One thing Eli Drinkwitz got wrong with Missouri getting dog-walked by Texas A&M

One of the marquee games of college football's Week 6 slate almost immediately became a laugher, as No. 25 Texas A&M walked all over No. 9 Missouri in a 41-14 romp at Kyle Field on Saturday afternoon. This was as comprehensive a beatdown as you're likely to see between two ranked teams: The Aggies cleared 200 yards in the air and on the ground while holding the Tigers' offense to fewer than three yards per carry and throttling Brady Cook until a meaningless garbage-time drive late in the fourth padded the Missouri QB's stats.

Any time a team with legitimate College Football Playoff aspirations gets blasted by four scores, there's going to be plenty of blame to go around. The Tigers got pushed around on both lines of scrimmage, while Brady Cook has seemingly regressed as a downfield passer from last season. (Heck, even the officiating crew shouldn't get off totally scot-free.) But of all the areas to point to after the loss, one thing in particular stands out — and should have Missouri fans concerned about Eli Drinkwitz moving forward.

Eli Drinkwitz's biggest mistake in Missouri's blowout loss to Texas A&M

It would be one thing for the Tigers to lose in this spot. Kyle Field is not a fun place to play (no matter what Cook had to say earlier this week), and head coach Mike Elko knows how to call a defense with the best of them. If you stopped paying attention to the Aggies after that season-opening loss to Notre Dame, it might be time to tune back in — this is a team that's only going to get better as the year progresses, and Missouri isn't the only good team A&M will beat the rest of the way.

But while a loss would be understandable, this loss is very much not. Missouri had already survived wake-up calls from both Boston College and Vanderbilt, and had the benefit of a bye week ahead of what was clearly one of, if not the, biggest game of the Tigers' season. And how did they respond to those expectations, with an extra week to prepare? They fell flat in every possible way, both physically and emotionally.

That this was the best Drinkwitz could come up with is a damning indictment of the program he's built, no matter how encouraging the success in 2023 was. No matter who A&M wound up starting at QB, OC Collin Klein figured to try and lean on the running game; yet Missouri was totally unprepared, getting gashed time and again. There was nothing flashy, nothing that the Aggies had cooked up special just for this big spot. They simply were the better team for 60 minutes, and Missouri never found a way to pick themselves up off the deck. Coming in flat off a bye week is inexcusable, as is folding at the first sign of adversity.

Drinkwitz made waves last season for telling Tennessee coach Josh Heupel that he and his program "stood on business". But it's one thing to take the SEC by storm, and it's another to have staying power. Drinkwitz needs to make a dramatic turnaround, because the burden of proof is on him at this point.