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1) It was a hell of a week on the recruiting trail for Mizzou. We'll talk about what it means laster, but first a quick recap of the news for anyone who may have missed it.
Tony Perkins commits
Marques Warrick commits
Mark Mitchell commits
Of course there were some corresponding moves as well
John Tonje transfers
Jordan Butler transfers
2) The recruiting news wasn't just confined to the basketball program. On the football side
Jason Dowell commits
Plus two Monday decisions we think will go Mizzou's way:
Linebacker Dante McClellan
Defensive lineman Joshua Lewis
And SMU transfer offensive lineman Marcus Bryant told us he plans to announce a decision within a couple of days following a weekend official visit to Mizzou.
3) That gets you caught up on the recruiting news, but it may not have even been the biggest news of the week. The Board of Curators on Thursday unanimously approved a $250 million improvement project for Memorial Stadium.
I'm not a big bells and whistles buildings guy. Someone asked me last week what it would take for me to be impressed with the renderings and I said I couldn't imagine a scenario where I would be impressed because it doesn't impact me and I just don't really care. Well, I was impressed. The project is visually stunning. It's like getting a whole new stadium without actually getting a new stadium. I think the "tell us we belong in the SEC" thing is dumb and a little pathetic because I've always thought you don't need anybody to tell you belong because you're already in. That said, this is a project that signals Missouri is serious about playing big time college football. Which is a positive.
4) The project reinforces something I've written about before: Missouri is absolutely all in on Eli Drinkwitz. Obviously it makes sense. Football drives the bus and if football is good everything else benefits. But I think this storyline goes even further than I had thought.
A side topic at the Curators meeting on Thursday was the search for a new athletic director. For those scoring at home, it's now been nine full weeks since Desiree Reed-Francois left (As I was typing thought number three, the Intercollegiate Athletics Special Committee went into executive session for the third time in a week). We asked some questions about the search for a replacement that were, mostly, not answered. I made some calls and put together some thoughts on where things stand and where Missouri might be looking the next day.
But the truth is, I'm not sure how much it matters.
I don't say that to downplay the athletic director. But I look at it like this: If Drinkwitz has the season many are thinking/hoping he can have next season, the job is incredibly easy. If he makes the College Football Playoff, he can stand at midfield and tell everyone in the crowd to kiss his ass and write a check. And most of them will do it. If that happens, the renovation is going to more than pay for itself and Missouri is going to be swimming in financial waters in which it has never swum before. If it doesn't? Well, that makes things tougher. But as long as Drinkwitz is doing pretty well, the next AD's job simply isn't all that complex: Keep the engine (football) running and the car (everything else) will stay on course.
5) The side effect of this commitment Missouri has made is this: It's far far far less likely to me that Mizzou will need to worry about Drinkwitz leaving than it was two years ago.
Following the 2022 season, I'm convinced there's one main reason Drinkwitz hadn't taken another job: Nobody who had a better job was offering it to him. He said everything right publicly obviously, but every conversation I had led me to believe at that time that Drinkwitz would take the first train out of town to the first better job he could get. And maybe even to a job Missouri fans would have argued was absolutely not a better one.
But then the state rewrote the NIL laws and the donors ponied up and he won 11 games and the donors kept ponying up and the recruits kept coming and now they're pouring a quarter of a billion dollars into his program and where the hell is he gonna go?
That's not a guarantee he stays forever or anything, but let's say Florida opens after this year. Is that a better job? The general college football fan will say "Of course it is you dolt." But why? Remember, nothing you knew about college football five years ago matters now. Yes, Florida's got more history (especially if you start counting in 1966). Yes, Florida is geographically closer to better recruiting. But everybody can pay now. Since Drinkwitz got to Mizzou, he's 28-21 overall and 17-17 in the SEC. In that same time, Florida is 25-25 and 16-18 in the SEC. The teams have split four head to head matchups.
But here's the big thing: Missouri fans want to build Drinkwitz a monument. Florida fans want Billy Napier gone.
Obviously an 11-win season will build up that kind of equity. But I've said for years, if you go 8-4, you're going to coach at Missouri until you say you don't want to coach there anymore. And I stand by that. There will be some grumbling eventually if you just keep going 8-4 every year, but it's probably not going to get you fired. The places that most would call no-doubt steps up for Drinkwitz at this point won't let you hang around going 8-4 every year. You can do it for a while, but they'll want more a lot more quickly than Mizzou will. Plus, he's already making nine million bucks a year. Who's going to pay him significantly more.
Look, coaching is a nomadic business and things can change in the blink of an eye, but as we sit here today, where could Drinkwitz have it better than he has it in Columbia?
