Eli Drinkwitz addresses coaching carousel rumors, blocking out the noise
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The nature of college football in 2025 is noise...and a whole lot of it.
The more success you find, the more of it you'll hear. That's definitely the case for Mizzou football coach Eli Drinkwitz, who is now seeing his name pop up all over social media. The sixth-year Tiger head coach has been linked to the ongoing Penn State coaching search, following the firing of former head coach James Franklin.
During Tuesday's weekly meeting with local media members, Coach Eli was asked about how he handles those rumors.
"There's no such thing as journalistic integrity on social media," he said. "There's just wild, outlandish, reporting and I'll bet every sitting head coach has been listed as a candidate for some job, so far. You know, as a team and as a coach, we got to ignore the noise and focus on things that we can control."
Just recently, Mizzou offensive coordinator Kirby Moore was one of those coaches to see his name pop up on some lists online. In fact, multiple social media outlets reported that he had interviewed for the job at Arkansas, prior to MU's game against Alabama.
Drinkwitz put those whispers to rest, on Tuesday.
"It was really unfortunate last week that Kirby's name got associated to some thing that was a complete lie," Drinkwitz said. "He'd never interviewed, didn't talk to anybody at Arkansas. It's a bunch of bull crap put out there to try to create distractions and a narrative then comes over after the fact, after the game. It's really disappointing....Again, Twitter ain't real and it's just a bunch of bull crap thrown on message boards."
As far as his own name popping up in the world of the coaching carousel, he said it's just a tip of the hat to the University of Missouri.
"That means we're doing something really good. It means that our administration is committed to excellence. It means all the investment that the people here have made has resulted in our success," Coach Eli said. "[It] has nothing to do with me, has everything to do with the players, the support staff...I would encourage all the fans and everybody else, it's October 14th and the only thing that matters for us is going 1-0 this week. Anything outside of that is a distraction that you shouldn't even worry about. Don't let it cross your mind."
