Penn State. Florida. LSU. Auburn.
All fine programs with plenty of history and, most importantly in this day and age, money. Any one of these would’ve made a fine next stop in the career path of Eli Drinkwitz.
And maybe one day one of them will.
For the time being, though Mizzou and Eli Drinkwitz continue to be a match made in Midwestern football heaven.
It was evident from Drink’s first day that his unique brand of folksy, semi-Southern charm was going to blend perfectly with Mizzou’s folksy, semi-Southern culture. The Tigers have always been sort of an odd duck in the SEC – at least they were before regional culture became the least important factor in conference alignment – and, to be honest, Drinkwitz kind of seems like an odd duck coaching here.
He boasts an oh-shucks arrogance that doesn’t quite match up to chronically online jesters like Lane Kiffin. But his winking sincerity also doesn’t quite fit in with the no-funny-business demeanor of guys like Kirby Smart or Brent Venables (who earned his down south bonafides coaching under the most-least humorous coach of all time.) Hell, he barely seemed like the sort of figure that could follow up the no-nonsense culture of Barry Odom and build upon Gary Pinkel’s dimaond-in-the-rough legacy.
But as he’s proved over the past 6 seasons, Drinkwitz fits like a glove in Columbia.
Mizzou Football has always been built on the unseen advantages of flyover country football. Coaching up young players with raw athleticism and/or unceasing supplies of grit; building specific groups of players over years and years of development and carefully timed recruiting wins; leaping at scheduling snafus or injury crises with the precision of a hungry… uhm… Tiger. Identifying and exploiting the quirks of college football’s architecture was Gary Pinkel’s gift and a blueprint for succeeding into the future. Drinkwitz, to his credit, both followed Pinkel’s example and found ways to make it a more sustainable model of success.
While the blue bloods reeled from their loss of revenue during COVID, Eli Drinkwitz was schmoozing local lawmakers to make way for an NIL bill that would vault Mizzou into the driver’s seat of legal, pay-for-play deals. While older coaches hemmed and hawed over the transfer portal and how it threatened the NCAA’s amateurism model, Drinkwitz saw a way for Mizzou to attract under-appreciated talent and supplement its roster. And when the rest of the world looked at Mizzou and saw a lamb on the recruiting trail, Eli Drinkwitz always envisioned Mizzou as, uh again, Tigers. He locked down the Show Me State borders, made in-roads down south and Mizzou continues to be one of the nation’s formidable recruiting outfits.
To be clear, Eli Drinkwitz could have done some of these things elsewhere. He might’ve been able to implement his portal strategy at bigger schools. He might’ve been able to maneuver state legislation through the halls of smaller schools. But only at Missouri, a program located in the middle of the middle both physically and culturally, could he have done all of it.
This new extension, one that binds Drinkwitz and the university for the next six years, feels like an exclamation point on the second stage of his tenure at the school. The first? Building the culture, when he set the floor at .500 for three straight seasons. The second? Elevating the culture, when Mizzou became one of the nation’s most competitive programs on and off the field. The third will undoubtedly involve College Football Playoff berths and maybe more… at least if Drinkwitz and Mizzou continue their shared upward trajectory
With other schools seemingly wanting Drinkwitz to bring his blueprints elsewhere, Eliah seems content continuing to draw up new ones in the shadows of Faurot, Devine and Pinkel. And there may – sorry, probably will – come a time when Mizzou and Eli Drinkwitz tip their caps to each other and part ways. Committed monogamy isn’t exactly the name of the game when it comes to college coaches and their colors.
For now, however, Mizzou and Eli Drinkwitz seem happy to continue a marriage that has benefited both sides. May it long continue.
