Kirby Moore hopes to reenergize Missouri football's offense as coordinator

After Missouri football lost the Gasparilla Bowl to Wake Forest on Dec. 23, head coach Eli Drinkwitz took a step back. After evaluation, he concluded that the 2022 Tiger defense under coordinator Blake Baker had taken a huge step forward and had been a major strength of the team.

The offense was a different story. MU needed a change.

On Saturday, Drinkwitz introduced that change. Kirby Moore, formerly of Fresno State was introduced to media as Missouri’s new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

"I was adamant that I wasn’t going to do it unless I found somebody who could do it better than me,” Drinkwitz said. “And I know Kirby, I know how hard he’s gonna work. I’ve seen what he was able to do.”

For Drinkwitz, the decision to add an offensive coordinator wasn’t difficult. He needed to focus on other things, like recruiting and raising money for NIL.

In the back half of last season, he had handed off the playcalling lead to Bush Hamdan and things improved. Then, in the bowl, with Hamdan off to a new job at Boise State, Drinkwitz took back over, and things looked stagnant again.

Leading the offense was one of Drinkwitz’s favorite things. Still, the time was right for a change.

"I’m gonna miss that part of it, absolutely,” Drinkwitz said. “But at the same time, I ask our guys all the time to embrace your role and put the team first and at the end of the day, that’s what I needed to do as the head coach.”

With Moore’s hire, Drinkwitz tried in part to replicate the success of Baker’s defense. With that hire, Baker took some of the team’s existing concepts, then adapted to create something familiar to the personnel, but with his own distinctive mark on it.

According to Moore, his approach will be similar.

"I think offensive football, first it’s got to fit our personnel,” Moore said. “So that’s one thing I've got to dive into, and our offensive staff and coach Drink, and we got to figure out what our guys do well and then do that over and over and over.”

Moore spent last season as offensive coordinator at Fresno State. He and the Bulldogs started the season 1-4 before going on a nine-game winning streak to win the Mountain West Championship Game and beat Washington State in the LA Bowl.

Fresno State led the conference in points scored (30.6 point per game) and total offense (402.6 yards per game) under Moore. It finished seventh in the Football Bowl Subdivision in completion percentage (.710).

Moore said he had watched Drinkwitz’s offenses in the past and their philosophies are similar.

“For me, there’s a lot of various rhythms and I probably use the word tempo a bit more so that’s something that’s going to be a big part of our offense,” Moore said. “We still want to attack on a consistent basis. In terms of my mindset as an offensive coordinator, it’s ‘They have to defend us.’ I think that’s really important and then at the end of the day it comes back to execution.”

Moore, a former wideout at Boise State, served as Fresno State’s receivers coach since 2017. Before that he worked at Washington and at College of Idaho.

For Missouri, the move to hire Moore comes at a crucial time. Drinkwitz is entering his fourth season, and if he’s going to move the program past the near .500 football it has been playing for years, it’s time for him to show proof of concept.

Moore praised the team’s wide receivers group and said he liked how quarterback Brady Cook played as the 2022 season progressed. He also said any pressure he felt was unrelated to Drinkwitz’s crucial year.

“I think there’s pressure anywhere you go in terms of football and winning,” Moore said. “I’m just really excited for the opportunity to be here and compete against some of the best teams across college football.”

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Missouri football: Kirby Moore introduced as offensive coordinator