Columbia
With eight Power Four jobs open now and the filling of those sure to cascade into further openings, Mizzou coach Eli Drinkwitz’s name continues to either be floated, logically connected or rumored with no basis in fact to several of them.
Now more than ever, of course, discerning what’s real is a confounding challenge. Anyone can put together a list or simply call someone a candidate for a job and cast it out in the online ether and see it gather views and momentum.
For instance, Message Board Geniuses — an X account with 141,000 followers — had a “BREAKING!” report that “inside sources tell MBA that Eli Drinkwitz has informed his team that he will be leaving #Missouri to take the #PennState job.”
Never mind that the site is satirical.
The post was ample fodder to animate a statement Drinkwitz felt the need to make Tuesday to start his weekly news conference as 23rd-ranked Mizzou prepares to play Saturday at No. 8 Oklahoma — where MU hasn’t won in 19 tries since 1966.
Decide for yourself if he was meeting the issue head-on or taking preemptive action, but you can’t say he didn’t swoop right to it after his opening preamble.
“I’m not going to comment on message board chatters, tweets, sources (say),” he said. “I’ve maintained with (the media) and our team that my complete focus is on the task at hand.”
Last week, he added, “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.”
Not true, he said, calling all that buzz “just a distraction” and adding that he “would like to remind everybody, including our fans, we absolutely love Mizzou. We love what we’re building.”
He pointed to qualifying for six straight bowl games and a school-record 20 straight home sellouts and harmony and alignment with the administration and board of curators. Heck, he even mentioned the fact he’d been signed to multiple contract extensions, including just last summer.
What he didn’t say as he declared he wasn’t going to address any of that other “stuff,” though, was whether he’d definitely return next season (and beyond) to MU — where he’s making $9 million this year and his current contract runs through 2029.
All of which makes it quite unclear how this might play out with Drinkwitz, whom Paul Finebaum recently went as far as to call “the name of the moment” for the LSU job.
Certainly, it’s easy to see the appeal elsewhere of Drinkwitz, who is young (42) and charismatic and in many ways has revived MU football: If Mizzou manages to win out through its bowl game, a major “if” with OU up next, the school will have won 10-plus games in three straight seasons for the first time in school history.
Coach Eli Drinkwitz of the Missouri Tigers poses with the Battle Line Trophy after the game against the Arkansas Razorbacks at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium on November 24, 2023, in Fayetteville. Wesley Hitt Getty Images
The flip side of the equation is that Drinkwitz is just 1-10 against top-10 foes, 7-17 vs. overall ranked teams and 25-23 in the Southeastern Conference. Those numbers processed raw certainly wouldn’t awe search committees or fan bases in places like Auburn, Baton Rouge, Fayetteville, Gainesville, State College or Stillwater.
But the fact that the MU program seems to have plateaued just outside the elite College Football Playoff pool makes for a fascinating element of what could help determine Drinkwitz’s future thinking.
Especially considering Drinkwitz seemed eager to speak to something most of those other schools generally have over Mizzou: more NIL money with which to pay players.
Making a statement in itself, Drinkwitz took multiple questions on the topic that was pegged to comments made by the SEC Network’s Tom Hart during MU’s 49-27 win over Mississippi State on Saturday.
During a conversation with Drinkwitz, as summarized by 247Sports, Hart said he told the coach he figured his name is on some short lists and asked him, “What are you looking for? Is it about the money individually?”
In response, Hart reported Drinkwitz saying “I’ve got the money. It’s about alignment. It’s about getting people invested in the program. It’s about getting the Fortune 500 companies in the state to get behind us. …
“We’ve got all these Fortune 500 companies (and) not a single one advertises (in Faurot Field).”
Per the Columbia Daily Tribune, two of the current eight actually do.
But in what was either a negotiating point, a reason he could be lured away for better resources or both, Drinkwitz made a case that MU needs more investment if it’s consistently going to ascend into the top 10.
Asked why that’s necessary for success, Drinkwitz paused, chuckled and said, “I mean, you want better results? You’ve got to get better players. And we’ve got great players right now. But you can always use more.”
Moreover, he added, what can only be called a payroll has to be boosted just to keep key players.
“I saw on Twitter somebody said we’ve got to keep (freshmen) Donovan (Olugbode) and Matt (Zollers),” he said. “Well, that’s wishful thinking. You’ve got to offer them the same amount of money that other people are, and that’s the reality: There’s teams that we’re playing with larger NIL budgets than we have.
“Doesn’t mean that we’re not doing the absolute best we can. 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, and until there’s a cap on it, I mean, don’t we want every advantage that we can possibly get?”
Because MU and Drinkwitz want to beat those teams with what he called “unlimited support.”
“I’ve been told,” he added, “I can’t beat those teams.”
Intended or not, leveraging or not, the insinuation sure seems to be that without more such financial support for the program Drinkwitz would be more likely to leave for a job that would better enable that prospect.
So no matter how much he doesn’t want to discuss the rumors, they’re going to have credible life for weeks to come … unless and until he states outright he’s not going anywhere else.
This story was originally published November 18, 2025 at 5:07 PM.
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Vahe Gregorian
The Kansas City Star
Vahe Gregorian has been a sports columnist for The Kansas City Star since 2013 after 25 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He has covered a wide spectrum of sports, including 10 Olympics. Vahe was an English major at the University of Pennsylvania and earned his master’s degree at Mizzou.
