Drinkwitz, Mizzou make best of 'not ideal' situation

As Missouri football coach Eliah Drinkwitz spoke with reporters on Zoom for a virtual press conference Wednesday afternoon, he repeatedly emphasized that the COVID-19 pandemic and all the changes it has brought are “bigger than football.” He referenced players returning home to family members who had lost jobs and mentioned his own relatives in the healthcare field. He dismissed a question about whether he’s concerned a football season will happen this fall, saying we as a society have more pressing things to worry about right now.

“What's relevant for right now is for us to be taking care of our families, to maintain proper social distancing, to adhere to the rules and standards that our administration, our president, our governor has put in place,” Drinkwitz said. “... I mean, no offense to (ESPN analyst Kirk) Herbstreit, but deciding who's going to win a football game on College GameDay is a lot different than getting the world in a panic about whether or not we're gonna play a college football season.”

That being said, football is still king in Drinkwitz’s world, and most of the questions centered on how the abrupt shuttering of the University of Missouri for the rest of the semester might impact his first season as the Tigers’ head coach. Instead of conducting the team’s final few spring practices, as was originally scheduled for this week, Drinkwitz and his staff can only communicate with players virtually. The staff has recommended some workouts for players to stay in shape, but they can’t enforce them, nor offer any critiques. Most of the team has gone home, and the 15 or 20 players that have stayed on campus can’t use team facilities except for rehab.

Drinkwitz admitted that, especially for a new coach, the situation is “not ideal.”

“We're still getting to know our team,” Drinkwitz said. “We still don't know the strengths and weaknesses of our individual players, relative to the scheme that we're going to try to utilize. I think that's put us behind the eight ball. And I think anytime you're trying to instill your culture and what you're trying to do and build that trust and respect, you can only really do that through time spent together.”

Missouri did hold three spring practices before the SEC shut down all athletics activities on March 12, which Drinkwitz said beats zero. But he also said three workouts wasn’t enough of a sample size to make any judgments about players or get too specific about scheme, especially on the offensive side of the ball. He specifically said he needs to know who the starting quarterback is going to be before committing to a specific style of play.

“You always want to design your game plan around your players’ strengths and around what your ideas are, and until we really know who our quarterback is and what our strengths are, I'm not sure,” Drinkwitz said when asked about his offensive scheme.

Despite the challenges of his situation, though, Drinkwitz took a positive tenor overall. He noted that, while not every school underwent a head coaching change during the offseason, most had to replace at least a few assistants. Later, he said he’s especially glad he was able to retain defensive coordinator Ryan Walters, which will maintain some continuity on that side of the ball, where seven starters from last season return.

“The one thing that I say kind of evens the playing field is that college football is constantly in a state of flux with coaching transitions,” Drinkwitz said. “... Most schools, whether or not they had a coaching head coaching change, had coordinator changes, position coach changes. So those guys are in kind of same situation.”

The current shutdown of college athletics impacts not just next season’s Missouri team but the future. The NCAA has implemented a dead period, banning coaches from visiting prospects and prospects from campuses until at least April 15.

Drinkwitz said recruiting remains an everyday activity, but he and his staff have had to get creative in how they develop relationships with players and familiarize them with campus. Like almost everything else, that has centered around virtual communication. Missouri has apparently received one commitment since the dead period’s implementation, though that prospect has not yet gone public with the news.

“The challenges are that the university’s closed, so there's not a whole lot that we can be in the building and trying to do, unless we get permission,” Drinkwitz said. “We’re trying to be respectful of the rules and respectful of what they've asked us to do. ... The virtual world is still virtual. It's not real, and you can't touch it, smell it, taste it or feel it. You can see it, but without those other senses and it's difficult.”

Amid all the upheaval, Drinkwitz has tried to maintain a normal rhythm to his day. He wakes up at 5:43 a.m., same as he would were practices still happening, and works out. His staff holds a virtual recruiting meeting at 9 a.m., then he transitions to film review. He noted that one silver lining of quarantine has been increased opportunity to study film, both to familiarize himself with Missouri’s personnel and glean opportunities from other teams.

Three days a week, the staff holds a Zoom meeting with players. Players also meet by position. While those discussions have included plenty of talk about X’s and O’s, Drinkwitz said the staff has also tried to encourage leadership and team bonding, even though the players aren’t physically together.

“We've challenged each position group to find a leader and to make sure that they're holding each other accountable and connecting with each other,” Drinkwitz said, “in order to create some chemistry and to create a deeper relationship amongst the team.”

As mentioned above, Drinkwitz hasn’t yet started worrying about the possibility that football won’t be played like normal this fall. He’s focused on maximizing each day, on making sure his team is as well prepared as possible should the season happen. He also isn’t panicking about the possibility that practices could continue to be shut down through the summer. Even if Missouri can’t hold its normal summer training camp, Drinkwitz said, his team will be ready to play when Central Arkansas comes to town Sept. 5.

“I don't run the SEC,” Drinkwitz said. “I do as I'm told, as I'm asked. But if we reported on August 5 and we were playing on September 5, we'd be ready to go.”