After landing initial wave of Mizzou recruits, Eliah Drinkwitz turns to future
In the hours after Eliah Drinkwitz was introduced as Missouri Tigers football coach, he immediately focused on recruiting: Drinkwitz and his recruiting department spent hours evaluating players.
By 7 a.m. the next day, he was on the recruiting trail. He visited running back Elijah Young in Knoxville, Tennessee, made the trip to see St. Louis recruits and spoke at the Missouri Football Coaches Association convention at Lake Ozark.
The effort culminated in Mizzou’s 2020 recruiting class, which added 10 signed players Wednesday, the first day of the early signing period. All 10 future Mizzou players originally pledged to former coach Barry Odom’s staff. A final recruit, Kevon Billingsley, was committed to Mizzou but had not signed as of 4:15 p.m. Wednesday.
With just eight days to recruit, Drinkwitz said it’s “nearly impossible” to add other players unless there was a previous connection. Which is why he focused on the recruits already committed to Mizzou and those who knew what the program was about. That way Drinkwitz and his staff could take their time once the initial wave slowed.
“Anything we were unsure about, let’s not rush and take the wrong person or the wrong fit,” Drinkwitz said to a small group of reporters Wednesday. “Let’s just be patient. Then when the full staff is here, we’ll finalize that.”
Drinkwitz pointed to the next big recruiting day: Feb. 5, or National Signing Day. He said the next step is to reach out to a new batch of recruits for new relationships.
“What’s gotta show is follow through,” Drinkwitz said. “Our staff spent the better part of our morning evaluating kids from the state and making sure we’re setting them up to come and that we can recruit them.”
The Tigers plan to have two early enrollees: wide receiver Jay Maclin and quarterback Brady Cook. Drinkwitz said they’re in the process of finalizing the details, though “nothing’s for sure until their finals.”
There’s also no clear outline for Mizzou’s position needs — Drinkwitz said he won’t know for sure until after spring football practices. But he added wide receiver and offensive line depth is thin, along with unproven guys at safety.
Drinkwitz also aggressively stated he wanted to recruit Missouri, from Kansas City to St. Louis and everything in between. As part of that philosophy, Drinkwitz plans to recruit regionally instead of by position, which was how Odom operated.
That has to do with the “relationship-driven” nature of recruiting, Drinkwitz said. As a position recruiter, he added how coaches aren’t “seeing the same faces all the time because the same schools aren’t always producing the same player.”
“When somebody just shows up for one guy and then leaves,” Drinkwitz said, “that turns into a transactional process instead of relationship-oriented.”
As for how Drinkwitz plans to deal with the loss of four scholarships after the NCAA denied Mizzou’s infractions appeal, he said they reached out to the NCAA for clarification. They presented the governing body with their plan for the recruiting restrictions; the next step is to hear back from the NCAA for confirmation.
“Next year we can only have 81 on scholarship, so we need to be buttoned up to the top,” Drinkwitz said. “We might save some for potential graduate transfer or potential portal people, but we ain’t going to sit on any.”
Drinkwitz ended his day with a few wins, including with JJ Hester and Young. Both re-opened their recruitment and explored other options, but the highly rated offensive players signed with Mizzou. Drinkwitz lost a running back to Arkansas in Dominique Johnson, but otherwise, it’s on to spring football and the next recruiting cycle.
“There really wasn’t any surprises one way or the other,” Drinkwitz said of Wednesday. “There weren’t any highs or lows. With it being eight days, really the next signing period for me is really going to be where we gotta hit the mark. (Wednesday) was kind of a free throw.”
Mizzou football signings
Player, Position, Height, Weight, Previous school (Hometown)
Jaylon Carlies, DB, 6-2, 193, West Orange (Winter Garden, Florida)
Brady Cook, QB, 6-3, 210, Chaminade (St. Louis)
Drake Heismeyer, OL, 6-3, 283, Francis Howell (St. Louis)
JJ Hester, WR, 6-3, 190, Booker T. Washington (Tulsa, Oklahoma)
Tyler Jones, DB, 5-10, 185, West Orange (Winter Garden, Florida)
Jay Maclin, WR, 5-11, 178, Kirkwood (St. Louis)
Harrison Mevis, K, 6-0, 220, Warsaw (Warsaw, Indiana)
Will Norris, LB, 6-1, 220, Rock Bridge (Columbia)
Mitchell Walters, OL, 6-8, 290, Mehlville (St. Louis)
Elijah Young, RB, 5-9, 175, South Doyle (Knoxville, Tennessee)
This story was originally published December 18, 2019 at 4:20 PM.