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Tiger Talk Notes and Quotes: Mayor’s Cup Edition

Eli Drinkwitz and Mike Kelly returned to Harpo’s Tuesday for Tiger Talk ahead of a nationally televised night game this weekend against South Carolina. Here’s what Drinkwitz, Ahmad Hardy and Drey Norwood had to say:

Drinkwitz said that Mizzou’s defense has seen the fewest number of snaps in the country over its first three games. That’s thanks to a lot of three and outs.
He also broke the news that Brady Cook may get called up to the New York Jets’ NFL roster for Sunday’s game. Cook has been on the team’s practice squad so far this season.
On the process of moving last week’s kickoff up by three hours: “The week before, Georgia was able to move their game up an hour on game day because of weather. So I sent a text to some colleagues at Georgia - Kirby - and asked him, ‘Hey, what did you do?’ And he said, ‘Well, it’s player safety and fan safety.‘ And I said, ‘that sounds about right.’ So that night, I sent Laird [Veatch] and Marcy Girton a text and said, ‘Hey, due to player safety and fan safety, I think we should really consider moving the game up.’”
On why the team chose to kick off at noon instead of 11 a.m.: “I just felt like the 12 o’clock [kickoff] gave the fans from Kansas City and St. Louis plenty of time to get there, and we were still able to manage the heat the way we wanted to.”
On the defense’s performance so far: “They’re doing a really good job of stopping the run, they’re doing a really good job on getting three and outs [and] they’re excellent on third down.”
On the praise Ahmad Hardy has been receiving this past week: “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid, Ahmad.”
On Hardy: “The very first scrimmage we went live, I saw him make a few guys miss - the contact balance - and I was like, alright, we don’t need to see him to live again. And then the first couple of carries against UCA, I was like, oof - whoa, what? Where’s this guy at, you know? And then he settled in. I think he was a little bit nervous to put on. Since that point, it’s been like, holy cow. When Kirby calls a run play for him, I just know that he’s going to knock somebody out and make somebody miss, and it’ll be a good play.”
On keeping in touch with his players in the NFL: “There’s a lot of relationships that run deep. And there’s moments or pockets of time where you can grab you phone and send somebody a quick text, and keep it moving.”
On moving into SEC play: “The first three weeks were really important for us to develop the processes that we have in place. And we don’t need to do anything more - we’ve just got to do it better. So it’s going to be a physical game; every mistake is magnified in these type of contests. So it’ll be a fun one.”
On South Carolina’s seventh-year senior running back Rahsul Faison: “I mean, he’s the only guy in college football older than Jalen Catalon.”
On Gamecocks edge rusher Dylan Stewart: “You have to account for Dylan; just explosiveness, his relentlessness, pursuit to the football, his ability to change the game with the pass rush move. He’s a game wrecker, and you can’t look up in the third quarter and go, why didn’t we have a plan to try to double team him or triple team him on some stuff?”
On Beau Pribula: “I think you can tell he’s settled in. He’s been able to improvise and make some plays on his own; I think he’s got to continue to grow. Obviously, the pressure in the pocket’s got to be something we’ve got to clean up for him, the ability to throw the ball away and not take sacks.”

On the impact NIL has had on him: “I mean, it helped me get three horses so far. But it helped me out a lot; it helped my mom, my brother and things like that. It helped me get on my feet when I was coming from Louisiana-Monroe.”
Hardy says that he’s been riding horses since the age of four or five, and was introduced to horse riding by his grandfather. He became scared of horses, but got over that fear and has been riding them regularly since he was 13 or 14.
On when he realized the seriousness of the brotherhood on the team: “We’ll come on and off the field, you’ve got guys screaming, everybody, don’t miss a dap. It’s that serious about a handshake, man, like what’s up with that? So guys just telling everybody we’ve got to make sure we get our daps and everybody’s got to touch, pass their energy off. We pass that energy every day, and that’s how you know it’s for real.”
On getting into a rhythm on the field: “I get a 10 or 15-yard run, I’m like, okay, it’s time to go. So then my whole line, guys like Cayden Green, Peagler, they start pushing up front. I start getting more yards. And then I’m thinking, I’m gonna bust one, and that’s when it happens.”
On his vision as a running back: “My first two years of high school, I played defense, so I had to read the defense. So I figured that on offense, I could read [the field] pretty good.”
On what he’d do with a day off, provided he can’t go horse riding: “Then I’m going to go fishing.”

On being in his final year: “It’s definitely flown by real fast. I feel like I just got here on campus; now this is my last season, I’m just trying to enjoy it and take it all in.”
On Hardy: “He makes the defense’s job easier in the game, because seeing a guy like that in practice every day, it makes you bring it every day.”
On if he’s been riding with Hardy: “Nah, I’m scared of horses - I ain’t getting on no horse.”
On what’s made this year’s defense so successful: “Everybody wants to see each other succeed; there’s no selfishness on the team. Guys [that aren’t] a starter, they want to see guy in front of them really succeed. And I know when they get the opportunity, their brother wants them to do the same thing.”
On areas of improvement for the defense: “On the back end, just communicating with each other and being more physical on the perimeter.”
On the team’s mission trip to Harmons, Jamaica, in the offseason: “We came together as a team. We learned a lot about each other, and I feel like it’s going to take us a long way. Because when it’s the third or fourth quarter, we’ve been through certain things, we bonded together, so we know we’ve all got each other’s backs out there.”
On what he loves about Mizzou: “The atmosphere, the fans, the culture and the brotherhood. I feel like I’ve met some of my best friends here.”