Tiger Talk notes and quotes: Homecoming edition

Eli Drinkwitz and Mike Kelly returned to Harpo’s Tuesday night for another edition of Tiger Talk ahead of Saturday’s Homecoming game against UMass.

Here’s what Drinkwitz, alongside running back Jamal Roberts and linebacker Josiah Trotter, had to say:

Eli Drinkwitz

• On the Mayor’s Cup victory: “Our guys never really flinched, they just kept playing together. We knew we were going to come out, our offensive line really kind of wore them out to rush for that many yards. And then obviously our defense held them to minus nine yards rushing. It was really good to see our defense and offense play together in the fourth quarter; we scored 11, they scored zero. And then special teams hits the game winner. So just a gutsy win, that’s the way to describe it.”
• On Josiah Trotter: “He played unbelievable. You know, there was a comment (by South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer) that we paid a lot of money for him. And I would say that was money well spent, a good investment there.”
• On Ahmad Hardy: “It’s BYOB: be your own blocker. And that’s kind of what he is. He makes a lot of people miss.”
• On the Cayden Green injury and Jayven Richardson: “On Wednesday, we had a just unfortunate accident. On Thursday, we had a walk through, and on Thursday night at 10 o’clock I got a phone call that said, ‘Hey, we’re gonna have to have a little bit of a cleanup surgery here on Cayden. So Jayven didn’t know he was playing until Friday morning, and for him to go in there against some really, really good players, and to play as well as he did – now, there’s a lot of things he’s got to be better at – but to play as well as he did, and not to be a liability, he deserved and earned a game ball.”
• On keeping the team focused on UMass: “When you’re going around a curve, you can either let up or you can accelerate through. And when you accelerate through the curve, you create momentum for the straight ahead. We’ve got a straight ahead coming along, so we really need to accelerate through the curve right now.”
• Drinkwitz said Conor Weselman dropkicking the ball against South Carolina came from the punter “dorking around,” which he defines as “when they’re doing something that I have no idea what they’re doing, and it’s not very intense,” at practice that week. They figured out that Weselman could be consistently accurate dropkicking the ball, and they ran with the idea.
• On South Carolina kick returner Nyck Harbor, who has multiple return touchdowns this year: “The first thing was, I told our team, ‘We ain’t scared of these guys – we’re gonna kick it to him.‘ And then when he started running, I was like, ‘Well alright, I lied – we’re a little bit scared of these guys.‘”
• On what the team does to try and distract kickers in practice: “After the offensive series, we have a series of four kicks. And the defense comes out, and they get right next to them, right? And they say some things that make me blush, and they have to kick. So I think Robbie was just pleased there wasn’t any defensive players yelling at him before the kick (that clinched the win over South Carolina).”
• After Mike Kelly listed off Mizzou’s SEC opponents for next year, Drinkwitz joked: “You missed one – I think we host the Chiefs, too, week 11.”
• On his takeaways from the first four weeks: “They’ve been ready to play each game. It hasn’t been perfect, but they’ve always fought to maintain the identity of what we want to have, which is be able to run the ball, stop the run and cover kicks. They’re always willing to be coached.”
• On avoiding “entitlement”: “Are you still committed, regardless of the opponent? You’ve got to disassociate yourself from the outcome, and you’ve got to put all that you have in it knowing the outcome is uncertain.”
• On the key to the UMass game: “It’s going to be about us attacking them and not waiting to see what they want to do. It’s about us setting the tone and attacking them early in the game.”

Jamal Roberts

• On his takeaway from the first four games: “Putting all the hard work [in] during fall camp, just seeing it show on the field. We’ve been very dominant at what we do: executing every play, just staying 1-0.”
• On why he stayed at Mizzou instead of transferring: “That foundation that I was brought to with that ‘23 class, it just stuck with me. A lot of guys just showed me the way, and I’d seen the vision that I’d seen before I had committed here: that I wanted to be a part of the brotherhood, I wanted to be a part of the winning tradition and just change the program around.”
• On what he told Kevin Coleman, Jr., when trying to get him to Mizzou: “I just told him to come home. We always need players who improve every day, and I knew he could bring his skills, his ability, his leadership to our team to help us out to win a natty.”
• On what he was thinking as he crossed the goal line for a 63-yard touchdown in the Border War: “I can’t get caught, I’ve got to put them to bed.”
• When asked about Coach Luper, Roberts mentioned some of the team bonding activities the position coaches put together – including spaghetti night alongside the tight ends group before the South Carolina game.

Josiah Trotter

• On being a third of the way through the (regular) season: “It’s been great. We try not to say one-third, because we believe we can play 16 games this season. So we try to speak that into existence, and we try to say 16 games, say a quarter at least.”
• On what he looked for in the portal: “I was just looking for a home: somewhere I felt comfortable, where I can elevate my game, put a lot of things I wanted on film. Obviously, everyone wants to get to the next level.”
• Trotter said that his welcome during his recruiting visit as a transfer stood out. He said a lot of the football staff, from coaches to nutritionists, showed up to greet him when he arrived.
• Trotter has known Beau Pribula since sophomore year of high school, when they faced off in a Pennsylvania state title game. Trotter’s school won the game.
• When asked if he reminds Pribula about that: “Oh yeah, I definitely remind him about it.”
• Trotter revealed that one of his favorite hobbies is bowling. He said his average is around 175, and he’s got five bowling balls alongside his own shoes. He also mentioned that he tried to join a bowling league, but he couldn’t because of fall camp.
• On what the team needs to do against UMass: “Just go in with the mindset that we’ve got to go in there and dominate. We can’t focus about next week, last week; just take it one play at a time, one quarter at a time, and just go out there and dominate.”