Drinkwitz, Mizzou saving talk for the field
ATLANTA — Eli Drinkwitz still rocked a pair of Nike high top sneakers with gold and black Tiger stripes on the heel and Chinese characters stitched below the laces. His inner entertainer still made a couple brief appearances, like when he slipped in a joke about Barrett Banister being the second-longest tenured player in football, behind Tom Brady.
But Missouri’s third-year coach was notably more subdued than this time last year, when his inaugural main stage appearance at SEC Media Days could have been mistaken for a stand-up comedy routine. This year, it was his comments about his team that stood out.
In 2021, Drinkwitz preached patience. While Missouri fans were excited by a 5-5 debut season against an all-SEC schedule and unprecedented success on the recruiting trail, he cautioned that he wouldn’t be able to build Missouri into a team that could accomplish its stated goal of winning the SEC East overnight. A year later, with the Tigers coming off a 6-7 campaign that featured lopsided home losses to Tennessee and Texas A&M and having recently missed out on a few highly-rated local recruits, enthusiasm has waned a bit.
But Drinkwitz talked about his team with a conviction that has been missing during the past two offseasons.
“I am not shy about saying this,” Drinkwitz said. “I say this to our team. We are the most talented that we've been since I've been there.”
Drinkwitz was confident, but not brash. Multiple times, he emphasized the difficulty of the team’s schedule. He also admitted that, given his recruiting success in the 2021 and 2022 cycles, he “thought it would be easier” to land the top-rated local prospects in 2023 (although he also noted that the staff is still recruiting and nothing is official until signing day).
Still, he believes the consecutive top-20 recruiting classes combined with the fact that, in year three, he has established a consistent culture, have Missouri positioned to finally take a step forward from the .500 football that has gripped the program since Gary Pinkel retired.
“Although we've had changes in both staff and players, there is a continuity to our program,” Drinkwitz said. “There's a foundation to the program that we have and instilled. There is a ‘this is how we do it around here.’”
While there may be continuity in terms of culture, there’s plenty of new faces on the Missouri roster. The Tigers added 33 scholarship newcomers since last season, including 16 transfers or junior college players.
Drinkwitz listed the reinforcements from the transfer portal as one of the reasons he’s excited about this season. Safety Martez Manuel said the additions have raised the level of competition during spring practices and offseason workouts.
“Due to the talent, due to the transfer portal, every position is stacked,” Manuel said. “Nobody is safe, in a sense. Everybody is going to have to compete, push each other, and that competition is only gonna make each other better. Somebody's pushing me is gonna help me push somebody else. Me being pushed by somebody who wants my position is gonna make me work harder with Barrett when we’re on the field and make him better. So it's just a domino effect.”
Perhaps the biggest reason for the disparity in optimism between those inside and outside the Missouri locker room is the Tigers’ quarterback situation. After Connor Bazelak departed for the transfer portal, Drinkwitz and his staff brought three quarterbacks with Power Five starting experience to campus for visits. All three committed elsewhere. Now, the team enters fall camp with Jack Abraham, a seventh-year senior who last took the field in 2020 for Southern Miss, as well as three others who have combined to start two college games.
Drinkwitz doesn’t know which of those players will wind up starting the season-opener against Louisiana Tech. But he pushed back against the idea that uncertainty behind center equates to concern.
“I know that we've got talented players at the quarterback position,” Drinkwitz said. “And we're just waiting for them to show the team which one's going to be the starter. And I know we're surrounded with really good skill, a very solid offensive line, a very stout defense with nine returning players who have six or more starts. So I feel confident that we will be where we need to be.”
Even though fall camp hasn’t started yet, Drinkwitz has already had some opportunities to work with the quarterbacks, thanks to a new NCAA rule that allows eight hours of skill instruction per week during the offseason. His early impressions of Abraham have been positive.
“He's exactly what we expected,” Drinkwitz said. “A guy who's got a lot of experience and is experienced in leadership, throwing the football. You're talking about a guy that DK Metcalf was one of his groomsmen in his wedding. So, I mean, he's obviously been around. He's got a great presence about him, and look forward to him competing.”
Drinkwitz didn’t make headlines Monday, unlike a year ago. And when the SEC media votes for the all-conference teams and releases its predicted order of finish later this week, don’t expect a lot of love for Missouri.
But that’s okay with Drinkwitz and his players, who are quietly confident that the results this fall will speak for them.
“I've been here a lot of years and I've seen people say that we're gonna be great, people say we're gonna be bad, and every time it's the opposite,” Manuel said. “So I'm just kind of just going to be the person to spread that message, just show up every day and work and let the outcomes speak for themselves.”
Horn likely to remain at Mizzou
Speaking of the Missouri quarterbacks room, it now appears certain that the position will include Sam Horn. The four-star freshman from Georgia was also a highly-touted pitcher on the baseball diamond, and some concern had emerged that he might forego his college football career in favor of professional baseball.
However, as of this writing, Horn has not been selected in the ongoing MLB Draft. Drinkwitz said that, if Horn made it through Monday without being picked, he would be able to exhale, confident Horn will remain on campus. PowerMizzou reported earlier Monday that Horn is expected to stick with his plan to play at Missouri.
“Sam and his representation, his parents, have had a plan the whole time,” Drinkwitz said. “They know what their plan is, what their worth is. They're waiting to see if somebody wants to maybe meet that. But currently, right now, we expect him. He was at workouts this morning. He'll be at workouts tomorrow.”
Drinkwitz weighs in on college football's future
No surprise, the most common topics of conversation Monday centered around the two primary forces transforming college football: conference realignment and name, image and likeness. Conference commissioner Greg Sankey spoke at length about both, including fielding several questions about whether the SEC might respond with a power grab of its own in the wake of USC and UCLA moving from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten. Sankey maintained that the league is satisfied with its current 16 teams (including Texas and Oklahoma, which are scheduled to join the conference in 2025), but will remain open-minded and opportunistic.
“We know who we are,” Sankey said. “We're confident in our success. We're really looking forward to the expansion and being at 16 teams. Don't feel pressured to just operate at a number. But we'll watch what happens around us and be thoughtful but be nimble.
Drinkwitz made it a point to weigh in on the ever-changing power dynamics in college football. He opened his address on the main stage with a plea for the sport’s leaders to base their decisions not just on maximizing television revenue.
“I just worry about, what are the guiding principles that are guiding us in our decision making process?” Drinkwitz said. “If somebody can just inform everybody on what those are, that'd be great. You know, that's kind of what I'm looking for is what are we expecting for the student-athlete experience and guiding principles of college athletics moving forward? That, to me, is the biggest question. It's not amateurism. Right? Please say we're beyond the hypocrisy of that moving forward, if we're talking, about bragging about, billion dollar TV rights and things like that.”
Pre-camp Injury Report
With Missouri about two weeks away from kicking off fall camp, Drinkwitz offered health updates about several players. Overall, he said, Missouri is “as healthy as we’ve been.”
However, two players, offensive tackle Hyrin White and defensive tackle Daniel Robledo, will assuredly miss both camp and several weeks of the season, although neither has been ruled out for the year yet. A few others may still be limited by injuries when practices begin. Defensive lineman Kyran Montgomery, who missed all of last season with a torn ACL, recently underwent another surgical procedure on his knee, Drinkwitz said. He will likely be sidelined for the first couple weeks of camp. Freshman cornerback Marcus Scott is also still working his way back from a knee injury and has not yet been cleared for full participation, although Drinkwitz is hopeful that will change by August.
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