Eli Drinkwitz jokes he's 'not as arrogant' when he is not calling plays

Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz will not be calling plays anymore for the Tigers offense. He has handed off the reigns to new offensive coordinator Kirby Moore.

The decision obviously changes the dynamic for Missouri heading into the season in many ways. One of them was unveiled Monday on Andy Staples’ new podcast on the On3 Network.

Drinkwitz was chatting with Staples on the show when he made a joking comment about how his new role not calling plays is impacting how he is discussing his team’s offense at SEC Media Days.

“When you’re not calling plays, you’re not as arrogant anymore,” Drinkwitz said. “That’s probably more of it. I’m not calling the plays anymore. We got a really good defense. I’m very excited about coach Baker obviously coming back. He did an outstanding job and we return all of our defensive staff. I think that’s something that’s very critical. You have alignment and so those guys are in Year 2 working together.”

While there are a lot of questions for the team to figure out on the offensive side of the football, the defensive side of the football is going to be the bell cow for the Tigers.

Blake Baker returns for his second season as Missouri’s defensive coordinator after a great start to his tenure in 2022. His defense this year returns most of its starters from last year.

The team did lose defensive end Isaiah McGuire to the pros — the All-SEC first team defender was drafted in the fourth round of the 2023 NFL Draft by the Cleveland Browns — but other than that have most of its defense returning in 2023. Those returners, along with the skill level they possess, gives Drinkwitz confidence heading into his fourth year at head of the program.

“We’ve got some really good players coming back,” Drinkwitz said. “We return our top five interior d-lineman. We return our top two linebackers, both have over (100 career tackles). Top two corners. Top two safety. We got to transfer safety from both Florida State and from Florida. And we got a guy who started half the games at the star position. Incredible depth, which I think more than anything is going to allow us to be much improved on special teams so we can really make sure our best players are playing in those coverage units too, which which caused a few issues for us last year.”