The numbers are in, and the news is official.
University of Missouri curators are easier to please than most Mizzou football fans.
It wasn’t all that long ago when it felt necessary to point MU fans toward reasons for making Eli Drinkwitz's fourth season, not this in-progress third one, the ultimate referendum on his trajectory as the Tigers head coach.
There had been some grumbling from black-and-gold faithful before a road win against a South Carolina team that was ranked No. 25 for one half-second. Mizzou's decision-makers must not have heard fans' sighs of exasperation this season as Drinkwitz's challenged offense struggles to score. They were too busy cooking up the numbers on Drinkwitz's premature extension.
The $4 million man will be a $6 million one next season, well on his way to becoming a $7 million one in 2027. That's if he's still around. Don't forget Mizzou fired former football coach Barry Odom less than a year after handing him a three-year extension. Odom was promoted by former athletics director Mack Rhoades, extended by former athletics director Jim Sterk and fired by Sterk. Drinkwitz was hired by Sterk, extended by new athletics director Desiree Reed-Francois, and ... we'll see.
Giving Drinkwitz a fourth season was a necessary move for a school that has become caught in a bad cycle of revenue-sports hires and fires combined with multiple changes in athletics department leadership. Giving Drinkwitz an extension when his previous deal ran through the 2025 season? Totally unnecessary. Competitors were not lining up to hire away Drinkwitz and his 15-17 record, one that despite encouraging recruiting trends has not yet produced a winning season. Recruits can get concerned if a coach has one season left on an expiring deal. But three? Come on. Believe it or not, sitting back and waiting to see more is still an option between firing a coach or extending him and handing him a raise.
But so it goes in modern college sports, where there is so much money coming in, it has to find ways to get spent — just as long as the players on the field don't collect a paycheck from the program. Mizzou, clearly, is not going to be the school that pushes back. It rushes to catch up instead. The Tigers saw the tide of SEC head coaching salaries lifting again, and figured they better match.
No one stopped to realize they didn't have to rush. No one decided to wait one more season to make sure they did or did not have the right coach to elevate. No one pointed out there was no real counter move for Drinkwitz and super agent Jimmy Sexton if they were told year four should determine if a big bump is deserved. Was Drinkwitz going to go to Auburn? Not without a breakthrough at Mizzou that has not yet come. Georgia Tech? If your coach bolts an SEC program for Georgia Tech, he did you a favor, because he was not the right hire in the first place. No one even intervened to stop the bad timing of the announcement. Mizzou made the news official right before Drinkwitz lost to Kentucky for the second time in three tries.
Drinkwitz and Sexton had no real leverage here, other than making Mizzou feel guilty about where Drinkwitz could wind up on the SEC salary power ranking after the dust settles on this latest round of raises. You better believe Sexton will use Drinkwitz's new package to lift up his other clients. Remember during the pandemic, when there was all that talk about more mindfulness being shown in college sports spending. Ha!
Drinkwitz is a smart man. He knows who controls the money at Mizzou, and it's not always the athletics director. He has made strong connections, and has been rewarded for his networking. This was the best play he's called all season. Bigger dollars is his reward, but they bring with them a new kind of pressure.
Mizzou has done its part. It gave Drinkwitz a six-year deal worth $4 million per season after he spent just one season coaching at Appalachian State. It moved early to extend that original deal, adding two more years and millions of extra dollars despite a third season that is being marred by bad offensive-line play and quarterback issues. The extension includes more money for assistants, meaning Drinkwitz can go big-game hunting for an offensive coordinator and play-caller if he thinks it's best to hand over those duties. Mizzou stepped up to extend and give a raise to defensive coordinator Blake Baker, decreasing the chance of a competitor poaching the rising star. The new practice facility Drinkwitz requested upon arrival? Done. The attendance and ticket sales Drinkwitz challenged fans to improve entering this season? Both have improved.
Everything Drinkwitz has wanted, he has received. It's time for him to produce. The Tigers must resume making respectable bowl games next season. They should be occasionally flirting with something bigger and better than that. They need to prove the Gary Pinkel era was not the high-water mark forever. Especially now that Drinkwitz is leaving Pinkel's paydays in the dust.
None of this is news to Drinkwitz. This week on the SEC teleconference he described having the resources in place and feeling the pressure and expectations to match them. If he does not solve his quarterback and offensive line conundrum for year four, it will be impossible to do so.
Without this extension, Mizzou would have owed Drinkwitz about $5.6 million if it fired him after the 2023 season. Because of the extension, Mizzou now owes him 75% of whatever is left on his new deal, minus whatever his next job — and he is required to pursue one — pays him. Only five SEC football coaches have that kind of clause in their buyout details. It's a hedge, a sign someone in the room dropped the pompoms and attempted to bake at least a little real-world financial common sense into the latest example of the sport's excessive spending.
In the SEC, even at Mizzou, you can always find the money. What was true for Drinkwitz's premature extension could become just as true for his buyout. That big fourth season just got bigger.
