Eli Drinkwitz speaks out on state of college athletics, amidst ongoing chaos

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

As Mizzou football coach Eli Drinkwitz took the podium for his Week 1 press conference, on Saturday morning, the college football season was kicking off across the Atlantic ocean, as TCU and North Carolina met in Ireland.

But even though the first ball has been kicked off, there's still lots of chaos and confusion facing college athletics.

Over the course of the past few weeks, there's been constant court cases and shifts in eligibility rules, as a chain reaction of the NCAA's new age-bases eligibility model, which grants student-athletes five years of eligibility to use over the course of five seasons. That's resulted in athletes, who have gone to the professional level, whether that's entering the draft or actually playing professionally, attempting to return to college athletics.

In fact, there's been several court cases over the past few weeks, including former Tiger star Mark Mitchell, as he hopes to play at Kentucky for the 2026-27 season, after a summer playing in NBA Summer League action.

However, the Southeastern Conference, as well as the Big Ten and Big 12, have put measures into place to ban a professional athletes from returning to their member schools. Those guidelines may not stand though, after court rulings and temporary restraining orders have begun to push back.

All-in-all, that leaves both players and coaches in an absolute scramble to figure out eligibility, even as the season has kicked off.

Drinkwitz tackled the chaos head-on, on Saturday. You can find a full transcript of what he had to say below.

Question: "Two parts here. Your season kicks off in five days, season started 15 minutes ago and there are still things coming out about who's on what roster. Number one, are you confident your roster is set? Number two, how do you how have you managed that over the last few weeks?"

Eli Drinkwitz: "I got a lot to say on the subject, but I've been saying this for three years now, that college football and college athletics is not in a great place. You know, I said this several years ago when we had announcement of conference changes in the middle of fall camp, and I said, who considered the student athletes? You know, this stuff is not good for any student athlete. And it's a direct reflection of our inability as leaders to come up with a plan. We spent all summer politicking a Save College Sports Act and then at the last moment, we all tried to get behind it. That's not how Washington, D.C. works. We've been trying to do it for six years, and it took a while to, you know, to even get on board and now you see the results. You know, if that if that bill has passed, this stuff is not happening right now because there's a framework for what the future of college athletics looks like. You know, Mike Elko said it a couple days ago like...the season's kicked off and we do not know what the rules are for eligibility. That's embarrassing man...[College football is] the second biggest sport in the United States, most watched sport in the United States, and for us to be operating like this as a complete clown show. And it's disappointing. Coaches have been on the forefront of saying this and it's been ignored. It's been ignored and, you know, I would say now this is what they get. That what they've gotten. So, you know, administrators and courtrooms have got to figure out what the rules are now and we've been saying this for years and years and years. So, you know, I'm going to focus on my team. If I'm told that I can add players then then I'll look to add players. I'm going to do whatever I'm supposed to do to help the University of Missouri win. That's my job. That's what the president and the board and the fans expect out of me. So, whatever the rules are, we'll try to play by those rules. It would just be nice if those rules weren't adjusted by tweets on social media or by courtrooms or lawyers, but that's our fault because we didn't pass a bill to get it done."

Question: "Just a quick follow-up on the courts and administrators' point there. Is there a way that you see to get out of that?"

Drinkwitz: "There's a way it's called pass the Save College Sports Act...Sponsored by Ted Cruz, [Maria] Cantwell and by Eric Schmidt. Is it perfect? Nope. Nobody said it was perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than what we're doing right now. That's what we've been saying. You know, the House of Representatives had an opportunity to pass a bill, they couldn't get it done. The Senate took it on. They've tried to work really hard to pass it. It's bipartisan, but it took forever for major conferences to get on board with it and that that hurt us. Now, you know, we're going to be subject to this, and we'll find out if the SEC's positions defensible and legal. I don't know, but any hope of us having breakaway or whatever, I guess, will depend on this court case, because that threat is going to be null and void if it doesn't win. So we'll see, I mean, a lot's up in air up in the air for college sports. Coach Saban said it best. So I I'm sticking with what Coach Saban said."

You can watch Coach Drinkwitz's full comments in the video player below.