COLUMBIA, Mo. _ Eliah Drinkwitz's first official day as Missouri's 33rd football coach is off and running. Here's a rundown of what he and athletics director Jim Sterk shared at Drinkwitz's introductory press conference:
_ Drinkwitz's first public words as Missouri's new coach: "This is an opportunity of a lifetime, and opportunities of a lifetime must be seized within the lifetime of an opportunity. For this to occur it took a lot of a lot of things to come together at the right time. But I know in my heart and in my soul and in my spirit this is the right place for me and my family at the right time for Mizzou football."
_ Mizzou confirms what was reported Monday: Drinkwitz signed a six-year contract with a $4 million salary. If during his first two seasons (2020, 2021), the Tigers win eight games or a bowl game, he gets one extra year on his deal and his salary goes up $100,000 for every year left on the deal. His incentive package maxes out at $850,000 if he hits on every clause, including $500,000 for winning the national championship.
_ Drinkwitz's staff salary pool will be $5.2 million for his 10 assistant coaches. That's up from $4.8 million for the 2019 staff. He has another $1.2 million to spend on administrative staff.
_ His buyout clause is very different from past MU football coaches: If MU fires him without cause, he receives 70% of the total salary he's owed for every year left on the deal. Past MU coaches, including Barry Odom, would have been owed only their base salary ($450,000) for every year left on their contracts. In Drinkwitz's case, if he's fired after his first season without cause, he's owed 70% of $4 million times five for the five years left on his contract. That's $14 million.
_ If Drinkwitz leaves Mizzou for another job, he owes $6 million after his first year, $4 million after his second year, down to $1 million after the 2024 season.
_ Drinkwitz will start putting together his coaching staff over the next two days. He's open to retaining some of Barry Odom's assistant coaches. (Defensive coordinator Ryan Walters was in the crowd during the press conference.) Drinkwitz will serve as his own offensive coordinator and will call plays himself. He also plans to have a special teams coordinator who will exclusively coach special teams. FootballScoop.com reported that Walters, defensive line coach Brick Haley and cornerbacks coach David Gibbs are "expected to stay" on the staff.
_ Drinkwitz was intrigued by the Mizzou job when it first came open but didn't have any contact with anyone from MU until Saturday. After the Sun Belt championship game, he met with Sterk and MU officials at a Hampton Inn in Wilkesboro, N.C., after attending his daughter's performance of "The Nutcracker." He was especially impressed when on Sunday three members of the UM System Board of Curators flew to Boone, N.C., to meet him and bring him back to Columbia. "That showed me a level of trust and respect that will be reciprocated from my family back to yours," Drinkwitz said.
_ Sterk did not get into many details of the hiring process but did not deny there were bumps along the way last week. As reported last Thursday, he told members of the Board of Curators he was focused on three candidates: Arkansas State's Blake Anderson, Army's Jeff Monken and Louisiana Tech's Skip Holtz _ with an emphasis on Anderson. Board members were underwhelmed by those choices, multiple sources have confirmed. They urged Sterk to seek bolder options. Concerns over the initial list of targets reached all the way to Gov. Mike Parson, a source confirmed. Board members even questioned the school's search firm, Parker Executive, for its role in the process.
On Tuesday, Sterk said there was "input" from the Curators last week.
"I was supported by the board," he said. "I took input from alumni, the players. That was great last week I got to meet with (players) and really hear who they wanted to have. I took input from the board and then went out and selected the right guy."
MU leaders seemed genuinely impressed with Drinkwitz and pleased with Sterk's selection, but the unusual strategy of sending Curators to North Carolina to visit with Drinkwitz and fly back with him to Columbia underscored MU's attempts to soften any perception there was discord between Sterk and university leaders. Even the prepared comments by the system president and chancellor emphasized their support of Sterk. That was not a coincidence, one source said Tuesday. "Damage control," as one observer noted Tuesday.
_ Drinkwitz will start recruiting immediately Tuesday, starting with reaching out to MU's committed recruits for the 2020 class. He made a major emphasis on recruiting in-state prospects.
"We're going to spend every single minute trying to recruit this state, because it starts with the state of Missouri," he said. "We're going to St. Louis, we're going to Kansas City. ... We're going to the northern tip. If you can play football for Missouri, we're going to get you and we're going to get you here. That's my commitment to you. I'm a former high school football coach. I know what it takes. I know what recruiting is. It's about relationships. We're looking for the right fit for Mizzou football. We're looking for focused, intangibles, talented and tough. Those four characteristics are the hallmark of a championship football program. And those are the kinds of kids that we're going to recruit. And I know those from kids are in Missouri."
_ One of the first people in the crowd he saluted Tuesday was former Tigers coach Gary Pinkel. He said he plans to seek the retired coach's input. "You may not remember, but I was a high school football coach that came back here in 2009 with a young recruit," Drinkwitz said. "And you visited with me as a high school football coach, and impressed upon me what it means to lead with integrity, what it means to lead the right way. And then you whipped my butt in 2013 when I was coaching at Arkansas State. But I thank you so much. I appreciate your support. And I look forward to connecting with you and helping continue to put this program where we know it needs to be."
_ Pinkel's take on the new coach: "Very, very impressive." Pinkel likened him to Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley. "And if he pans out like that, it'll be pretty darn good," Pinkel said.
_ You might think the Tigers were coming off three straight losing seasons based on some of Drinkwitz's comments. At times he talked as if the program had lost its fan base the last few years. "We must reignite our passion," he said. "We must unify our purpose. We must restore the pride in Mizzou football. We must all come together. Believe in our players, believe in our mission. We must compete every single day to be better today than we were yesterday. And if we do that the future is bright at Mizzou and I can't wait to push this program forward."
_ Drinkwitz has plans. A lot of them. "I've got a 10-day plan, a 15-day plan, a 20-day plan, a 30-day plan, a 90-day plan on what we got to get done. We've got to capture the momentum that we have right now, the positive public image and perception. We'll continue to push that."
_ Drinkwitz described his offense as a mixture of systems he coached under Gus Malzahn at Auburn and Arkansas State and Bryan Harsin's offense at Arkansas State and Boise State. In 2013, Drinkwitz stayed behind at ASU to work with Harsin when Malzhan took the head-coaching job at Auburn. "We were able to blend our offensive identities, the philosophy of no-huddle attack with multiple personnel shifts, motions, pro-style concepts," he said. "That's really where this offense began to take root and became my own. And that's really where it's grown from in so that that's kind of how that transition occurred. Coach Malzahn and I actually got together this past summer and talked and there was some surprise on both sides about how far we both evolved from those points together. But we still have that foundation."
