Eli Drinkwitz is anticipating a game of chess.

No. 6/8-ranked Missouri football, even after logging back-to-back shutouts for the first time since 1935, faces its toughest defensive test of the young season in containing Boston College, which is led by first-year head coach Bill O’Brien and dual-threat quarterback Thomas Castellanos.

BC knocked off then-No. 10 Florida State in Week 1. The Eagles followed that up by cruising past FCS-level Duquesne.

The offense is multiple. It’s tricky to identify exactly when and where they’re going to try and hurt. And that all comes back to the Eagles’ electric quarterback.

Here is what the Tigers (2-0) need to watch out for in Saturday’s game on Faurot Field:

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Missouri football must deal with Thomas Castellanos’ athleticism

You can’t fault Florida State for effort. The pressure off the edge was there.

Castellanos is just too slippery. Some of his runs were designed, but Drinkwitz said that there weren’t as many as he anticipated. A good chunk of Castellanos’ plays with his legs were just flat out scrambles.

And a good chunk of those scrambles worked.

The quarterback figures to be one of the better dual-threats Mizzou faces all season. When he pulls it down, he showed an almost-unnatural ability to contort his body and evade pressure.

And once Castellanos is gone, he’s really gone.

He frequently buys time by dropping deep into the pocket. He showed tremendous ability to go through his reads before opting to pull it down and take off for a gain. Boston College used motion effectively to get him running, faking a jet sweep for a chunk play on a QB-keeper. Once he turns the corner, he’s hard to hit.

The threats are multiple, and they’re always present if the rushing defenders don’t get to him … and don’t get to him in the right position.

Drinkwitz said he had a conversation with defensive end Joe Moore III about former LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels and the way he was able to burn Mizzou’s defense on the ground last season.

Mizzou does not want a repeat.

“A lesson that we learned — there was a third-and-7 (against LSU) when we had the lead in the fourth quarter, and we’ve talked all week about level-rushing the quarterback,” Drinkwitz said. “You can't rush past the quarterback, especially with a guy that can take off.”

Control Boston College's ground game

Boston College ran Florida State to death. Seriously. They took 52 carries for 263 yards in the 28-13 win. Their first scoring drive burned more than nine minutes of clock. That’s a lot of 3-yarders and some big clouds of dust. The drive ended with Castellanos pulling the ball down and taking a Brady Cook-like, head-first dive across the goal line.

Former Kansas State tailback Treshaun Ward went for 77 yards on 12 carries. Kye Robichaux rushed for 85 yards on 19 touches.

The Eagles like to run it up the middle. With a quarterback always threatening to take off sideways on play-action, it’s possible for a lapse moment up front to get exposed by the constant shelling at the line.

“(You just have to stay) focused and play in your gap because of how quick and how shifty they are,” MU linebacker Triston Newson said. “It's so close, it's so precise, that, you know, you want to be on point and stand in your gap and, you know, keep your eyes on the right target, the right read.”

But BC is so much more than that under O’Brien.

The Eagles scored on a 13-yard wheel route to Ward on their third series of the game against FSU. They put up 6 on a flat route to running back Robichaux. On non-scoring plays, when pressure was coming, Castellanos frequently had — and used — his running backs out wide in the passing game to catch the ’Noles off guard.

“It's really difficult to dictate what you're going to have to do from a coverage standpoint,” Drinkwitz said. “You can try to play man-to-man and spy him, but you’ve got to make sure your spy is good enough to tackle him. Or you can play zone, (but) when you play zone, you're going to typically be down a man in the box. So, then they're able to define the run game the way they want to.

“So, it's definitely a chess match.”

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The Eagles and Castellanos are gaining momentum, and Missouri must stop it

Here’s why Boston College is more of a problem now than it was this time two weeks ago.

Before knocking off FSU in Week 1, Castellanos was a one-year starter, and his résumé showed him as a bit of a ticking, pick-off time bomb. After 13 appearances in 2023, including 12 starts, he had thrown for 15 touchdowns and 14 — yes, 14 — picks. Only three QBs threw more interceptions last season.

Through two games, his record is clean.

What on Earth has O’Brien done to achieve that so fast?

Maybe that question needs reframed.

Maybe Castellanos is just older and wiser.

“I think probably the biggest thing is just maturity at the quarterback position,” Drinkwitz said. “I think the game slows down for you the more reps you get. … I think they kind of just put him in a box, so to speak, last year and said, ‘Hey, we're going to create a dynamic run game for you, and then play-action pass.’”

That’s a little different now.

Against Duquesne, the Eagles let Castellanos venture deep through the air often and with much more success. He went 9-of-10 passing for 234 yards and four touchdowns, including 72- and 49-yard touchdown passes. But that’s Duquesne.

Against Florida State, his opportunities to huck it long were much more limited. Castellanos only threw 16 passes against the Seminoles, and a majority of those were on crossing patterns, slants, hitches and screens — short routes.

The deep passes that got the quarterback into trouble a year ago were almost non-existent, other than one well overthrown, 40+-yard haul in the second quarter.

Against the caliber of defense more closely resembling the level of talent Mizzou possesses, he was pretty reserved. But the option to uncork is still in the playbook, even if less apparent.

“I think they're treating him as he should be,” Drinkwitz said, “which is a really good player at the quarterback position, and they don't really define what he has to be.”

Missouri's defense must give the opposing offense different looks

Good news for Mizzou: The defense hasn’t shown much reason to lose too much sleep over Saturday’s game. The Tigers are coming off two straight shutouts, and they’ve got some folks who have seen Castellanos live in action.

Middle linebacker Corey Flagg and defensive end Eddie Kelly, who played with Miami and Georgia Tech, respectively, in the ACC last season, both went up against Boston College last season.

Flagg, in particular, is a frontrunner to take on a role of spying Castellanos. He’s got great sideline-to-sideline speed, and has been effective tackling in the open field.

But Boston College and Castellanos can hurt you in a lot of ways.

So Mizzou has to be multiple, too.

“I don't think you can go in and say, ‘we're going to do just this one thing,’ or, ‘we're going to just do this thing and hope that works,’” Drinkwitz said. “I think you're going to have to have multiple options and see which one kind of plays.”

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Keys for Missouri football vs. Boston College QB Thomas Castellanos