Drinkwitz's staff shake-ups include new 'No. 2' on defense
Eli Drinkwitz will still be in charge of the Missouri offense, and Steve Wilks will still coordinate the defense in 2022. Aside from that, Drinkwitz’s coaching staff will look quite a bit different in his third season.
Three of the 10 full-time assistants under Drinkwitz are new to the Missouri staff. Another, defensive tackles coach Al Davis, will spend his first full season as an on-field assistant after starting last year as an analyst. Plus, two other assistants have seen their position coaching duties change in Bush Hamdan and Erik Link.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Drinkwitz said reflecting on last season prompted him to shake things up a bit.
“Just after the way the season ended and just looking back and looking at where we’re at, I do want to state that I’m very proud of over the past two years qualifying for back to back bowl games. … So I think there’s a lot of positives. But, when I look back, my job is not to pat myself on the back, it’s to look critically through a lens that says how do we improve?”
The most striking change Drinkwitz made was reducing his own coaching responsibilities by giving up control of the quarterbacks room. Hamdan had been listed as the wide receivers and quarterbacks coach the past two seasons, but Drinkwitz coached the signal-callers on a daily basis in addition to his offensive coordinator and head coaching duties. After seeing production from the quarterback position wane as last season progressed, Drinkwitz decided to put Hamdan in charge of the group full-time and hire former Texas State offensive coordinator Jacob Peeler to coach wide receivers.
Drinkwitz said the move will not only allow Missouri’s quarterbacks to get more intensive individual instruction, it will free him up to devote more time to head coaching obligations like recruiting, managing the locker room and developing relationships with donors and boosters.
“It was obvious by the way that we played at the end that the quarterback position was not being coached nearly well enough, and that’s on me,” Drinkwitz said. “... I wasn’t always able to go have a 30-minute meeting with a quarterback maybe one-on-one about life because I was pulled in a different direction. I was in recruiting, I was in evaluation, I was in a defensive third down meeting. So this allows coach Hamdan to really focus in on those guys 24/7.”
Just as he was critical of his own performance coaching quarterbacks, Drinkwitz didn’t shy away from saying that Missouri’s defense, while it did improve as the season went on, needs to be better next year. He believes the changes he made to the staff — and one notable non-change — will foster that.
Even though Missouri’s defense spent the first two-thirds of last season among the nation’s worst against the run, Drinkwitz brought back Wilks for his second season. He said it was apparent that the players got more comfortable within the scheme as the year went on, so changing it for the second time in as many seasons would have done them a disservice. However, he is allocating responsibility differently under Wilks, starting with a new assistant he called “a No. 2 in that room.”
That will be Blake Baker, who Drinkwitz hired to replace Charlie Harbison as Missouri’s safeties coach. Harbison stepped away from the staff for personal reasons. Baker most recently spent a year coaching linebackers at LSU. Prior to that, he spent two seasons as the defensive coordinator at Miami and also led the defense at Louisiana Tech for four seasons. Baker worked on the same staff as Drinkwitz at Arkansas State in 2013.
“I thought that was an opportunity to add somebody who has coordinating experience at the collegiate level, who has seen a lot of different things, been in this SEC, been in the ACC, can be a sounding board for Steve and continue to help us improve and be somebody who can really be a No. 2 in that room,” Drinkwitz said of Baker.
Baker will split coaching duties in the secondary with Wilks, who will coach the Tiger cornerbacks. That represents another shift from a season ago. Aaron Fletcher coached the corners during his lone year on the Missouri staff before leaving for Arizona State. Drinkwitz felt like having three coaches in the secondary was overkill, so instead of hiring a new cornerbacks coach, he hired a second coach for the defensive front in Kevin Peoples.
Peoples will coach the defensive ends while Davis, who replaced the fired Jethro Franklin as interim defensive line coach after five weeks last season, will coach the tackles. Drinkwitz said it was actually Davis’ idea to hire a second coach for the defensive front. He and Peoples, who spent the past two years at Indiana, should have no problem working well together. Peoples coached Davis during his final two years as a defensive tackle at Arkansas.
“I had a ton of respect for Kevin,” said Drinkwitz. “Actually tried to hire him when I went to Appalachian State the first time. And so when I got a chance to interview him and get him on the phone with Steve and interview, really felt like it would make a lot of sense for us to put two coaches on the defensive line.”
Missouri also lost tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator Casey Woods to SMU, where he will serve as the offensive coordinator. But the Tigers will fill both of his roles via internal promotions. Linebackers coach DJ Smith will also serve as the team’s recruiting coordinator, while Link will coach tight ends in addition to coordinating Missouri’s special teams. While Link will oversee and call plays for each of the special teams units, Drinkwitz said that each of the team’s non-coordinator assistants will have special teams coaching obligations, as well.
“Really know that Erik Link is one of our best teachers and coaches,” Drinkwitz said. “Does a tremendous job, has coached tight ends before. Wanted to get more value, get him into more people on our team, and so was able to take him from just a special teams coordinator role to put him as our tight ends coach.”
That left one offensive vacancy for Drinkwitz to fill, which he did by hiring Peeler. Drinkwitz said he had never worked with Peeler before, but he came highly recommended from his stints coaching receivers at California and Ole Miss prior to serving as the offensive coordinator at Texas State. Peeler coached AJ Brown, DK Metcalf and Elijah Moore during his time in Oxford.
“I really feel like Jacob can walk in with instant credibility because of what he’s been able to prove and do in his past places,” Drinkwitz said. “But it gives those guys an opportunity to really shine and figure out who they are. I think the thing I’m really excited about is Jacob’s mentality and how he goes about coaching that position.”
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