Drinkwitz Doesn't Really Care When Missouri Has to Play Arkansas
NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos...
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz admitted he was surprised the SEC moved the Battle Line Rivalry off Thanksgiving weekend, but said the date won't change its importance.
"The Arkansas game moving was a surprise to me," Drinkwitz said Monday at SEC Media Days. "I've always enjoyed that being a rivalry at the end of the year. But the thing about rivalries is it doesn't matter when you play 'em.
"They're still important. We're playing Kansas Week Two, that's a pretty important rivalry. Doesn't matter if we played them the last or second week of the season."
Few coaches command the room at SEC Media Days quite like Drinkwitz. Now the SEC's second-longest tenured coach, he has become one of the conference's most recognizable voices at Media Days and wittiest interviewee each year.
While he threw some hand grenades toward the Big Ten over its scheduling format, he was quite pleasant or at least unbothered by a question lobbed at him about the Battle Line Rivalry game between Arkansas and fabricated rival Missouri being moved out of its rivalry week spot.
This year, the SEC moved the rivalry game up a full month to Oct. 31, which is a date Arkansas has won a whole lot of games on throughout its history. The Razorbacks are 11-5 in games played on Halloween with four such losses coming from 1908-1942.
"Arkansas, this year, we are playing on the road, on Halloween. It is going to be an important game for our season. I know it is going to be important game for their season. And then, we get Oklahoma at the end of the year."
"Hell, if the playoff expand, the end of the season, you might be resting players. I don't know when the games are played. Might not matter as much if you expand to a 64-team tournament like the FIFA World Cup is."
Whether or not Arkansas and new coach Ryan Silverfield practice with voodoo, Drinkwitz enters the season, similar to many years prior, with confidence in his team. That should certainly be the case given the roster he has assembled for the 2026 season.
A change in scheduling or not, Drinkwitz is 5-1 against his home-state school dating back to 2020 with three games coming down to one possession. It doesn't really matter if the game has been played at Razorback Stadium or Memorial Stadium, he's simply taken care of business even in the toughest of atmospheres.
"I don't worry about all that. I know each and every game in the SEC is extremely difficult. It doesn't matter when you play'em, where you play 'em because it's really hard to win at night. It's really hard to win on the road and it's really hard to win in front of 80,000 screaming fans."
Change of Plans
Razorback fans were excited to find out that the Battle of the Golden Boot rivalry against LSU will return to its traditional Thanksgiving date that it was played on from 1992-2013.
While the Bengal Tigers hold a 44-24 all-time edge over Arkansas, the series tightened with the Razorbacks entrance into the SEC with LSU holding a 14-8 edge with 10 meetings that came down to one score.
Sign up toour free newsletter, and follow us onFacebook,X (Twitter)for the latest news.
Today's best reads
- Who Are The Five Best Running Backs Arkansas Football Will Face in 2026?
- What Razorback Fans Need to Hear During Silverfield's First SEC Media Days
- Arkansas Football's Most Important Players for 2026: No. 9 Caden Kitler
- Steele's Last-Place SEC Projection Reflects Arkansas' Long Road Back Under Silverfield
- Arkansas Football's Most Important Players for 2026: No. 7, Kobe Branham
This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/arkansas as Drinkwitz Doesn't Really Care When Missouri Has to Play Arkansas .
More at NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos