Mizzou makes Drinkwitz a $6 millon (plus) man

Missouri announced a two-year contract extension for head coach Eli Drinkwitz on Saturday morning before the Tigers' 21-17 loss to Kentucky. PowerMizzou.com acquired the contract via an open records request.

The new deal will pay Drinkwitz $6 million per year in the 2023 season and increase annually. His base salary remains $450,000 but with quarterly supplemental payments, the total next season is $6 million. By the 2027 season, the last year of the amendment, he will make $7 million.

The deal also increases the amount of money Drinkwitz can spend on his staff. The financial pool for ten assistant coaches increased from $5.2 million to $6.3 million. The amount for other football staff jumps from $1.2 million to $3.5 million. That means all told, Mizzou could spend up to $5.4 million more on the football staff in 2023 than it did in 2022.

It also contains the following incentives:

SEC Championship Game appearance: $150,000

SEC Championship: $300,000

Appearance in Birmingham, Gasparilla or non-SEC affiliated bowl: $100,000

Citrus or Group of Six bowl appearance: $150,000

New Year's Six non-playoff bowl appearance: $300,000

CFP semifinal appearance: $450,000

National championship appearance: $600,000

National championship: $750,000

The new contract makes Drinkwitz the eighth-highest paid coach in the Southeastern Conference. He is now being paid more than the likes of Josh Heupel at Tennessee and Mike Leach at Mississippi State.

After the Kentucky game, Drinkwitz sits 15-17 in his first 32 games as Missouri's head coach. That includes a 10-14 mark in SEC play with six of those wins coming over Vanderbilt and South Carolina. The Tigers were 5-5 against an all-SEC schedule in the COVID-shortened 2020 season. In year two, Missouri was 6-7 and so far in Drinkwitz's third season, 4-5. The Tigers will play No. 5 Tennessee at 11 a.m. on CBS on Saturday.

The annual salary is eye-opening, but the key figure is actually what Missouri owes Drinkwitz if it fires him before the end of the contract. Under his previous deal, that figure was 70% of the salary remaining on the contract. That means the school would have owed Drinkwitz approximately $8.4 million if it fired him at the end of this season, $5.6 million after the 2023 season and $2.8 million after 2024.

Under the new contract, if Missouri fires Drinkwitz, it will owe him 75% of the remaining value on his contract. A maximum of $6 million of that will be due to Drinkwitz within 30 days of termination. The rest would be paid out over the life of the contract, but is reduced dollar for dollar if Drinkwitz gets another job. He is required to seek other employment in the amended contract. In other words, if he were to be fired after next season, Missouri would now owe him $6 million immediately. But if he got another job at an equal or higher salary, the school would owe him no more.

Should Drinkwitz leave of his own volition, he would owe Missouri $6 million after this season. That amount is reduced by a million dollars after each subsequent season.

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