Eli Drinkwitz bemoans dissolution of SEC divisions, suggests potential issues arising

The 2023 season is the final one for divisional play in the SEC as Texas and Oklahoma join the league come next fall and a division-less format will be installed. But it’s not a universally popular decision, as Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz made clear on Wednesday.

Discussing the end of divisional play on the SEC coaches teleconference, Drinkwitz shared a number of issues he has with the changes. One lies mainly on the field, the other off.

His main on-the-field concern is how the rotating schedule makeups will change how one goes about building and coaching their program in a consistent way.

“I personally prefer the East and West setup. I think it gives you continuity on who you’re playing and a competitive continuity so you know who you have to measure up against and kind of build your rosters to compete with certain teams. I think the fluidity of playing through the entire conference is going to be kind of difficult. But that’s the new norm of college football,” Drinkwitz said.

Drinkwitz also has a concern that without divisions, tiebreakers to chose which two teams make the conference championship game can get convoluted — and quickly.

“It’ll be interesting to see — we’re starting to see, in a couple of these other conferences that the uncertainty of non-divisions and tiebreakers may take it out of what happened on the field and more into other things, which I don’t think is what college football fans really want. But again, that’s hypothetical and we’ll find out in the future,” Drinkwitz said.

Drinkwitz discussed a fun recruiting trip on the teleconference

One night can change an entire college football program. Just ask Drinkwitz, who within the space of a few hours, took steps toward landing both Cody Schrader and Luther Burden ahead of the 2022 season. Two different conversations ultimately led the offensive stars to join forces in Columbia.

Drinkwitz had been recruiting Burden for a long time. After all, the wide receiver was a Five-Star Plus+ product out of Saint Louis. Alabama and Georgia were fighting for his services as well, hoping to insert a dynamic player into their respective offenses.

Schrader is a bit of a different story. Drinkwitz took the running back sight unseen off the back of a suggestion from a Mizzou donor. Originally just looking for some money to improve the indoor facility, Drinkwitz wound up with the SEC’s leading rusher.

“Probably the best recruiting night of my career,” Drinkwitz said. “I went to dinner with a donor to try to get a donation for our indoor. He recommended Cody Schrader, who was transferring from Truman State, to me as a walk-on. I said ‘Sure, I’ll look at it.’ Then, I left dinner and went to an in-home visit with Luther Burden and his family. It turned out both of them had a huge impact on Mizzou Football.

“The next day, Mr. (Steve) Trulaske followed up with me on ‘Would we have an opportunity for Cody?’ I said ‘Sure.’ I had not even watched the tape yet. Was just thinking he would come and be one of our eight walk-on running backs. We have three spots for walk-ons and knew we needed one. Took him. Showed up in January, worked his butt off, and was the starter by the first game of last season.”