Eli Drinkwitz praises Missouri defense after holding Vanderbilt scoreless in first half

Missouri’s defense was staunch in the first half against Vanderbilt, holding the Commodores to 119 total yards — including just 24 rushing — and kept a goose egg on the scoreboard. An interception in the end zone just prior to the half gave the Tigers the ball back with about 90 seconds remaining.

After the offense parlayed that turnover into three points, giving Missouri a 17-10 lead to the half, head coach Eli Drinkwitz was couldn’t help but hype up his defense.

“Offense has been up and down,” Drinkwitz said. “We haven’t ran the ball as well as we need to. But defensively, we’re playing our butt off. That interception right there to take points off the board. They’ve done an excellent job with really bad field position for us, defensively. So hats off to them. They’ve just gotta keep it up this second half.”

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Vanderbilt also continues to try and feed the ball to wideout Will Sheppard. The playmaker was targeted 11 times in the first half, including on the interception in the red area. Sheppard has two catches for 19 yards in the first half.

Drinkwitz is certain the Commodores will keep trying to feed Sheppard the ball, and it’ll take another 30 minutes of good defensive effort to keep him relatively quiet.

“Yeah, I mean he’s a heck of a player and we gotta keep it up because they’re going to keep coming back at him. Especially down 17,” Drinkwitz said.

The Missouri defense came up big down the stretch

With the offense faltering the second half and failing to score any points, the Missouri defense stepped up to the plate and got some critical stops when they needed them

Namely, the defense made the game-sealing stop. With Vanderbilt trying to complete a comeback, trailing 17-14 in the dying moments of the game, the Tigers defense came through with a clutch fourth-down stop to kill the Commodores drive and comeback.