Eli Drinkwitz hired at Mizzou

[Maverick.AU 13,279]

 

[sevenlee36 1,654]

Dang good hire

[AURealist 2,185]

Damn.  That was fast. 

[Maverick.AU 13,279]

3 minutes ago, sevenlee36 said:

Dang good hire

I was very anti Drinkwitz in years past due to seeing the same complaints we had with Gus,  From fans with him when he was an OC. It’ll be interesting to see how he does against competition that isn’t the sunbelt and a very good situation that he was in at app state

edit: “idk if drinkwitz was the play caller at app state or not”.

[PoetTiger 1,896]

Gus Malzahn coaching tree strikes again lol

[Auburn Kev 1,653]

Casey Woods Joins Mizzou Football Coaching Staff

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Mizzou Head Coach Eliah Drinkwitz has added offensive assistant coach Casey Woods to his staff, as announced today.  Woods comes to Mizzou from UAB, where he has spent the past three seasons as tight ends coach, run game coordinator and recruiting coordinator.  Details of Woods' contract with Mizzou, along with his specific coaching duties, will be released pending completion of the human resources process.

[Paladin 3,305]

Good read

Quote

Drinkwitz's staff started to take shape years ago at Auburn

Gabe DeArmond • PowerMizzou

Publisher

 

A little more than nine years ago Curtis Luper was coaching the running backs at Auburn. The Tigers’ offensive coordinator, Gus Malzahn, was one of those play callers who liked to do his job from the sidelines. So Luper was the lone full-time offensive assistant up in the booth overseeing the field.

“I can remember after the first game coach (Gene) Chizik asked, ‘Do you need any help up there?’” Luper recalled this week. “I’m like, ‘No, I have enough help.’”

Luper’s help consisted of three quality control assistants: Erik Link, Casey Woods and Eliah Drinkwitz.

“Each one of us had a very specific assignment and coach Malzahn was adamant that we were all there to try to help us win football games and to do our job the very best that we could and we were all focused on doing that,” Drinkwitz said. “We weren’t there to watch the game, we were there to watch our assignments.”

Very well, apparently, as the Tigers, led by Cam Newton, won the national championship. Link would leave Auburn after that season for his first full-time assistant position at Montana State. Drinkwitz and Woods would stay through 2011 before moving on to Arkansas State. Luper moved to TCU a year after that.

“I think when you’re in the entry level position, I think there’s always a dream,” Woods said. “When you’re sitting around with your buddies and man if there’s just one day that we can get together and work together again, how fun would that be? There’s been a number of jokes over the course of the years and we’ve got little group text messages where we go back and forth, who’s winning the race?”

The “race” is the one to be a head coach. Drinkwitz won it, getting the job at Appalachian State when Scott Satterfield left for Louisville after the 2018 season. Drinkwitz won 12 games and the Sun Belt Championship in his first season in Boone, NC. Within about 36 hours, he had been named as Barry Odom’s replacement at Missouri. Before that even happened, he’d heard from Curtis Luper.

“As his process went along this year, which was very fast, I shot him a text,” Luper recalled. “‘If you get that one, if you get THAT one,’ he knew which one I was talking about, I said I’d definitely be interested. He said no, no, and I said yeah. That’s how it started.”

“Coach Luper does an outstanding job of coaching but was a dynamic recruiter in Dallas,” Drinkwitz said. “I know in the past the Dallas metro area has been a huge part of Mizzou’s success, especially under coach (Gary) Pinkel and I wanted to tap into that again and so needed somebody with that expertise.”

Drinkwitz would name Luper as his running backs coach. Prior to that, he would hire Link, who was with him at Appalachian State, as his special teams coordinator and pluck Woods from UAB as the tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator.

“He and I, in fact, talked about a job last year at Appalachian State,” Woods said. “The timing of it wasn’t right so he got the job here on Monday and called me on Wednesday and offered me the job. About 35 minutes later I told my boss in Birmingham and I was on a flight on Friday at lunchtime.

“Southeastern Conference. Easy. Eli Drinkwitz. Easy. Chance to play at the top level. Easy. It was a no-brainer when I had an opportunity to come here. I was on the first plane out of Birmingham.”

The decision for Link wasn’t much tougher.

“He’s an outstanding football coach, a great teacher,” Link said. “He’s great at building relationships with players. Probably more importantly and more than anything else he’s a great man, a great husband, a great father and at the end of the day my values align with his values.”

Drinkwitz’s staff has plenty of roots that go back to Auburn. But those aren’t the only connections. He held on to three assistants from Odom’s staff, brought D.J. Smith and Charlie Harbison with him from Appalachian State and then harkened back to his time at Arkansas State for a key offensive addition in Bush Hamdan, who had just been let go as the offensive coordinator at Washington after Chris Petersen’s retirement.

“I met Eli in 2013,” Hamdan said. “(He) and I were both co-coordinators at Arkansas State. He was probably one of the only guys on staff I did not know which was a really, really unique experience. We came from very, very different backgrounds, if you will, in the coaching profession. He’s just a guy that it didn’t take long for me to realize how much of a star he really was. Really fed off his knowledge and his personality.”

Drinkwitz is just a few years older than Hamdan, but he’s made a strong impression on the Boise State product even though their paths crossed for just that one season.

“Coach Drinkwitz has been a huge mentor of mine through the years,” Hamdan said. “I think this profession is always about people and you certainly as an assistant have a handful of guys that you’d love to work for and he’s certainly one of them.”

The final spot on the staff went to Marcus Johnson, who was let go as part of Joe Moorhead’s staff at Mississippi State. He is the lone coach on the staff who did not have ties to Drinkwitz or Mizzou prior to being hired. He said it was Drinkwitz that sold him on Mizzou.

“I heard from coach Drink and several other programs and it happened pretty fast,” Johnson said. “The first contact, it happened the next day. I had some opportunities, but this one here was one I was excited about and I’m looking forward to.

“He’s a young innovative coach, an up and coming coach, he’s done some really good things from an offensive standpoint. To me, in this profession, you better continue to learn and grow, not become complacent.”

The Missouri coaching staff was put together across the country, stretching from Boone, North Carolina to Seattle, Washington. But the roots of it were planted in the press box at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn nearly a decade ago.

“There’s always people that you want to work with but timing in college football is so weird and unique. It just happened that the timing for us to get back together worked out,” Drinkwitz said. “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. We’re just privileged to be on the journey together at this moment in time.”

 

[Paladin 3,305]

Quote

Eli Drinkwitz did not top Mizzou's list, but he may just be the perfect fit for the Tigers

by Dennis Dodd

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Eli Drinkwitz gets it. He wasn't Missouri's first choice to replace Barry Odom in one of the more roundabout coaching searches of the last silly season. Heck, the 36-year-old who made the leap from Appalachian State to the SEC may not have been Missouri's fourth choice.

"I wasn't the first choice of my wife," Drinkwitz countered. "I wasn't the first choice at App. I wasn't the first choice here. I was the best choice."

Eliah Drinkwitz is just getting started. Over lunch at Columbia staple G&D Pizzaria, he proclaimed one of Missouri's key advantages playing in the SEC East: climate.

"I always think if we play at home versus Florida outside of October, we'll beat 'em because they're not going to play in the cold weather. Period."

And his recruiting philosophy.

"I don't think you have to do it the way the rest of the SEC does it," Drinkwitz added. "Ole Miss is going to try to do it the way they've always done it, right? You don't have to do that at Mizzou."

Take that any way you want, but you get the intimation. This is either a snapshot of the new college coaching market or a backhanded shot delivered from the spicy new Missouri coach. Maybe both.

You see, Drinkwitz is not going to apologize. Why should he? This is the (highest-paid) time of his life. Missouri athletic director Jim Sterk is the one who, after sifting through other names, settled on giving Drinkwitz a six-year contract worth $4 million per season.

That after Drinkwitz went 12-1 at Appalachian State in his one and only year as a head coach. The new market doesn't blink at such movement. Mel Tucker left Colorado after a season. Chad Morris (Arkansas) and Willie Taggart (Florida State) got fired after less than two seasons.

$4 million is the new $2 million. Six years is the new four.

"I have no idea how much money is in my bank account," Drinkwitz said. "My wife does."

Put it this way: There's a lot more money in that account than one year ago at this time when Drinkwitz made $750,000 in the Sun Belt.

The times -- and contract terms -- are changing. Drinkwitz just happens to be riding the wave, coming along the right time for a desperate program.

When he signed the Missouri deal, Drinkwitz was suddenly making as much as LSU's national championship coach, Ed Orgeron. (Orgeron has since been gotten a raise to $7 million.) If Drinkwitz is fired without cause tomorrow, he is guaranteed a $20 million buyout, 70 percent of his total $24 million deal.

Perhaps most interesting, only three other coaches under 40 currently make at least $4 million a year: Mike Norvell (Florida State), P.J. Fleck (Minnesota) and Lincoln Riley (Oklahoma). That's a combined 14 years of head-coaching experience and four New Year's Six Bowl appearances.

The key to Drinkwitz's deal may be his agent, Jimmy Sexton. The man is the gold standard in the industry. It would be fair to say there was competition for Drinkwitz's services in the end between two SEC schools desperate to fill holes -- Arkansas and Missouri.

Mizzou won a bidding war. Sterk all but confirmed as much.

"It's a competitive marketplace," he said. "There were other people talking to him as well."

As for not being his wife's first choice?

"Best decision my wife ever made," Drinkwitz said. "She really thinks so [now]."

The Drinkwitz Life -- as you may have surmised -- is good.  It got that way because, according to reports, the Missouri board of curators wasn't enamored with Sterk's initial list of candidates to replace Odom.

At one point, CBS Sports learned that an offer had been made to Arkansas State's Blake Anderson. Missouri officials denied Anderson had taken his name out of the running over protests about him from the curators' chairman.

In the end, Drinkwitz didn't want to subject his extended family to being the favorite son coming home to Arkansas. He and his wife Lindsey are high school sweethearts from Alma, Arkansas. A large part of the family still resides in the state.

If he had failed coaching the Razorbacks, Drinkwitz said he could "move back to North Carolina on the beach and who cares? But they can't do that. That's not fair to them."

"Mizzou gives me a fresh start, clean start."

You should have surmised by now that Missouri is desperate for relevance. Gary Pinkel brought it in both the Big 12 and SEC. The program's winningest coach took the SEC East in 2013 and 2014. Since then, the Tigers are 30-32 overall, 14-26 in league play.

The program needs juice, swagger. You won't see this reaction from Nick Saban after landing a recruit at Alabama.

Drinkwitz knows it was a perceived coin flip whether Odom -- a former Mizzou captain as a linebacker in the 1990s -- should have been fired after four seasons. Missouri was bowl eligible in the last three. He also gets there are currently only nine other FBS coaches who never played college football.

"First off, I usually find former players are the worst coaches," he said. "Could it help you? Great. Could it hurt you? Absolutely."

Why?

"If I was going to have open-heart surgery, do I want somebody who had open-heart surgery, or do I want the best-trained doctor to do it? To me, I want the best-trained doctor who went to the best med school. The fat slob who's already had open-heart surgery doesn't need to do it to me, right?"

Uh, right.

"What he is, is quick on his feet," Sterk said. "He is very quick thinking."

Drinkwitz will call his own plays on offense. The spread will reign. There has been mention he had won with Scott Satterfield's players in his one and only season at Appalachian State. You know who else won championships with someone else's players in their first season? Try Riley and Ohio State's Ryan Day.

And consider the opposite of not winning with someone else's players. Just ask Taggart and Morris.

The Mizzou program needs Drinkwitz's juice. There is a certain innocence to a guy who used to fetch food as Auburn's quality control coach. He still revels in geeking out over his heroes, once introducing himself to Bob Stoops at the 2018 National Football Foundation dinner in New York.

"I'm sure he's thinking, 'What in the world?'" Drinkwitz said.

Drinkwitz has been a part of five conference championships and a national championship. Last year's Sun Belt title was his third. Drinkwitz previously won the league as an assistant under Gus Malzahn (2012) and Bryan Harsin (2013) at Arkansas State. Harsin then took him to Boise State where the Broncos won the Mountain West in 2014.

That sparks Drinkwitz's two versions of Harsin, now the game's eighth-winningest active FBS coach.

"'Hars' is a hell of a guy," Drinkwitz said, "'Bryan' is a dickhead. Whichever one shows up to work, you know what the rest of the day is going to be like.

"If 'Hars' walks in, you're like, 'This is going to be a great day.' When 'Bryan' calls you a mother f'er on third down because you didn't get a conversion, here we go. Put your hard hat on."

And yes, Drinkwitz has a national championship ring from Auburn in 2010. Just ask him for his spot-on imitation of Malzahn. The relationship is so intimate with his mentor that Drinkwitz has committed to memory Gus' preferred menu during the week.

Jimmy John's: Italian Night Club with peppers

Five Guys: Burger with jalapenos, mayonnaise, lettuce and tomatoes

Chick-Fil-A: Sausage burrito, no onions, two salsa packets

Hardees: Loaded omelet biscuit for breakfast

Those memories still stick eight years after the two worked together.

That's also another snapshot of a not-the-first-choice coach who has no plans to apologize for that.

"It doesn't matter, as long as you get it right," Drinkwitz said. "I felt like it was right for me."