Eli Drinkwitz downplays impact College GameDay will have on Missouri performance

No. 15 Missouri will hit the road to take on No. 10 Vanderbilt on Saturday, and the stakes will be high. ESPN’s College GameDay will be in town, making Nashville the center of the college football universe for a day.

But Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz isn’t concerned that the added attention will create any additional problems for his team. He gave a blunt answer when asked about that possibility.

“Is it in First Bank Stadium?” Drinkwitz said. “Doesn’t affect anything then for us. We’re the road team. We’ll show up, we’ll go to the visitor’s locker room, we’ll walk out on the field and play the game. Whatever else they’ve got for their fans there is up to them, but it doesn’t affect us.”

The Missouri coach wasn’t done there. He threw in some self-deprecating humor about his squad when it comes to College GameDay.

“I don’t even think they want to talk to us,” Drinkwitz said. The show famously conducts plenty of interviews with the teams involved in the featured game.

Many have pointed out the massive stakes the game will have, given the profiles of both teams involved. College GameDay will be there and will likely shed more light on this fact over the course of the three-hour broadcast, but suffice it to say both teams need a win.

ESPN analyst Heather Dinich provided some insight on that on Tuesday night on the College Football Playoff: Top 25 program. And it goes for both teams.

“I think they might have more to prove in the selection committee meeting room,” Dinich said of Vanderbilt. “When you look at the win against LSU, it was big but it was also their first win against a Power Four opponent over .500. If they beat Mizzou, their playoff chances will jump to 49%, according to the Allstate Playoff Predictor.”

On the flip side, the visiting team on College GameDay also has a similar task at hand. The Tigers can’t very well afford a loss either.

“Mizzou is in a similar spot, right, because they also lost to Alabama but they have even less to compensate for it on their schedule right now,” Dinich said. “Because not only do they need a win against a ranked opponent, this would be their first win against an opponent with a winning record.

“Those are things the committee looks at. You know this, they look at their opponents’ winning percentage, and right now Mizzou is one of the worst in the country. They’re No. 103 with opponent winning percentage.”

Can College GameDay provide a spark then, for either team? We’ll find out. At the very least, the eyes of the college football public will be on Nashville.