‘Last Year is Last Year’: Missouri Refuses to Stay Stuck in the Glory of 2023

The party is over for the Missouri Tigers for 2023. The 11-2, Cotton Bowl-winning season in 2023 is now only a memory. The road ahead has more curves in the road, steeper hills to cross but the destination they have in mind is much greater.

“Let me state this as clearly as I can state it,” Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz said Tuesday at the 2024 SEC Media Days. “That was last year, and last year has nothing to do with this year.”

The program has more momentum entering the 2024 season than it possibly ever has ahead of a season. But momentum doesn’t eliminate any steps of the process of reaching the ultimate goal. It is also more difficult to maintain than it is to earn.

“I understand that there’s a lot of outside expectations on what our football program should be,”Drinkwitz said. “I think for us the most important thing is to focus on running our race.”

Instead of relying on the hype or outside noise to build confidence for the upcoming season, Missouri is relying on their own work and chemistry. Ahead of the 2023 season, they shut out any outside noise doubting the program. They’ll do the same this year, even with the headlines singing a different tune.

“With social media and phones and technology, it’s obviously difficult to be able to block anything out,” defensive tackle Kristian Williams said. “But for the most part, we just try to stay present and lock in on what we’ve got to do and lock in on the adversities as a team we’ve got to go through.”

The Tigers embraced the chip on their shoulder in 2023, constantly playing with an underdog mentality. The success that it resulted in yielded more respect for the program but there’s more on the table to prove in 2024.

“Last year our motto formed into something to prove,” quarterback Brady Cook said Tuesday at his SEC Media press conference. “I’m sure you guys have heard it. We lived by it, and we still do. Although we had a good year last year and accomplished a few things, we still have to go out and prove it this year.”

Missouri knows that the success in 2023 will not mean anything this fall. Their record is now 0-0. They’ll have to earn whatever to accomplish. They’re taking to heart the advice that Joe Dirt received: the past is the past, the future is the present.

“2024 is all that matters,” Cook said. “That’s the record that’s going to be talked about. These are the games that’s going to be talked about. No one is going to talk about the CottonBowl versus Ohio State moving forward. It’s in the past. It’s in the history books. We do. We have to go out and prove it every single week.”

With the reset button pushed, it is up to the 2024 Missouri team to establish an identity, work ethic and culture of their own. There’s new pieces to the puzzle, new cooks in the kitchen with new opportunities. Like a chemical reaction, each combination of ingredients react differently.

“We have to go figure out what it means to be a tough, physical football team,” Drinkwitz said. “We gotta understand what kind of poise it’s going to take to play and execute under pressure. And we have a difficult task ahead of us. And so with that being said, in order for us to accomplish our goals this season, our football team has a lot of growth to make.”

Drinkwitz has his team in the right head space. You can’t reach the top of the mountain if you spend too much time reveling at each checkpoint. Each step up is a new, unique challenge. If you’re not careful, you can quickly tumble down to the bottom.

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