The shuffling of Missouri’s defensive coaching staff got most of the attention this offseason. But the moves on the offensive side of the ball may end up being just as important. Tight ends coach Casey Woods left to be SMU’s offensive coordinator after the regular season and Eli Drinkwitz gave special teams coordinator Erik Link the tight end duties as well.
“I would say that’s probably a position group that I’ve worked with the most,” Link, a bit of a jack-of-all-trades on the staff, said. “I’ve coached every position at some time or another on the offensive side of the ball, including quarterbacks. And so honestly I’m excited to get back to it, and I feel comfortable with it, and I mean I love coaching special teams and obviously I’m passionate about that, but it’s certainly exciting to get back on the offensive side, as well.”
The next change came when Drinkwitz moved Bush Hamdan from wide receivers coach to quarterbacks. That’s actually where most of Hamdan’s recent experience has been. He’s been a quarterbacks coach at Arkansas State, Davidson and Washington since 2013 as well as coaching the position for the Atlanta Falcons in 2017. Last year, Drinkwitz coached the quarterbacks himself with some assistance from Hamdan. This year, Hamdan will take the lead. While Drinkwitz joked that it mostly allows him to yell more at different people during practice, there’s quite a bit more logic than that behind the move.
“I think it’s the constant attention,” Hamdan said. “I just feel you know maybe at times last year, he has a lot going on and I think we felt the benefit of the situation was certainly having somebody with the quarterback at all times.”
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That’s particularly important this spring as Missouri has very little experience at the position. After Connor Bazelak’s transfer, Brady Cook and Tyler Macon are the only scholarship signal callers. They’ve thrown a combined 82 college passes and started two games, one apiece. From the outside, they’re certainly the biggest story of spring football for Mizzou, even as news lingers that the Tigers could add a transfer to the mix and four-star freshman Sam Horn will hit campus in June.
“So much of it comes down to decision making,” Hamdan said. “I think naturally when you’re a younger quarterback or from the outside looking in, you notice the big plays, the big throws. We take more value in the throws they don’t make sometimes. Taking care of the football, putting our offense in a position to be successful. It’s just been awesome. I think every day these guys are getting a ton of reps and we really want them to have that mental endurance to go a full two and a half hours and really challenge them to make good decision after good decision.”
Drinkwitz will continue to call the plays for Missouri, but has talked this spring about now having the ability to move around to address different areas of the team and be a bit more involved with other positions than he was a year ago, both offensively and defensively.
Moving Hamdan from wide receivers created another opening on the offensive side of the ball. Most of the hires Drinkwitz has made at Mizzou have been coaches he’s worked with somewhere in his past. But not this one. Drinkwitz tabbed Texas State offensive coordinator Jacob Peeler to take over for Hamdan coaching the Tiger receivers.
“I knew of some people on staff, but didn’t know people on staff, had never worked with them,” Peeler said. “I think he was in a transition just looking for a receiver guy and I think my name just came up honestly. I think when he was calling around a couple different people mentioned my name.”
Peeler is hardly an unknown quantity in the Southeastern Conference. Before taking over as OC at Texas State, he coached receivers at Ole Miss for three seasons. That coincided with the college careers of A.J. Brown and D.K. Metcalf, who have turned into two of the better young receivers in the NFL in the last three years.
“It’s always good when you can show somebody an NFL guy that you coached,” Peeler said. “You show those guys doing the same thing that you’re teaching them and then you show them even doing it at the next level. It always kinds of helps when you have that background and you’re able to show those guys doing the same things.”
Peeler is Missouri’s fifth receiver coach in the last six seasons, but just the second under Drinkwitz. The older players at the position are used to change.
“It’s fun to see every coach’s different style and all that stuff,” Barrett Banister said. “His personality is very welcoming. I think every receiver in the room has really enjoyed him thus far. I think he’s been very detailed in his approach, and it’s kind of been different from what we had in coach Hamdan.”
“Coach Peeler came in, not necessarily with a chip on his shoulder, but came in as a hungry coach,” fellow senior Tauskie Dove said. “He made his point and he laid the foundation. We’ve got the base of that.”
The unique thing for the Tigers is that while Peeler is a new receivers coach, the last one is still at practice every day. Hamdan didn’t leave, he just moved to a different spot. It’s something that both coaches view as an advantage.
“Bush has been great,” Peeler said. “I feel bad because our offices are two doors apart and there’s probably a worn spot on the carpet because I’m down there constantly. It’s really helped.”
“He’s an unbelievable coach, an unbelievable person,” Hamdan added. “I’ve been bouncing ideas off him and him off me and I think it’s a unique situation when you still have the coach on staff who was with those guys a year ago and so it’s been great.”
Quarterbacks and receivers spend most of their time during practice working together anyway, so Hamdan and Peeler will be working hand-in-hand most days this year. Early on, Peeler has tried to lean on Hamdan for some guidance, but not fill up with too many preconceived notions as he puts a fresh set of eyes on a roster that has a lot of young receivers behind Banister and Dove.
“It’s a delicate balance a little bit,” Peeler said. “We talked about that when I first got hired. He told me I want you to come in with fresh eyes on this deal and I asked him for that too. He’s done a really good job of giving me enough information without giving me too much information if that makes sense.”
The goal of both, along with Link, will be to improve a Missouri passing game that started out pretty well in the first third of the season, but fell apart late. Bazelak threw for at least 257 yards in each of Missouri’s first five games last season. The Tigers never topped 238—Cook’s total in the Armed Forces Bowl loss—in the final eight games. Five times in that span, Missouri failed to throw for 200 yards. The Tigers didn’t have a single 100-yard receiving day last year and will bring back just one wideout (Dove) who had more than 226 yards on the season.
“I think we certainly got to evaluate last year and what are areas that we need to improve on,” Hamdan said. “But more and more in these days of college football and what it is, a lot of times you are dealing with a clean slate, dealing with new guys, and so certainly evaluate what was good last year, what do we need to improve on, but then lock into the guys that we do have and what do we need to do to make them better?”
Missouri’s next open spring practice will be Tuesday afternoon.
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