the line pushed Tennessee's defensive font five yards off the ball at the snap.
The defense did the same, haranguing the Volunteers' rushing attack and holding it to 83 total yards. Missouri's defense capped the night with a pick-six by Daylan Carnell.
The defense that was blown to smithereens by Tennessee came back with great vengeance and furious anger.
"We owed them one," MU defensive lineman Darius Robinson said.
Cody Schrader, with his status as the SEC's leading rusher documented, did to Tennessee what Tennessee did to Missouri: destruction. Three-hundred and twenty-one all-purpose yards later, Schrader's teammates lifted him up on their shoulders to document a history outing.
Putting it simply: Schrader had 321 total yards of offense himself, whereas Tennessee had 350 as a team.
"That was definitely the No 1 moment in my entire life," Schrader said of his teammates lifting him up postgame.
All of this led to one result: Missouri wins 36-7. The Tigers are vaulted towards a New Year's Six Bowl. Tennessee's bowl standing now rests on its result next week against, well, Georgia.
MU demoralized Tennessee. A year ago, that seemed impossible. The Vols had the Tigers' number, and boy did they have it good.
Saturday is a moment that now stands as the best moment of the Eli Drinkwitz era. Missouri is two wins away from a 10-win season. Drinkwitz should be the SEC's Coach of the Year in my book. No one else in the conference has done what Drinkwitz has done this season.
What Drinkwitz has done is lift Missouri out of its hell.
"When that gets you down and you just gotta keep on going, that's just part of it, right?" Drinkwitz said. "It's a tribute to those guys' character, and it'll serve them well in life. I promise you that."
What remains is a chance to still deliver hell unto those who have done that to Missouri in the past.
Florida, which beat Missouri last season by one score, is next. Then comes a reeling Arkansas team. If Missouri plays like it did Saturday against those two teams, it will win.
Earlier this season we asked players what a complete game of football from Missouri would look like. Saturday was an example of that.
This Missouri, at its best, takes teams to the hell it lived in and dares them to fight out of it. The Tigers can, they know how to claw from the depths. Other teams, like Tennessee this week, don't.
Florida and Arkansas are next.
"We're willing to go down to the depths and fight our way out," Drinkwitz said. "We gotta see if anybody else will go down there with us."
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Missouri football mired Tennessee in hell. It was the best moment of the Drinkwitz era
