What Missouri football coach Eli Drinkwitz had to say about QBs, NIL and SEC scheduling

Eli Drinkwitz was feeling secure Thursday about his roster.

With players making their way to campus for OTAs, and Missouri reaching the end of its transfer portal activity, the Tigers are starting preparation in earnest for the 2022 season.

Drinkwitz announced the arrival of the Tigers' newcomers, also noting that defensive lineman Daniel Robledo suffered an “upper-body extremity” injury that will keep him out until the team's bye week, which falls in mid-October.

He said the injury was a factor in Missouri signing former Baylor defensive lineman Josh Landry from the portal.

"That created a real need right there,” Drinkwitz said.

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He also revealed that Ennis Rakestraw, Martez Manuel, Kris Abrams-Draine and Ky Montgomery have been cleared to return to drills and workouts after recovering from their injuries.

In addition to the injury news, Drinkwitz, who recently attended the SEC’s spring meetings in Destin, Florida, spoke at length about his team’s quarterback situation, possible schedule changes to the SEC, NIL and more.

Who's your quarterback?

Drinkwitz said the four contenders for the Missouri starting quarterback job are, as expected, Brady Cook and Tyler Macon along with newcomers Jack Abraham and Sam Horn. Horn, a four-star recruit from Georgia, arrived at OTAs this week.

Horn will have the opportunity to compete for the starting job, should he stay at Missouri. However, Drinkwitz acknowledged the two-sport athlete’s upcoming decision as to whether to remain a Tiger or go where he’s taken in July’s Major League Baseball draft.

"We believe he’s got a great, unbelievable future here as both a football player and a baseball player within the Mizzou football and baseball families, and that’s what we’re pushing him on,” Drinkwitz said.

Drinkwitz said he had no deadline for the quarterback to make a decision, but if Horn is at camp when it begins July 31, he would likely stay at MU. In the meantime, Drinkwitz brought in Abraham as a walk-on from the transfer portal, praising both Cook and Macon’s performance through the offseason, but noting the need for more battle-tested arms on the team.

"I could not stay status quo and only have two quarterbacks with experience on the roster, and so I needed to have somebody else,” Drinkwitz said. “That was something we had to have. ... I had to put ourselves in a position for our team to be successful with contingency plans.”

Drinkwitz said he would expect one of the four players to emerge as the starter “sooner rather than later.”

Meeting madness

Early in the week, Drinkwitz went to Destin with the rest of the SEC’s coaches and administrators for the annual spring meetings. Topics of discussion included changing the league’s scheduling model to eliminate divisions, NIL and the upcoming additions of Texas and Oklahoma to the conference.

The models reportedly discussed at the meeting included keeping an eight-game conference schedule and giving each team one permanent yearly opponent, while rotating through the rest of the league, or a nine-game schedule with three permanent opponents and six rotating games.

Drinkwitz expressed a desire for the league to preserve its classic matchups, noting the difficulty for Missouri of not having regular historic opponents and attempting to start a rivalry with Arkansas.

"If we do away with divisions and go into a rotating conference schedule, the consistency of rivalries are going to be important to the passion of the Southeastern Conference,” Drinkwitz said. “That would be my stance, I think it’s important to do that. You can read between the lines on which one it means I support.”

The NIL-lephant in the room

Name, image and likeness issues have been a top SEC headline of late, with Alabama coach Nick Saban and Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher feuding over it. For his part, Drinkwitz acknowledged the changing nature of the industry, and how chaotic it has felt for coaches.

"It seems like whatever comments you make are going to be construed in maybe some sort of fashion as you’re against NIL or for NIL or whatever,” Drinkwitz said. “I think that we’re all consistent in that we would prefer if there was a limit on third-party involvement and players making decisions based off boosters’ promises of compensation.”

The Business of College Sports Database lists two NIL collectives supporting Missouri athletes, and players have deals outside of the collectives as well. Drinkwitz said the team has been supportive, making attempts to teach players financial literacy and what to do about filing taxes on the money they earn.

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With largely unverified rumors of major deals across the conference, Drinkwitz said he wasn’t sure if MU was ahead or behind the NIL curve.

“I don’t know the transparency aspect, it’s like you're chasing ghosts,” Drinkwitz said. “Like you don’t really know what everyone else is going. And believe us, none of us were in there telling each other.”

Matt Stahl is the Missouri athletics beat reporter for the Columbia Daily Tribune. Follow him on Twitter @mattstahl97.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Eli Drinkwitz talks NIL, SEC scheduling, Mizzou quarterbacks