COLUMBIA, Mo. 鈥 Eli Drinkwitz could be a writer.
At face value, this is a silly thought to have. Drinkwitz is the head coach of a Southeastern Conference football team, after all, which doesn鈥檛 seem like the kind of job that is conducive to having a lot of time for writing. Are there any $9 million a year writing jobs out there, anyway?
But at times, there鈥檚 a narrative, almost literary quality to Missouri鈥檚 coach, whose fifth season with the program begins at 7 p.m. Thursday with the 2024 opener against Murray State.
There鈥檚 something thematic about Drinkwitz鈥檚 team. His most memorable moments since taking the gig in 2020 haven鈥檛 been play calls 鈥 they鈥檝e been words.
Like the ones he said live on national television after the Tigers鈥 signature Cotton Bowl win last season: 鈥淚 think tonight was a testament to a wilderness brotherhood.鈥
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Sit with that line for a moment. There鈥檚 a rhythm to those words. Subtle consonance, a gentle meter. And, more broadly, it was what those of us in the writing business call parallel structure: when a narrative element appears at both the beginning and the ending of the story.
In the immediate run-up to the Cotton Bowl, Mizzou held a team chapel session. It was voluntary, as those things are, but nonetheless well attended. Almost every player was there.
The chaplain who presided over chapel that night brought up those words: wilderness brotherhood.
The six syllables struck Drinkwitz and stuck with him. He thought about them the night before the game. And during pregame warm-ups, too.
The stadium felt different during the hour leading up to kickoff against Ohio State from any point in the week before, when Mizzou had practiced in the nearly vacant stadium for familiarity鈥檚 sake. The jumbotron of all jumbotrons overhead seemed more imposing.
A miniaturized indoor blimp flew lazy circles around the perimeter of the stands. There were football celebrities from Urban Meyer to Pat McAfee to Chase Daniel on the sidelines. The chatter and cheers of fans who鈥檇 traveled to Arlington, Texas, from Columbia and Columbus sounded different, too.
鈥淚t just hit me,鈥 Drinkwitz told the Post-Dispatch.
What hit him were words, the ones he delivered to his team in the locker room before the Cotton Bowl.
With his white long-sleeve shirt rolled up to his forearms and pacing purposefully along a locker room wall, Drinkwitz called players into one segment of the locker room. He took off his white visor and held it by its brim.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a hell of a stage out there,鈥 he said. 鈥淲ant you to look at the person next to you and tell them, 鈥榊ou earned it.鈥欌
Those words rebounded back at him from his players.
鈥淵ou earned it through a lot of hard work,鈥 Drinkwitz continued. 鈥淵ou earned it through up-downs. You earned it in the wilderness. You earned it when your brother was late and you had to fight for the brotherhood. You earned it on the bleachers. You earned the opportunity to be here today, to show the world who we were. They call them 鈥榖lue bloods鈥 ...鈥
Here, he paused for a breath, his voice on the verge of breaking.
鈥淏ecause they鈥檝e been given everything their entire lives. They ain鈥檛 us. We鈥檙e wilderness forged. Forged in the toughness. Their time鈥檚 over. It鈥檚 our time. It鈥檚 your time. It鈥檚 showtime. You show the world who we really are.鈥
鈥楾urn everything upside down鈥
One year and 110 days earlier, showing the world who the Tigers really were hadn鈥檛 been a pleasant experience.
Missouri walked away from a 40-12 drubbing at Kansas State on Sept. 10, 2022, forlorn and at least a little bit surprised.
鈥淭here was almost an arrogance to our team,鈥 Drinkwitz said. 鈥淲e thought we were better than we were. And then when it came to being in a dogfight, we didn鈥檛 really end up fighting back the way we needed to. And I think that kind of shook us.鈥
Mizzou鈥檚 lone touchdown came on the last play of the game, once the result had long since been settled and K-State fans were booing the visitors鈥 insistence on scoring some consolation points. Shiny new freshman wideout Luther Burden III barely had any chances to catch the ball. Quarterback Brady Cook was hurt, benched and reinstated over the course of that game.
鈥淎fter that K-State game,鈥 Cook said, 鈥淚 was not in a good spot 鈥 physically, mentally, with the team.鈥
Drinkwitz, at that time still the offensive play-caller, was insistent of two things after depressive rain delays and defeat:
鈥淚鈥檓 responsible for this team. Everything that happens to this football team is my fault.鈥
And:
鈥淏rady鈥檚 our quarterback.鈥
After an austere bowl game loss to Wake Forest capped off the 2022 season, Drinkwitz wrote in his journal that some of those things needed to change.
鈥淲e got to turn everything upside down,鈥 he wrote.
That meant hiring offensive coordinator Kirby Moore, a concrete way of relinquishing responsibility for offensive play calls, and declaring Cook鈥檚 job up for grabs. To coaches on the Missouri staff, it was Drinkwitz acknowledging the demands and limitations of his job.
鈥淯sually everybody becomes a head coach because of success they鈥檝e had in another position, right?鈥 special teams coordinator Erik Link said. 鈥淲hether it鈥檚 as a coordinator, as a position coach, whatever the case may be. You鈥檙e bringing that expertise to the table as a head football coach, but there鈥檚 so many different hats you have to wear.鈥
To Mizzou players, it was their coach holding himself to one of the expectations he had for them: embracing their role on the team, whatever that looked like.
鈥淐oach Drink, he got a lot more consistent with the standard,鈥 wide receiver Mookie Cooper said.
And it was something that changed Drinkwitz鈥檚 persona.
鈥淚鈥檝e just seen him, I guess, get more comfortable,鈥 Burden said. 鈥淚 feel like when I first got here, he was kind of tense. Because he鈥檚 not the offensive coordinator, he鈥檚 more comfortable in just being the head coach. He ain鈥檛 got all the pressure on 鈥榊ou got to make the right call, then you got to worry about the defense.鈥 He could just be a head coach.鈥
鈥楾urned the table on our relationship鈥
After the famous Sept. 16, 2023, 61-yard walk-off field goal victory that exorcised Missouri鈥檚 K-State demons and set in motion a special campaign, Drinkwitz switched up his rhetoric.
As a sort of precedent for how he would approach his pregame speech at the Cotton Bowl, he鈥檇 been chewing on an idea for some time before feeling compelled to put it into words.
He鈥檇 noticed what was, to him, a sickening side effect of the quarterback competition he鈥檇 felt was so necessary to find success. Cook, after retaining his starting job, had been booed by MU fans.
鈥淭hat pissed me off,鈥 Drinkwitz said just minutes after the field goal and field storming. 鈥淗e went out and played his butt off for that team. They need to get behind him. That鈥檚 bullcrap. That should never happen.鈥
Choosing a scathing tone and such illustrative words was an almost instinctual decision for Drinkwitz.
鈥淟ook, you won the game so you might as well make sure that people know,鈥 he thought. 鈥淚 was never going to have more credibility at that point with the team and with the fan base than after that win, so I figured I鈥檇 use it. I was hopeful that the fans and the students would respond.鈥
He executed the transition from compelled to compelling. That upset of a ranked K-State squad was pivotal for last year鈥檚 Missouri team, perhaps for no player more than Cook, the subject of the boos and forceful backing. Drinkwitz鈥檚 words may have mattered to him more than the win did.
鈥淭he respect I gained for him right then and there, immediately I was like, 鈥榳ow, this coach has my back,鈥欌 Cook said. 鈥淚 think that turned the table on our relationship. From there, we were in it together. We were gonna go do something special last year. I knew he had my back, right?鈥
鈥楿nbelievable to witness鈥
This is a story about culture building and the role that Drinkwitz has played in crafting the atmosphere within the Missouri football program.
Credit for that kind of thing tends to flow back and forth between coaches and players like sand in an hourglass, with each group eager to attest that the other is foundational in constructing the right kind of locker room. Who鈥檚 to say they鈥檙e wrong? Both have roles to play.
But Drinkwitz鈥檚 seems outsized 鈥 or at a minimum, notable.
鈥淚t starts with him,鈥 wide receivers coach Jacob Peeler said.
鈥淐oach Drink, from Day 1, has preached culture,鈥 cornerbacks coach Al Pogue said.
It鈥檚 worth noting that Drinkwitz鈥檚 efforts in this realm do date back to the start of his tenure. While handing over the playsheet was part of MU鈥檚 transformation from middling to contending, leaning more into culture-building wasn鈥檛 necessarily a factor.
鈥淭hat would probably be saying that I didn鈥檛 do that before, and that was clearly something that we did,鈥 Drinkwitz said, before a joke: 鈥淥bviously, I wasn鈥檛 spending enough time play designing.鈥
Few players can provide proof of concept for Drinkwitz鈥檚 cultural command like Cook. One of a handful of players to have stuck around since the head coach鈥檚 first season at Mizzou, he鈥檚 gone through his own rollercoaster of faith with Drinkwitz that was exemplified so clearly by those two games against Kansas State.
鈥淲e came in together in 2020 to a completely mixed-up locker room with people that committed to a different coach, people that played for a different coach and all that,鈥 Cook said. 鈥淪omehow, him being able to bring in the building coaches or players that complement us, fit the culture, shaping this into his team and shaping this into a winning culture, it鈥檚 been unbelievable to witness all of it.鈥
鈥楾he truth of a clich茅鈥
Something to prove.
It鈥檚 both intentional and somewhat miraculous that it鈥檚 taken until this point to get to those three words because they鈥檙e everywhere around Mizzou football: on the massive TV screen just inside the team facility doors, splashed onto the end of team videos, inserted into too many press conference questions, embedded in the psyche of players and coaches alike.
There simultaneously seems to be nothing to it and everything to it. After all, how many times can one phrase be said before it becomes a clich茅? If there is such a threshold, surely Missouri has crossed it by now.
Maybe that鈥檚 the wrong way to think about it.
鈥淲hen you sense the truth of a clich茅, you can say you鈥檝e learned something,鈥 the great French writer Emmanuel Carr猫re once said. And you can鈥檛 say that Mizzou having something to prove isn鈥檛 true.
鈥淲hen you look back and look at the players on our team last year 鈥 and the coaching staff 鈥 we all had a common theme of having to prove who we were and having some serious disappointments in our careers or life,鈥 Drinkwitz said.
And that鈥檚 why it works as a motto, right? Because it鈥檚 true?
鈥淵eah. That鈥檚 the bottom line,鈥 Drinkwitz said. 鈥淲e all feel two different things about it. We all feel like there鈥檚 a lot left to prove because we鈥檝e been discounted. But there鈥檚 also a lot to prove to the people who believe in us, who鈥檝e given us an opportunity. There鈥檚 a lot of motivation in both sides of that.鈥
It鈥檚 also why a chaplain painting the spiritual portrait of a wilderness brotherhood 鈥 and Drinkwitz drawing upon that in his pregame address 鈥 was so profoundly effective and affective at the Cotton Bowl.
鈥淚 feel like it resonated with what we were going through and how we have a chip on our shoulder at all times,鈥 defensive tackle Kristian Williams said.
鈥淚t resonated with our team just because our team鈥檚 been in the 鈥榳ilderness,鈥欌 Cook said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e been through adversity. We鈥檝e been at the bottom together.鈥
鈥淭hat pregame speech was the pregame speech of everything, combined, that whole season,鈥 defensive end Johnny Walker Jr. said. 鈥淚 felt like it was everything that we went through that year and all the adversity. That was a moment we were all waiting for.鈥
And a moment they remember dearly. Every Mizzou player asked about Drinkwitz鈥檚 pre-Cotton Bowl speech smiled when hearing the words 鈥渨ilderness brotherhood鈥 and thinking of their coach鈥檚 voice pressing against the limit of breaking within his emotional delivery.
That鈥檚 the narrative firepower of a wilderness brotherhood with something to prove, of Drinkwitz鈥檚 own messaging. He鈥檚 synthesized a locker room full of successes and failures, victories and disappointments and 鈥 risk of clich茅 be damned 鈥 found a truthful theme.
Which makes him a writer, right?
鈥淚 mean, I write stuff down,鈥 Drinkwitz said. 鈥淏ut no, I鈥檓 not a writer.鈥