51ºÚÁÏ

At first glance, it’s easy to think last weekend’s “mock road game� trip to Lindenwood University for an intrasquad scrimmage falls into the category of things done more for show than for results.

Or perhaps it’s a coach seeking to show off how detailed he and his staff are in their preparation. You know, the type of thing a coach can point to later and say, we were so attuned to the unusual schedule quirk that placed the first road game on October 18, that we dreamed up a creative solution to address it.

While that might warrant some consideration, I’ll still lean toward a much simpler conclusion. The competitor in Drinkwitz felt compelled to do something, anything, take some sort of substantial steps to remove the sour taste from his mouth that lingered from last season and try to proactively avoid that same bitter flavoring this season.

“I wanted to see from a mentality standpoint, would we start fast,� Drinkwitz said after his team wrapped up at Lindenwood’s Hunter Stadium in St. Charles. “Would we have the right mindset. Did we come out ready to play. In a road game, you can’t ease into it.

“You look at our poor performances last year, three of them on the road. We were really, really slow, and that can’t happen. We have to start fast. That’s something you can learn now and apply it. Instead of having to learn after you go on the road.�

It’s not just a Mizzou thing or a Drinkwitz thing.

Kalen DeBoer accepted the job as Alabama’s successor to college football’s king Nick Saban. DeBoer, surrounded not just by a mountain of expectations but a mountain range of expectations, experienced a similar failing.

Alabama went 7-0 at home in DeBoer’s first season, but 2-3 on the road and 0-1 at a neutral site. Nine total wins isn’t comfortable standing for a head coach at a program that has chased/seen multiple head coaches leave coming off 10-win seasons (Gene Stallings, , Ray Perkins).

, DeBoer mentioned the need to play better on the road this season — starting with their opener against Florida State.

Kirby Smart’s Georgia team won the SEC championship, and he fired a snarky comment at the conference commissioner in front of the college football world while still in the process of accepting the championship trophy, saying commissioner Greg Sankey and his staff “sent� Georgia on the road “all year long.� Why? Two of Georgia’s three regular season losses came on the road.

Even Texas’ new starting quarterback Arch Manning, the latest in a lineage of college and NFL passing royalty as the grandson of Archie Manning and nephew of Eli Manning and Peyton Manning, recently marveled at his successor Quinn Ewers for his remarkable performance on the road as the team’s starter (11-1 record not including neutral sites).

“It’s a different mentality, it’s us against the world when you’re on the road,� Arch Manning told reporters .

Texas went 5-0 on the road last season. Not losing a road game kept them one game ahead of Georgia and Tennessee in the conference standings. For that matter, there were eight SEC teams within two games of Texas. Seven of those eight had multiple road losses. The lone exception? South Carolina.

Ah yes, South Carolina. Which brings us back to Mizzou and Drinkwitz’s fixation on the road woes.

Drinkwitz mentioned three poor road results while preaching the need to start fast. After all, Mizzou finished last season with a 10-3 overall record.

“We’ve got to have another urgency to raise our level of where we’re at,� Drinkwitz said after the mock road trip. “We can’t just coast. We’ve got to have some urgency to get going.�

You can argue that a faster start changes the momentum and, perhaps, alters the way games unfold like the 41-10 loss at Texas A&M and a 34-0 loss at Alabama.

Okay. Sure. If that makes you feel better, cling to the belief that one play could’ve changed everything.

But when Drinkwitz preaches about fast starts and urgency, all I hear is: South Carolina! South Carolina! SOUTH CAROLINA!

Don’t let the final two minutes of that game fool you. Yes, Mizzou scored with 1:10 remaining and took a 30-27 lead, then gave up a go-ahead touchdown with 15 seconds remaining in a 34-30 loss.

That’s not necessarily where the game got away.

Mizzou scored six first-half points on a pair of field goals. Those six points weren’t a fast start, they were missed opportunities to put South Carolina on its heels.

Sure, Mizzou scored it’s first six points of the game on drives that stalled with their offense knocking on the door inside the 20-yard line.

Multiple stalled drives in the red zone does not equal a fast start.

The Mizzou offense gained 114 yards in the first quarter and had just six points. For the half, they went 0-for-6 on third downs and 0-for-1 on fourth down.

Failure to convert and keep drives alive does not equal a fast start.

And a slow start that led to a four-point loss on the road left Mizzou at three conference losses (5-3) instead of tied with Georgia (6-2) and Tennessee (6-2) and a step ahead of Alabama, LSU, Ole Miss, South Carolina and Texas A&M in .

So was a trip to Lindenwood worth all the fuss?

It is if it gets the message across and gets one more win, because one win means a lot, then yes it was worth it.

If nothing else, perhaps it helps Drinkwitz exorcise a South Carolina-sized demon.