Everything Eli Drinkwitz Said to Preview 2025 Fall Camp

The Missouri Tigers have their work cut out for them in the next four weeks of fall practices before the start of the season on Aug.

28.

Not only does the team have to name starters at the quarterback, left tackle and one of the cornerback spots, but the program also brought in its biggest transfer class to date.

Head coach Eli Drinkwitz addressed the local media Sunday, providing an update on those competitions and new players.

Below is a full transcript of what he head to say.

Opening statement Really excited to open fall camp No.

6.

Each and every year is just a little bit different, a little bit more exciting and a little bit more fun.

Very fortunate for us to being able to carry over our coordinators and our culture staff with the first floor, and I think that's really helped us get acclimated with the new players.

This is the most transfers we've been able to bring in since we've been here, which I think is kind of the new one for college football.

But I do think continuity has been a little bit of our secret sauce.

So again, really excited about that.

Do want to acknowledge and say thank you to President Choi, the leadership of the board of curators and Todd Graves, Bob Blitz.

And also want to say thanks to Laird Veatch for [the] contract extension.

I know my family and I are very appreciative of the opportunity to continue to be the head football coach at the University of Missouri.

And with that, I'll name the starting quarterback.

On what hes learned about integrating transfers into the team: I think the biggest thing is, every year, your team starts over, and you have to start over.

As a coach, I think from establishing the boards of your team, the rules of your team, the culture of your team, I think every year you just have to understand it starts over and you repeat the process.

And as a coach who's been here six years, you can't get bored with that like, well, we've done that for six years.

How important in the new contract is the increased assistant salary pool? I think it was just continuing to build.

I mean, we talk all the time, it costs what it costs, especially this league got some really good coaches, and it's not just coaches being able to take care of support staff on the first floor, operation, staff, personnel, staff, all of those people, has been working to create, making this place.

With the quarterback competition and the timeline there, is that something that you're willing to let go into the first game? We have no timetable on the side of the quarterback.

I was actually just thinking about this.

I think this is the fourth year, going into the year that we've had a quarterback competition, and so we're familiar with it, hopefully with that experience comes a little bit more wisdom.

But absolutely, when the quarterback's ready, hell show himself to the team.

Well all know who that is and when it is, well tell you.

I dont plan on having a wait to announce because of a perceived advantage.

Neither one of them have played that much football, so theres not going to be anybody to scout.

And if its undecided, then well let them go into the games and play as long as we need to.

What are things you and your staff will look for that will identify the starting quarterback? For us, it's about being a consistent decision maker.

We have five requirements to play the position: toughness, preparation, decision making, accuracy and leadership, and we'll evaluate all of those each day, but then the other day, it's consistent decision making.

I actually just met with the quarterbacks and kind of outlined, informed them how we were going to go about this.

The reps were going to divide it up and encourage them all to run their own race.

You can't get caught up.

And this guy's doing something good, and you've had a bad day.

And I told them straight up one bad day is not going to decide the competition.

But two might.

There's going to have to be a consistency of your approach.

And if you've had two bad days, then that may put you in a position where you're behind the eight ball, so you're going to have to be able to go in there.

And if you had a bad practice, you got to shake it off the next day and bounce back.

If you had a bad set, you got to shake it off and bounce back.

I mean, that's what quarterback is, that's how you play the game.

And, again, without these guys having as much experience on tape, we're going to have to throw them in a lot of different scenarios and situations and see coming out on top.

I don't, I do not mind saying this.

I hope this doesn't offend Ryan Finley and Brett Rypien, but this is the most talented quarterback room I've ever been in, and I'm really, really excited about the competition.

What's keeping me up at night is that I'm going to have to tell somebody they're not the starting quarterback.

That's going to be the hardest thing I do all season, because these guys have all worked really, really hard during the opportunity.

Do you expect a 50/50 split on those reps? We've got it mapped out through the first scrimmage to be as close to 50/50 as you can get it.

But, when you got, I'll say, 50 opportunities, when you have play periods and that kind of thing, which kind of goes back to what was one of the decision-making factors, who gets their group into the end zone? It's not going to be as much about stats as it is about who consistently leads their team.

So, they're going to create their own plays, when it's put the ball down, so you can get first down and go score.

What makes Beau Pribula and Sam Horn unique? I think the thing that makes this one the most unique, that actually reminds me more of the first year when it was a battle between Shawn Robinson and Connor Bazelak, because we didn't have much tape on anybody, and so were kind of going into it without knowing how they were going to respond.

And that's kind of similar here, when it was Sam versus Brady [Cook], and I think going into 23, you kind of had some extra known expectations of how Brady was going to play the game, so on, so forth.

And so, Sam had to really go in there and beat him out in order to get that job.

Just wasn't able to get over the hump.

This will be uniquely different.

I think each one of them's got their own strengths as a player.

I think the easiest thing about it is they do have some similarities, too, that make the offense kind of designed both in their ways.

Now, there's going to be plays that Sam and Beau are a little bit more comfortable with individually, but they do have the ability to extend plays with their feet, run the football, which I think is going to be important.

How would do you evaluate the dropoff in the deep passing game last year, how do you improve this year? Last year's last year.

There are a lot of different reasons for whatever to curve, this is this year.

This is a uniquely different team, and we'll build the offense around what is best for us to score points.

We went in there and hammered out, what are some things that we need to do differently to put our players on display and play our strengths and get the ball a little bit more down the field, specifically with some tight end stuff.

But I don't necessarily know that fixing last year's issues are going to play into this year, because the quarterbacks are quite different.

How have you liked the camaraderie between Beau and Sam, as they handle this competition? I think those guys have done a really good job of deferring to each other.

There hasn't been anybody that's tried to necessarily establish, well, I'm always going to go first, or I'm going to talk to the team.

It doesn't look like they're trying to one-up each other, which I think is going to be important, but they're in a competition.

So we'll see how that all plays out.

One thing I do want to say is, Sam and Beau really separated themselves in the fall or in the spring, in the summer.

I think those two guys will get the lions share with the ones, but I don't necessarily think Matt [Zollers] is out of it just yet.

He's going to have to really come in and come on in ball camp.

But that's not been unheard of.

What can you tell us about what you've seen with those individuals at left tackle? That probably is the bigger competition that we've got to get settled because you got your five people operating on the same page.

The good news is, Connor [Tollison] is going to be playing next to Cayden, so there's some camaraderie there, so now the left tackles not necessarily on an island.

Obviously Jay.

Jay is coming back.

He only played 67 at Junior College, so there are some things to be desired there.

Johnny Williams will start from that competition over there at left tackle.

Whit Hafer this summer, he'll be that third one right there on the right side.

You got Keegan Trost.

You got Jack Lange I think Solis has got an opportunity to really break out.

I don't know if he'll quite get there, but we'll start with those guys in that front set right there.

Jaylen Early, we're going to start actually getting in the guard position, just getting him comfortable because he's got about 300 snaps in his career.

I don't want to make him too uncomfortable early, since he's just new to the situation.

We'll just see how he is.

He's competing for the job, sliding down.

How excited are you to get on the field and see these guys? I'm really excited about a lot of things.

I mean, we already went over and moved into the dorm, and I think that's kind of exciting.

We've been working.

That's the college football we got, OTAs in June.

So I mean, it was four months ago, less than 30 days ago, that we were all out there together getting practice in, so I'm really more excited now that we're this many days away from a game.

Now we have a real focus to our work, what is your message, though, when you talk about moving out of the off season and a lot of big picture discussions, but the message to the guys about focus during camp and how that mindset needs to shift, maybe, yeah, you got to define what is going to be.

What are you trying to accomplish in camp? Number one, we want it to be hard.

We want to test these guys, both mentally and physically, so that they have the understanding when they face something hard they can overcome, that we don't want the first hard thing that they face to be being down seven or 14 or down at halftime or a minute drive.

So, we're going to put them in some adverse situations, starting living in the dorm, a few sudden change moments throughout ball camp so that they can kind of face adverse teams and create a mock road game.

The second one is to establish roles on the team.

Obviously, that's competition.

You gotta establish quarterback, cornerback, defensive end, defensive tackle.

You gotta have an organization that have you rotating so there's going to be healthy competition every day on what those roles are.

And then the third one is to establish that belief in Unity over self.

, there's a lot of really good football teams out there, but we want to be the best team that we can be in order to be the best team that we can be.

It's not about individual talent.

It's about individuals coming together and believing in the power so that's really how we'll evaluate if camp was successful or not.

On the role of the tight ends this year: Well, what I like about those guys is the size of that room has dramatically changed since we first got here to now.

Obviously, Brett and Jordon played a big role, as those guys started as true freshmen and kind of established their goals, and now they're the vets.

But that's a position that in this league isn't premium.

You got to have long guys who can really handle playing on the edge and provide support there when you're going against elite pass rushers.

As far as in the pass game, we would love to see those guys be more involved, especially down the field, but sometimes coverage dictates that too.

So we gotta create match ups.

Those guys gotta be consistent, catch the football, consistent, round runners, and we'll see how that kind of comes along.

Whats the benefit of having both coordinators return for the first time since 2022? Well, I think there's a, I wouldn't say, comfortable, but there's a consistency.

They kind of know what to expect.

I know what to expect out of them.

I know how to challenge them.

They know how to challenge me.

They know things that I'm willing to bend, things that are unmovable.

There are going to be non-negotiables.

And what the expectation is, it's just another year of experience with our players and scheme, which I think when you're Brett Norfleet and you're hearing this for the third time in the fall camp with the offense, I think there's reasonable expectation that you're growing in different ways and can take your game to another level.

That's the same thing when you're talking about Marquis Johnson or Josh Manning or Jamal Roberts, these guys have heard Kirby now, his message for three years.

Reflection on Luther Burden IIIs impact on the program, starting career with Chicago Bears: It was a little bit different driving into the southeast end zone facility knowing that Luthers not here.

Or that, I wasn't trying to recruit him the night before, because his senior year (of high school), we had a recruiting night the night before we checked into fall camp, and he was on campus and over at our house.

So, can't thank him enough for choosing Mizzou and making Mizzou cool again and making it okay.

And I don't think Kevin Coleman comes back home if Luther Burden hadn't been here and accomplished what he needed.

Accomplished what he had.

I don't know that Cayden Green comes back home, if he hasn't accomplished what he had.

So a lot of appreciation for him.

And then, I would just remind him that the best ability is availability.

So get to the training room and make sure he's taken care of you.

Take care of yourself so you can get ready to practice.

, I put my butt on the line recommending him to coach.

On the teams steps to add in a mock road game this season, practicing at Lindenwood: Well, every year is a little bit unique.

This year we don't start school we have four straight weeks at fall camp.

So how do you keep it fresh? How do you keep it relevant, but accomplish the things you need to.

And then,when you're self scouting the things as a head coach, we got to do better.

Obviously, the first two road games last year were putrid for us.

And so how do we make sure our guys are ready to play fast and get ready to go? And so when you have 30 something new players on your team, and when they're doing something they've never done before, there's a reasonable expectation for them to be slow at doing it, instead of understanding exactly how.

So as long as it's within the rules, let's try to recreate it as best we can.

And appreciate Lindenwood doing that.

Appreciate our administration finding ways to support us.

On the off-ball linebacker room: That is as deep a position as I think we can have.

I think Khalil Jacobs, who was starting before he got injured, has really dedicated himself to this game and to our team, and I've been really impressed with his leadership, his commitment.

And so you have somebody like that, who's really taking that next step, who's played a ton of football.

You got Tristan (Newson), who's coming back, who, you think about the biggest games that we've won in the last few years, he's been on the field making plays.

Whether you're talking about Ohio State, you're talking about Oklahoma last year, you're talking about Iowa and the (Music City) bowl game, like the guy's just been a consistent player for us.

You got Josiah Trotter coming in, and has been an All-American.

And then yeah, Nick Rodriguez and J(eremiah) B(easley), both really had big springs and made that next jump.

So the opportunity for those guys is one for us to not see it as instead of looking at it as a limiting factor, looking at what's best for our team.

These guys got to know that they can go play as hard as they possibly can for as long as they possibly can, knowing that when they come out, the next guy coming in is just as good as they are.

So now, instead of just, hey, when I'm out there, if I'm 80% man, come off the field, because that your brother got your back, and he's gonna be 100% he's gonna be a really good player.

And then the second thing is, it's gotta help our special teams.

We were not where we wanted to be last year in special teams, and that's an area that we have to improve, and that means getting better players on the field.

That means getting our most consistent players on the field.

And so instead of looking at it from like, oh, well, special teams, if you're playing 30 reps, we get 60 reps in a game, and we're divided 30, 30, go get another 15 on special teams to make an impact in that way that that will have a dramatic effect on us.

Whats the excitement level to actually practice instead of offseason conversations about the NCAA v.

House Settlement, etc.

I think one of the things that I hope I do a good job of is shielding our staff from a lot of the unnecessary things.

They don't they don't negotiate with agents.

They don't know what players' contracts are.

They don't have anything to do with that stuff.

That's a business side of it that I traditionally handle, but it's to make sure that the competition is the competition, and that there's no outside influence on plays and why people get reps and all that stuff.

We're still a meritocracy.

I think the most exciting thing about my job is the two and a half hours that we're on the practice field now we're meeting because that's still pure.

That's still what you love to do, what I love to do, and I love putting together the team.

And so for me, it's really freeing for the month of August to just go out there and see how good you can get these guys.

I asked all our coaches, one sentence, just one sentence about each player.

What you want to see in the first seven days.

Coaches love to coach good players.

Great coaches coach them all.

We want to coach them all.

We want to coach every one of those guys in that room and see how much better we can get them." Besides Jack Lange and Matt Zollers, what other freshmen have stood out? Well, I haven't been able to really evaluate some of those guys' skills, and I think it'll be tough for them to get evaluated early.

We'll do some three-spot stuff, just to get reps for those guys and get it on tape.

The guys I'm really excited about are the guys that practiced in spring.

I ran into Matt and Donovan a little bit at breakfast this morning, and man, you can just tell there's a different confidence in them knowing what to expect at practice.

And I think anytime those guys know what to expect, there's not going to be a drill that they haven't performed or participated in, we can see that jump.

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