‘We absolutely love Mizzou. We love what we’re building’: Eli Drinkwitz addresses job rumors
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Mizzou football coach Eli Drinkwitz looked to send a clear message to the Tiger faithful, during Tuesday's weekly meeting with the local media: his attention is solely on the task at hand in Columbia, not on job openings around the nation.
At the start of the Tigers' press conference to preview the upcoming matchup against No. 11 Oklahoma, Coach Drinkwitz took a few minutes to address the job rumors that have been circulating on social media.
You can find his full comments from his opening statement below.
"I'm not going to comment on message board chatters, tweets and sources. You know, I've maintained with you and our team that my complete focus is on the task at hand. You know, last week, people were tired of me because I couldn't win the big game. People had me meeting with my team and telling them that I was going to another school. None of which were true. Now, this week, it's a different story because we scored the second-most points in the SEC this year at 49. So, you know, all of this stuff, is just a distraction," Drinkwitz said. "I would like to remind everybody, including our fans, we absolutely love Mizzou. We love what we're building. We've been to six straight bowl games. We've got the sellout streak going. Our administration has been nothing but phenomenal to me. The alignment that we have with our president, President Choi, and his support for our program and what we're trying to build. Todd Graves, the head of the Board of Curators, has been tremendous since he started on the board and, as always, looking for ways to improve our athletic department. Bob Blitz has been a guy that was instrumental in rebuilding the north end zone and being on the forefront of the athletics committee. Laird Veatch has been great to work with on a day to day basis. You know, since I've been here, I've signed multiple extensions. In fact, I signed one this past summer. So, all the speculation is really a tribute to them and it's a tribute to our team's success and their commitment to our team. That's where my focus is going to remain, on our team and our current situation. I'm not going to get into all that stuff because, again, it's just a distraction."
You can watch the full press conference with Coach Drinkwitz in the video player below.
The leader of the Tigers also reminded fans that the next step the program is looking to take, going from good to great, will be the hardest one they've taken, yet.
He said the strides that Mizzou continues to make in the Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) space will prove pivotal in MU making that jump. Ahead of Saturday's game against Mississippi State, Drinkwitz met with the SEC Network broadcast team and mentioned that increased support from Fortune 500 companies will help them take the next step, as a program.
"We have 11 Fortune 500 companies in the state, which is fourth largest among the SCC footprint and we've got to continue to develop the relationships with those companies and get those companies to invest in our athletes. Whether we're talking about football, basketball, women's basketball, softball, women's soccer, wrestling, volleyball, baseball, we need their support," Drinkwitz said. "We are the institution of this stat, and we we provide those companies with a lot of workers and so it would be awesome if we got to see some reciprocal investments in that. I don't think that's an unusual ask or unusual request. This is all new, so I'm not assigning blame to anybody or not pointing fingers at any Fortune 500 company. I'm just asking if you're a Mizzou grad in that company and you're in charge of marketing, we would love to join in with some new NIL opportunities for our student-athletes, because that's the forefront."
Drinkwitz said that the investment from those companies will help them compete with the programs that seemingly have an 'unlimited' NIL budget, across the Southeastern Conference.
"You want better results? You know, you got to get better players and we got great players right now, but you can always use more. I saw on Twitter that somebody said we got to keep Donovan [Olugbode] and Matt [Zollers]. Well, that's wishful thinking. You gotta offer them the same amount of money that other people are," he said. "That's the reality. I mean, there's teams that we're playing with that have larger budgets than we have. That doesn't mean we're not doing the absolute best we can, it doesn't mean that we haven't put together a really, really good football team and there's a lot of people helping us, but more is still more. Until there's a cap on it, I mean, don't we want every advantage that we can possibly get?"
Coach Eli emphasized, again, that he's not placing blame on anyone at the University of Missouri, but wanted to highlight the playing field that he and his staff are on.
"I think there's a misconception that we're one of the bigger spenders in NIL. I don't I don't think that's true. I think we're very good at what we do, I think we've been very wise in our investments, but we're not frivolous. There's certainly not unlimited funds and they're certainly not, I mean, we're we weren't in the Top-10 of spenders last year, right, when they put that put out the list. So, I just think there's a misconception that there's more than there probably is," Drinkwitz said. "It's just people got to be adamant about doing it, you know, and I think about this like there's a lot of really, really good players from Missouri that are playing in other places. I would love for them to play here, but that's not free. So how do we get them here? I got to do a better job of recruiting them, but also to do a better job of raising money so that I can offer them a competitive package that the other schools are offering. You know, that's part of it. If we want to build a championship team, I got to continue to build a championship roster."
