FAYETTEVILLE — Late Monday night, Missouri Coach Eli Drinkwitz decided he’d send a little jab to his counterpart at the University of Arkansas, Sam Pittman.
Earlier in the day, the SEC office announced the Razorbacks had too many covid-19-related personnel issues in their football program to play their scheduled game at Missouri on Saturday. Around 5:30 p.m., the SEC announced Missouri would host Vanderbilt this Saturday in a matchup that had been previously scheduled for Oct. 17 but moved due to coronavirus problems.
“I sent Coach Pittman a text at about 11:45 last night,” Drinkwitz said on his regular Tuesday video conference. “I said, ‘Your butt better be awake. You can’t be at home sleeping since we had to change our game plan.’ ”
Pittman, who returned to work last Wednesday from his own isolation due to positive covid-19 test results, was still awake.
“He thought that was pretty funny,” Drinkwitz said.
Pittman and the Razorbacks faced their biggest coronavirus crisis of the season last week with star tailback Rakeem Boyd, six top defensive linemen and a handful of others unavailable due to either positive tests or contact tracing.
The numbers proved to be even worse Monday, leading to the postponement of the seventh edition of the Battle Line Rivalry, the border skirmish between the Razorbacks and Tigers that is still in its infancy as a Thanksgiving weekend staple.
Kevin Trainor, UA senior associate athletic director for communications, said the Razorbacks fell below the threshold of 53 healthy scholarship players established by the SEC medical guidance task force that allow for a postponement.
The listed minimums are 53 healthy scholarship players, seven available scholarship offensive linemen, four available scholarship defensive linemen, one healthy scholarship quarterback and one healthy scholarship center. The Razorbacks met those minimum guidelines last week with 56 available scholarship players for their 27-24 loss to LSU.
While the Razorbacks (3-5) are dealing with their first postponement of a game after playing their first eight as scheduled, the Tigers (3-3) have had several alterations.
• The Tigers’ game against LSU on Oct. 10 was moved from Baton Rouge to Columbia, Mo., due to Hurricane Delta, resulting in a 45-41 Missouri win.
• The Oct. 17 game vs. Vanderbilt was moved to Dec. 12 due to covid-19 issues for the Commodores.
• Missouri flipped its scheduled games against Florida and Kentucky originally set for Oct. 24 and Oct. 31, respectively, due to covid-19 issues for the Gators.
• The Nov. 14 game against Georgia was postponed due to covid-19 problems in the Missouri program.
• Saturday’s game against Arkansas was postponed to an undetermined date due to the Razorbacks’ coronavirus outbreak.
Drinkwitz, a native of Alma and an Arkansas Tech graduate, was at least thankful that Monday afternoon’s news didn’t blindside him.
“You know Coach Pittman, I will give him credit, called me Monday morning and let me know that their numbers were really close and he was just giving me a head’s up,” he said. “I didn’t let that affect my day, because I knew we needed to prepare either way.”
Drinkwitz and his staff stayed in the coaching offices until midnight Monday working on the adjusted game plan.
Former Greenwood High Coach Rick Jones, now a senior analyst with the Tigers, tried to keep the humor up during the extended hours. He tweeted a picture of gourmet cookies with this message: “Bad news? We have to start over in preparation for a new opponent on Monday evening. Good news? Coach Drinkwitz bought us Crumbl cookies!”
Drinkwitz said he was up for an early workout and in the office by 5 a.m. on Tuesday as the Tigers’ abnormal season continued.
“We’ve had a couple of games canceled, moved around,” he said. “We thank the SEC for finding us an opponent. It’s obviously not ideal to have to switch that late. We were pretty much done with our game plan vs. the other team that we were gonna play. Now we’re focused in on Vanderbilt.
“We’ve got a lot of work to get done. Switched over from Diet Coke to coffee this week just to try to make sure we’re ready. Been going and will be going for a long time.”