It seems that every conference nowadays has a coach that can’t keep their foot out of their mouth when they speak. Perhaps there is no better example of that than in the SEC when it comes to Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz.
Since taking over back in 2020, there has been no bigger clown in the SEC than Drinkwitz. From all the trolling he’s done to cracking jokes that nobody laughs at, he’s always tried to be the class clown of the conference.
SEC Media Days Drama
During SEC Media Days this week, Eli was asked about the Big Ten winning three straight national titles. In his ramble of a bunch of nonsense, he mentioned that part of the reason is that the Big Ten is not required to play a non-conference game against a Power Four school.
I guess when Indiana beat Alabama by 35 in the playoffs, it was because of their non-conference schedule? Give me a break. Then he went on to run his mouth about the state of Kansas.
It’s been all bark and no bite with this guy for years now.
And to be clear, I don’t blame him because all the nonsense is the perfect distraction to keep everyone from looking at what he’s done there in Columbia. Well, his antics aren’t going to stop me from doing my job here.
Eli Drinkwitz Resume
So, let’s take a deep dive into the Eli Drinkwitz era at Missouri. He’s been there for six seasons and has an overall record of 46-29, which doesn’t seem all that bad. Then you see his conference record, which is 26-24, and that’s about as mediocre as mediocre gets.
Outside of two seasons (2023 and 2024), Drinkwitz is 25-24 overall and 15-19 in SEC play. So, it’s been two good seasons and four below-average years at best. But let’s take a closer look at those two seasons where Missouri went 11-2 and 10-3.
Starting with 2023, they finished 11-2 and were 6-2 in SEC action. Their non-conference was South Dakota, Middle Tennessee, Kansas State, and Memphis. Not terrible, but what about in conference, where they went 6-2? They didn’t beat a single team with a winning record in conference play.
In fact, the only two teams they did play with winning conference records, they lost to by double digits. But hey, at least they won that Cotton Bowl that nobody cared about against a bunch of Ohio State backups!
Now on to 2024, where they were 10-3. Their non-conference wins came against Murray State, Buffalo, Boston College, and UMass. Murray State finished that year 1-11, UMass went 2-10, and Boston College finished 4-4 in ACC play, and Buffalo finished third in the MAC. Wow, what a grueling schedule.
But the same thing that happened in 2023 happened in 2024: they feasted on bad SEC teams because, once again, all the conference teams they beat were below .500 in SEC play.
Against the three teams with winning conference records (Texas A&M, Alabama, and South Carolina), they lost all three and were outscored 109 to 40. Then they capped off 2024 with a win over Iowa in the Music City Bowl, which, once again, meant absolutely nothing.
So even during those “magical” two seasons, Missouri beat nobody worth a damn. Every time they played someone with a pulse, they folded up faster than you can spell M-I-Z-Z-O-U.
Yet, the people of Missouri didn’t see it that way, and they ended up giving him a six-year, $64.5 million contract extension late in the 2025 season when he was 2-4 in conference play.
And to nobody’s surprise, his four conference wins came against teams that had a combined SEC record of 3-29. Do you see a trend here? So, for a guy like Drinkwitz to sit up there and criticize other conferences is hilarious because he is more fraudulent than his wins. I bet you could find a clown a whole lot cheaper than $65 million, and Missouri was stupid enough to pay him. Maybe he and Missouri are meant for each other.
As long as he’s in Columbia, you don’t have to worry about him making it to the SEC title game or even sniffing the playoff because he hasn’t done either one of those things. His mouth has always been bigger than his resume. It’s been over 55 years since Missouri has won a conference championship in football, and the extension he received will only make that drought longer.
