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Watch: What will it take for Missouri football to beat Alabama?
What will it take for Missouri football to beat Alabama? Here are the key matchups that could earn the Tigers a marquee win on Saturday.
- No. 8 Alabama at No. 14 Missouri, 11 a.m. CT, Saturday; TV: ABC
It would be folly to overlook what Eliah Drinkwitz has done at Missouri.
Two straight 10-win seasons, a 2023 Cotton Bowl win (over an admittedly shorthanded Ohio State team), and a 4-0 start in 2025. The Tigers really, truly look like an SEC threat.
And yet, the caveats continue to stack up. Missouri hasn’t yet made the playoffs and hasn’t played in an SEC title game. But the biggest thing Drinkwitz is missing in his Tigers tenure? A signature SEC win.
When thinking about the perennial SEC dynasties of Alabama and Georgia (and on a slightly lower tier LSU) — the teams who dollars to donuts will be competing for SEC titles year in and year out — Drinkwitz’s Tigers have just one win: A win over LSU in the COVID-affected 2020 season. In the past two years, Missouri’s most successful years under Drinkwitz, Missouri is 0-3 with losses to each of the Crimson Tide, Bulldogs and Tigers.
As Missouri looks to clinch a playoff berth for the first time in program history, it faces a pivotal step toward that Oct. 11: A date with the Crimson Tide, who are coming off wins against Georgia and Vanderbilt. A win suggests the Tigers have well and truly arrived. A loss indicates they’re still a tier below the conference’s elite.
A lot is at stake for Missouri on Oct. 11. Here’s a look at the ramifications of both a Tigers win and a Tigers loss.
What is at stake for Missouri vs Alabama?
It’s only October, right?
That may be so, but this game is actually huge for Missouri’s prospects throughout the rest of the year. The Tigers enter this game 1-0 in the SEC with a win against South Carolina, and will be playing only conference games from here on out.
As such, the easiest way for Missouri to prove its mettle is to keep winning. Even in the early stages of conference play, only five SEC teams are undefeated within the conference: Missouri, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Alabama and Oklahoma. Missouri plays all of those teams this year except Ole Miss.
With that in mind, this game gives the Tigers some room to breathe… if they win. Should they drop it, Texas A&M and Oklahoma become nearly must-win games, and that’s not even to mention snakebite games against Auburn and Vanderbilt.
A win also shows the committee Missouri isn’t just beating up on the middle-to-bottom half of the conference, particularly if it fails to make it to Atlanta for the SEC Championship Game. Beating Alabama would illustrate that Drinkwitz can get it done against a team that has utterly dominated the SEC over the years, even if the mystique post-Nick Saban has been diminished. Handing the Crimson Tide their first SEC loss of the year would be a feather in Missouri’s cap.
The standings, however, bear themselves out. It’s impossible to prognosticate how they’ll go, and a one-loss Missouri team could well find its way in the playoff mix toward the end of the year. The bigger impact this game could well have for the Tigers is confidence. Alabama completely throttled Missouri in Tuscaloosa last year, 34-0. If something similar happens in Columbia, the question of whether or not Missouri ready to compete with the conference’s creme de la creme will linger until Nov. 8 and Nov. 22 against Texas A&M and Oklahoma, respectively.
Missouri football schedule 2025
Here’s a look at Missouri’s schedule in 2025:
- Thursday, Aug. 28: Missouri 61, Central Arkansas 6
- Saturday, Sept. 6: Missouri 42, Kansas 31
- Saturday, Sept. 13: Missouri 52, Louisiana 10
- Saturday, Sept. 20: Missouri 29, South Carolina 20*
- Saturday, Sept. 27: Missouri 42, UMass 6
- Saturday, Oct. 4: BYE
- Saturday, Oct. 11: vs. No. 11 Alabama* | 11 a.m. CT | ABC (Fubo)
- Saturday, Oct. 18: at Auburn*
- Saturday, Oct. 25: at No. 17 Vanderbilt*
- Saturday, Nov. 1: BYE
- Saturday, Nov. 8: vs. No. 5 Texas A&M*
- Saturday, Nov. 15: vs. Mississippi State*
- Saturday, Nov. 22: at No. 8 Oklahoma* | 11 a.m. CT | ABC (Fubo)
- Saturday, Nov. 29: at Arkansas*
(* – Denotes SEC game)
SEC standings
Here’s a look at the SEC standings entering Week 7:
- Ole Miss (5-0, 3-0 SEC)
- Texas A&M (5-0, 2-0)
- Alabama (4-1, 2-0)
- Missouri (5-0, 1-0)
- Oklahoma (5-0, 1-0)
- Georgia (4-1, 2-1)
- Vanderbilt (5-1, 1-1)
- LSU (4-1, 1-1)
- Tennessee (4-1, 1-1)
- Florida (2-3, 1-1)
- South Carolina (3-2, 1-2)
- Texas (3-2, 0-1)
- Arkansas (2-3, 0-1)
- Mississippi State (4-2, 0-2)
- Auburn (3-2, 0-2)
- Kentucky (2-3, 0-3)
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