No. 19 Mizzou has a chance to banish unpleasant memories of its last match against Auburn

COLUMBIA, Missouri – Oh, the Auburn memories.

Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz has plenty of them. Some are bitter — like the taste of the few blades of grass that stood between his team and a victory the last time he coached against Auburn. Some are sweet, like the national title he won with the Blue-Orange Tigers early in his coaching career.

Saturday's matchup between No. 19 Mizzou (5-1, 1-1 Southeastern Conference) and Auburn (2-4, 0-3 SEC) will be a strange mix of those memories and something completely different.

Let's get the vegetables out of the way first: MU's last contest with Auburn was right up there with the most baffling and frustrating finishes in program history – not a fifth down, to be clear, but still marked by Missouri woes.

Two plays stood out from Mizzou's 17-14 road loss to Auburn in 2022. First, then-kicker Harrison Mevis missed a 26-yard chip shot field after previously being flawless from that distance. That was the final play of the regular season, sending both Tiger groups into overtime.

At that moment, running back Nathaniel Peat charged toward the goal line with a game-winning touchdown just inches away. But the ball slipped out of his hand, prompting an Auburn defender to jump on it — a fumble, a touchback and a loss in one sequence.

“So much energy, time and passion goes into these games,” Drinkwitz said at the time. “To be so close and lose…it’s heartbreaking.”

This game wasn't that long ago – if you're a Missouri fan and read this section quickly to get past the acrimony, it's probably still pretty vivid for you.

But MU has changed quite a bit since then. For one thing, the black and gold Tigers have exorcised the tight end demons of the 2022 season, improving from 2-4 in one-score contests this season to 4-0 last year and 2-0 already this season.

Their squad turnover was also significant. Although it was only two years ago, only six starters for the 2022 Auburn game will likely see the field on Saturday: quarterback Brady Cook, wide receiver Luther Burden III, center Connor Tollison, offensive lineman Mitchell Walters, defensive tackle Kristian Williams and safety Joseph Charleston.

While Missouri's players may not have a collective memory of what happened on the Plains in the not-too-distant past, their coaches certainly do. An emphasis is on keeping the ball safely in the end zone – that is, not extending it to try to get it over the pylon or goal line. One such coachable moment occurred in 2023 preseason camp when Burden stuck the ball out during a drill that didn't have much to do with ball security.

Still, wide receivers coach Jacob Peeler loudly reminded Burden never to do that — albeit with an unprintable word or two to emphasize his point.

Drinkwitz's warmer and fuzzier Auburn memories, however, appear to be the ones that particularly shaped his programming at Missouri.

His first college coaching position was at Auburn under then-coach Gene Chizik. Drinkwitz had worked at the high school level in his home state of Arkansas, but accepted an offer to work as a quality control assistant on the Plains.

His first season was Auburn's 2010 title run, when the Tigers defeated national championship runner-up Oregon, cementing a 14-0 season.

“When I got there, I thought coaching college football was easy,” Drinkwitz recalled this week. “I mean, we went 12-0 (in the regular season). You just get the two best players in college football and win, which is what Cam Newton and Nick Fairley did for us.”

Having a Heisman-winning quarterback and an All-American defensive tackle in Newton and Fairley certainly made things easier. But when you listen to Drinkwitz's brief recollection of one of his most profoundly formative coaching experiences, insights emerge into the way he runs the Mizzou program.

The way Drinkwitz talks about Newton:

“Cam Newton was one of the best – and is one of the best – leaders I have ever seen in the locker room: he brought the team together and faced a lot of adversity. He faced a lot of personal adversity, whether it was because of the game criticism in his first few games or because of the other things that happened throughout the year. But he stood his ground.”

Sounds a bit like Drinkwitz talking about Missouri quarterback Brady Cook, doesn't it?

It wouldn't be surprising if Drinkwitz had tried, whether unconsciously or intentionally, to highlight the aspects of locker room culture that were so apparent to him during his time at Auburn.

Maybe that will become apparent in some way over the course of Saturday's game. There are details on the field that get more attention than the influences of a head coach's philosophy, and rightly so.

But even in a relatively mundane SEC game, there's a chance for Missouri to improve the nature of its memories of an opponent like Auburn.