People are forgetting the hole we had dug before hiring Drink. The last two years of Pinkel recruiting weren’t great And the woke scandal hurt our reputation. The recruiting under Odem wasn’t great. We dug a 5 year hole in terms of our talent depth. No high profile power 5 coach wanted the Mizzou job then or wants it today. It means when we do hire a coach we have to hire a head coach who is hot from a small school or a coordinator from a big program. It means they are a developmental hire. The ceo of an sec football program is not an easy job when we are probably in the 10-14th category of NIL money and facilities in our conference. A school like Mizzou has to take the risk that their hire develops into a ceo of a high level SEC football program. That’s probably a 5 year evaluation and development period. Drink has done well at recruiting during a time of Covid, portal, and NIL. His teams have played hard for him and haven’t quit Facing adversity. He has question marks on player development and game management. I am rooting for him to continue to develop as a coach and get the program to the level of a consistent 9 game or better winner each year. If he fails in that improvement the next 2 years it means we are starting the 5 year process all over again on taking a risk on a coordinator or small school head coach. There are millions on the line for Drink so hopefully he figures it out. I’m sure he’s motivated to improve. The offensive line depth and current talent level of the oline is a bigger issue than our QB play. Doesn’t seem like you see a lot of portal transfers at oline. Hopefully Drink finds some.
