At SEC Media Days, Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz faced a question about his past shortcomings with a wink and a nudge.
The Mizzou Tigers head coach responded to a reporter’s question about perseverance by taking a little playful jab at a prominent college football reporter. Two consecutive 6-7 seasons with consecutive bowl game losses fueled speculation that he was on the proverbial hot seat after two seasons in Columbia.
However, Drinkwitz’s impressive 11-2 record last season, including a Cotton Bowl win over Ohio State and an AP ranking of No. 8, has silenced any remaining doubts about his coaching ability.
Eli Drinkwitz: “The only person who really had me on the hot seat was Dennis Dodd”
😭😭😭
— Shehan Jeyarajah (@ShehanJeyarajah) July 16, 2024
“Hot seat, cold seat. I mean, the only person that had me on the hot seat was Dennis Dodd,” Drinkwitz said tongue-in-cheek. “Where you at, Dennis? No, it is what it is, man. We all understand there’s expectations with this job, and when you’re not meeting them, obviously, the noise picks up. But, I think it’s really more of a tip of the hat to the players and the coaches who believed in what we were doing, believed in the vision we had.
“It’s a tribute to Ryan Russell, our director of athletic performance, who I think does as good as anybody in the country in developing a mindset and developing our players physically. That helped us achieve the success that we had. Obviously, it took a team effort from the administration. The ever-changing world of NIL and transfer portal, you have to be flexible to be in a position to take advantage of it.
“We had several leaders in the political realm, (Missouri State Representative since 2021) Kurtis Gregory, obviously, being one, who really championed the effort for us to be at the forefront. And now you’re hearing reference to the Mizzou Model of NIL, which I think is a tribute to our administration, our president, Mun Choi, our board of curators, and to a lot of the politicians in (Jefferson) City who have a love for the University of Missouri and understand that the University of Missouri is a window to the six million people in our state.
“We have the opportunity to represent the best of the best in our state. And our core mission at the University of Missouri is derived from educating the state of Missouri. One of the things that our success has allowed us to do is accurately portray what kind of unbelievable AAU-accredited education that you can get at the University of Missouri. Most of y’all probably don’t know this, but we have the No. 1 nuclear medicine reactor site in the country at the University of Missouri. And it’s a phenomenal thing that fights cancer every single day and is at the forefront of that.
“I think the opportunity to have success can show off your university for everybody in our state. And we’re proud to represent the University of Missouri and wear the black and gold.”
What does Dennis Dodd have to do with nuclear medicine? We don’t know, either. Somehow, Drinkwitz turned a question about persevering through doubts from so-called experts into a referendum on the university and the state of Missouri. You have to give him credit for being able to do so. It’s hard to tell how he made it from Point A to Point B, but he made it work. But that’s what college football coaches do. They know how to correctly answer questions (well, most of them) and sell their program to you.
And that’s precisely what Drinkwitz did. Still, it doesn’t make his little dig at the CBS Sports senior writer any less funny.
Here’s an excerpt from the article that Dodd did on coaches on the hot seat. Notably, Drinkwitz was among 16 coaches to get a 3 rating, which equates to pressure mounting.
Believe me, we all want to be Eli Drinkwitz. In the middle of his second consecutive 6-7 season, Drink was extended two more years to 2027 and had his salary bumped up 50% to $6 million per year. The game’s glibbest coach has never had a winning season (17-19). The Missouri board of curators who signed the extension may have to sign off on a pricey buyout if things go South. 2022 rating: 2
Revitalizing a program like Mizzou is no small feat, and Drinkwitz deserves credit for the progress made. We can confidently say that the pressure is no longer mounting on Drinkwitz to be over .500 but rather to be a perennial College Football Playoff contender.
And it’s all thanks to Dennis Dodd…
[Shehan Jeyarajah, TheBCS Eagle on YouTube]
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.