Eli Drinkwitz jokes about defensive gameplan vs. Alabama: ‘We’re going to try Dan Lanning’s approach and play 12’
The Missouri Tigers are gearing up for a challenge against the Alabama Crimson Tide and, ahead of that challenge, Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz joked about how the Tigers are going to put together a defensive gameplan for the game.
Drinkwitz pulled his defensive gameplan from a recent move by Oregon head coach Dan Lanning, who stopped Ohio State in their game by playing 12 players at one point to manipulate the clock, and shared that he might take a similar approach to stopping Alabama.
“We’re gonna try Dan Lanning’s approach and play 12,” Eli Drinkwitz joked. “Just see. Add an extra rusher. See if anybody notices.”
On the play late in the Oregon-Ohio State game, the Ducks had 12-men on the field to stop a pass. In doing so, they gave up five penalty yards but the clock didn’t reset and Ohio State lost valuable time on the play. In that way, Lanning was able to manipulate the clock.
While that strategy could create problems for Drinkwitz given that the NCAA has since pushed to close the loophole in the 12-men penalty that Lanning took advantage of. So, even in the rare circumstances it could help, that won’t be the case anymore. So, instead, Missouri is going to need to focus on what they do defensively.
“We’re going to go play football,” Drinkwitz said. “There’s no magic to it. It’s not like we’re gonna come up with new schemes. We’re gonna do what we do and they’re gonna do what they do and we’re gonna have a great practice today.”
This Missouri defense has been excellent this season. The Tigers are 10th in the country in scoring defense, giving up just 15.6 points per game.
This story will be updated.
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