Chip Lindsey is Missouri’s newest offensive coordinator and I am extremely skeptical of this hire. To put it nicely. In order to show you why I think this/talk myself into this hire, I’m going to review
his resume and offer a break out of how he’s done at each job he’s had previously.
I am not going to go over his stint as the head coach of Troy, however. Why? Couple of reasons:
- He was the head coach, not a sole offensive coordinator
- Mizzou is hiring him as an offensive coordinator, not as a head coach
- He’s the first Troy football coach since 1991 to not have a winning season, nor win at least one conference title; he clearly sucked and there’s no need to dive any deeper than that to prove to you that he sucked at Troy
This is the part that will most heavily be my opinion, so prepare yourself for that. It won’t be without stats, though! Here’s all the previous entries:
Part I – his time at Southern Mississippi – is right here.
Part II – his time at Arizona State – is right here.
Part III – his time at Auburn – is right here.
Part IV – his time at Central Florida – is right here.
Part V – his time at North Carolina – is right here.
Part VI – his time at Michigan – is right here.
That’s six coordinator jobs over nine years that Chip Lindsey has held. Let’s first rank each of them from best to worst, and then break it out into the sub-offensive categories, and then I’ll give my closing thoughts. In the rankings, I’m also going to include the 2025 Missouri offensive ranks so you get an idea of how Lindsey’s historical performances stack up against one of the more miserable Missouri offenses of the past six years.
Chip Lindsey’s Offenses Ranked
Overall
- 21st – 2023 North Carolina
- 34th – 2017 Auburn
- 34th – 2025 Missouri
- 38th – 2024 North Carolina
- 41st – 2015 Southern Mississippi
- 47th – 2018 Auburn
- 53rd – 2025 Michigan
- 55th – 2022 Central Florida (did not call plays)
- 56th – 2016 Arizona State
- 101st – 2014 Southern Mississippi
Rushing
- 8th – 2023 North Carolina
- 14th – 2022 Central Florida (did not call plays)
- 14th – 2025 Michigan
- 17th – 2025 Missouri
- 36th – 2017 Auburn
- 47th – 2024 North Carolina
- 52nd – 2015 Southern Mississippi
- 76th – 2018 Auburn
- 114th – 2014 Southern Mississippi
- 114th – 2016 Arizona State
Passing
- 22nd – 2017 Auburn
- 34th – 2018 Auburn
- 36th – 2023 North Carolina
- 37th – 2025 Michigan
- 50th – 2025 Missouri
- 53rd – 2022 Central Florida (did not call plays)
- 55th – 2015 Southern Mississippi
- 65th – 2016 Arizona State
- 105th – 2014 Southern Mississippi
- 113th – 2024 North Carolina
Standard Downs
- 9th – 2023 North Carolina
- 15th – 2022 Central Florida (did not call plays)
- 18th – 2017 Auburn
- 36th – 2025 Missouri
- 40th – 2025 Michigan
- 60th – 2015 Southern Mississippi
- 66th – 2018 Auburn
- 86th – 2024 North Carolina
- 105th – 2016 Arizona State
- 109th – 2014 Southern Mississippi
Passing Downs
- 27th – 2018 Auburn
- 30th – 2015 Southern Mississippi
- 36th – 2023 North Carolina
- 43rd – 2025 Michigan
- 48th – 2022 Central Florida (did not call plays)
- 53rd – 2025 Missouri
- 58th – 2017 Auburn
- 67th – 2024 North Carolina
- 68th – 2016 Arizona State
- 105th – 2014 Southern Mississippi
Efficiency
- 14th – 2023 North Carolina
- 25th – 2022 Central Florida (did not call plays)
- 25th – 2025 Michigan
- 30th – 2025 Missouri
- 41st – 2017 Auburn
- 46th – 2015 Southern Mississippi
- 65th – 2018 Auburn
- 89th – 2024 North Carolina
- 108th – 2016 Arizona State
- 109th – 2014 Southern Mississippi
Explosiveness
- 1st – 2015 Southern Mississippi
- 43rd – 2023 North Carolina
- 54th – 2024 North Carolina
- 57th – 2025 Michigan
- 68th – 2025 Missouri
- 72nd – 2017 Auburn
- 77th – 2018 Auburn
- 79th – 2016 Arizona State
- 93rd – 2022 Central Florida (did not call plays)
- 121st – 2014 Southern Mississippi
Over nine different offenses, Chip Lindsey has never fielded a Top 20 offense, a Top 20 passing offense, a Top 20 offense in passing downs situations, and only once had an offense rank higher than 43rd in explosiveness…and that offense occurred 11 years ago.
And what do his best offenses have in common? 2017 Auburn and 2023 North Carolina both had 5-star, NFL-caliber quarterbacks. His three best passing attacks? 2017/18 Auburn, 2023 North Carolina, and 2025 Michigan -all had 5-star, NFL-caliber quarterbacks.
Does Missouri have a 5-star, NFL-caliber quarterback? Not yet. And probably not in 2026. That’s problematic.
When Lindsey doesn’t have the aforementioned talented quarterback, his offenses are wildly pedestrian or flat-out bad. The run game is good, regardless, but that’s not the problem Eli Drinkwitz is trying to fix, is it?
Eli told the entire Missouri football beat writing corps that he needed to improve the passing game and generate more explosive plays. He nailed it. Of course, he did, he’s a smart, successful football coach who knows his team really well! But did he make a hire who has a history of improving any of that?
No, he did not.
He had the most money available to any Missouri football coach in the history of Missouri football to find an innovative, energetic, scheme-based coordinator with SEC experience and a track record of improving passing games while utilizing zone running concepts.
And he either couldn’t get a guy to agree to work with him, or actively chose to go through his old, comfortable rolodex of “guys who I worked with at Auburn” and brought in a guy who’s never lasted more than two years in any coordinator role, and whose offenses sometimes get better in Year One but definitely get worse in Year Two.
Essentially, Eli went to the store with $100 to buy the best cheese he could find and came home with cheddar.
Now, let me address some straw men:
He did really well with Michigan! That was last year!
Yes, he did that with the consensus 6th, 16th, 17th, and 9th-best recruiting classes over the past four respective years, plus the #1 overall freshman quarterback, plus two Top 30 portal classes. That team was underachieving despite itself, and yet – even with all that talent – he merely dragged them up to 53rd in the 2025 season, which, if you’ll remember, is 19-spots worse than 2025 Missouri.
His offenses were really good with Drake Maye and Jarrett Stidham!
Yes, those are NFL-caliber quarterbacks. That’s not a skill, that’s just what happens if you happen to have an NFL-caliber quarterback. You know who looked awesome when an NFL starting quarterback played in his offense? Derek Dooley.
Derek.
F***ing.
Dooley.
Drew Lock made him look great. And when he was gone Dooley stunk out the joint.
And when Chip Lindsey doesn’t have an NFL-level quarterback, his offenses have good run games, terrible passing games, and are all worse than what Missouri just did with Beau Pribula and Matt Zollers.
But you know what the worst part about this hire is?
I understand why Eli Drinkwitz did it.
College football in 2025 is tough, and it’s only getting tougher in 2026. Your program not only needs to find guys that fit your scheme and fit your culture but also will be satisfied with the amount you’re going to compensate them. Missouri is not a program that can burn cash on bench players AND clip the price tags of their best players at the same time. We don’t have our equivalent of a Cody Campbell at Texas Tech so Mizzou needs to be picky with how it spends.
Which means you need scheme and culture fits at all costs. And finding a guy that knows your scheme and has been around you enough to meld into your culture? Yeah, that’s appealing and that’s probably something that a mid-market college team needs to prioritize.
And look… the SEC is the most unforgiving conference to be in. There is no room for error for a brand new offense, or ramp-up period for experimentation with how you run things. Gary Pinkel benefited from being in the XII in the early/mid-aughts where you had four to five years to build and were forgiven for a few down years and players had no choice but to stick around. If you change your scheme in 2026, there goes your roster. And you only have three non-conference games to figure it out before you get force-fed three Top 10 opponents every year, plus one or two usurpers that catch lightening through the transfer portal, and – of course! – the rest of the most talented football conference roster in the country.
Eli Drinkwitz only knows how to coach a team this way. He hasn’t done it any other way, and he’s been successful with this way. He’s going to do it until he has a losing season or is close to getting fired. It’s as simple as that. And with Playoff negotiations and more potential realignment right around the corner, it’s never been more important to be winning as many games as possible so that, when ESPN comes back around and says “hey you should cherry pick all these teams and combine them into a super league,” your team isn’t the one left out in the cold.
This hire sucks. It’s uncreative, it doesn’t address any of the actual issues, doesn’t offer any intriguing portal pieces, and furthers the run-through of Drinkwitz’s rolodex. But it’s going to make him feel the best about how he can win games and, in the end, we’re paying him $11 million a year to do what he wants. That’s the deal.
I’m hoping I’m wrong. I would love if I was wrong.
But the history and numbers say I’m right.
And that sucks.
