How Eliah Drinkwitz revamped his Missouri Tigers football coaching staff for 2022
Following the end of the 2021 season, Eliah Drinkwitz took some time to reflect on his first two years as head coach of the Missouri Tigers football program.
“I think there’s a lot of positives, but when I look back my job is not to pat myself on the back, it’s to look critically through a lens that says how do we improve?” Drinkwitz said. “And you specifically Eli, what are you going to do to make sure that this team is moving forward in the right direction?”
Drinkwitz realized that taking on duties as quarterbacks coach in addition to being head coach and offensive coordinator was taking away from his ability to lead the team, which finished 6-7 after losing a bowl game to Army.
“On the offensive side of the ball, I felt like our quarterback play was pretty good early, but our team was not functioning as a unit very well,” Drinkwitz said. “So I stepped away from the quarterbacks and spent more time on the team, and then our quarterback play fell off late in the year.”
When tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator Casey Woods left to take an offensive coordinator job at SMU in December, Drinkwitz saw it as an opportunity to restructure.
The Tigers’ coaching staff looks a lot different ahead of the 2022 season.
Along with Woods, secondary coach Aaron Fletcher departed for Arizona State and defensive backs coach Charlie Harbison stepped down from position coach duties (though he’s staying on staff). Drinkwitz made three new hires and also changed roles for those who stayed on board.
“At the end of the day, this was an opportunity for us to improve our staff,” Drinkwitz said, “not only as coaches, recruiters, but in scheme. And I feel like we’ve done that.”
Missouri football coaching staff for 2022
Head coach: Eliah Drinkwitz
Assistant head coach/run game coordinator/offensive line: Marcus Johnson
Quarterbacks: Bush Hamdan
Wide receivers: Jake Peeler
Running backs: Curtis Luper
Defensive coordinator: Steve Wilks
Defensive line (interior): Al Davis
Defensive line (edge): Kevin Peoples
Linebackers: D.J. Smith
Safeties: Blake Baker
Special teams/tight ends: Erik Link
Bush Hamdan in charge of QBs
Drinkwitz will remain offensive coordinator and call plays, but he has relegated the quarterbacks position to Bush Hamdan, who previously coached wide receivers while also working in the quarterbacks room.
Hamdan served as some combination of quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator at several previous stops, including at Arkansas State (2013), Davidson (2014) and Washington (2018-19) at the collegiate level, and with the Atlanta Falcons in 2017.
While at Washington, Hamdan helped develop Jake Browning and Jacob Eason, who are both now backup quarterbacks in the NFL.
“Coach Hamdan is a tremendous quarterbacks coach, probably a more natural quarterbacks coach than he is a wide receivers coach,” Drinkwitz said. “Just felt like I can move him into that position, a guy who’s been around me, knows what I’m thinking, will communicate with those guys, but be able to spend more time with them and really give them the time that they need.”
Though it’s now clear who will be coaching the unit, a lot of questions remain about the quarterback position for Mizzou.
Connor Bazelak transferred to Indiana after backup Brady Cook got the start over him in the Armed Forces Bowl. Drinkwitz said he and his staff didn’t find the right quarterback fit in the portal, so Missouri is set to have a competition among Cook, Tyler Macon and incoming freshman Sam Horn for the starting role this offseason.
Horn, a top-10 quarterback in the 2022 class, won’t join the team until the summer so that he can finish his high school baseball career. Drinkwitz said Horn has a copy of the playbook and has already been working to familiarize himself with the system.
“It’ll be a little bit tougher without (Horn) being here until the summer, but it is going to be a fun competition,” Drinkwitz said. “All of these guys are ultra talented, ultra competitive, but they’re ultra team first guys. And so it’s going to be a lot of fun and look forward to seeing who really takes the reins of this thing.”
Jacob Peeler joins staff as WRs coach
Moving Hamdan to quarterbacks meant there was an opening for wide receivers coach. Drinkwitz had never worked with Jacob Peeler before, but he was recommended for the role.
“The more I interviewed him and the more I dug into (him), really felt like he could be a great fit for us,” Drinkwitz said.
Peeler has a strong reputation as a developer and recruiter. He served on staffs at California, Ole Miss and most recently as offensive coordinator at Texas State. Most notably, he coached NFL wide receivers D.K. Metcalf and A.J. Brown at Ole Miss.
“We’re really excited to bring Jake on staff,” Drinkwitz said. “Feel like he’s going to be able to create some new ideas and challenge us in the throw game to continue to improve.”
Peeler will oversee a wide receivers room that adds five-star Luther Burden, the second-highest ranked recruit in program history.
“All those guys in that room have an opportunity to improve,” Drinkwitz said. “It gives those guys an opportunity to really shine and figure out who they are. I think the thing I’m really excited about is Jacob’s mentality and how he goes about coaching that position.”
Eric Link, D.J. Smith take on additional roles
Woods’ departure gave Drinkwitz a chance to expand coaching duties for Eric Link and D.J. Smith.
Link will be in charge of the tight ends position in addition to serving as special teams coordinator.
“Eric Link is one of our best teachers and coaches,” Drinkwitz said. “(He) does a tremendous job, had coached tight ends before, wanted to get more value, get him into more people on our team.”
Drinkwitz said Link’s duties with special teams won’t change, even with the additional position title. Link has always led the meetings and been in charge of schemes for the special teams units, but everyone who isn’t a coordinator on the coaching staff has been involved in that aspect of the team. Smith will continue leading the field goal blocking unit, Marcus Johnson will continue leading the field goal unit, Curtis Luper will stay with the returners and the new coaches on staff will take on duties in other aspects too.
Smith had stood out as Missouri’s best recruiter, Drinkwitz said, so it made sense to peg him as recruiting coordinator in addition to his role as linebackers coach.
“It was an opportunity for us to promote D.J .Smith to our recruiting coordinator position and give him ownership in that,” Drinkwitz said. “He’s really done a really nice job of taking ownership and continuing to set the direction for us in recruiting.”
The Tigers signed their best class in program history in 2022 and hope to expand on that moving forward.
More changes on the defense
In previous years under Drinkwitz, Missouri had three secondary coaches and only one defensive line coach. But reflecting this offseason, the head coach said he realized that “didn’t make a whole lot of sense.”
Al Davis, who took over coaching the defensive line when Jethro Franklin was fired in October, came to Drinkwitz and inquired about adding Kevin Peoples, who was on Indiana’s staff at the time. They will now split duties, with Davis in charge of the interior and Peoples in charge of the edge.
“I had a ton of respect for Kevin, actually tried to hire him when I went to Appalachian State the first time,” Drinkwitz said. “So when I got a chance to just interview him and get him on the phone with Steve Wilks) and interview, really felt like it would make a lot of sense for us to put two coaches in the defensive line.”
Drinkwitz also added Blake Baker, who he’d previously worked with at Arkansas State and Boise State, as safeties coach.
Baker was linebackers coach for LSU last season. He previously held roles as defensive coordinator at Miami and Louisiana Tech. Drinkwitz sees him immediately stepping in as a key leader on the defense behind Wilks.
“(Baker’s) seen a lot of different things, been in this SEC, been in the ACC,” Drinkwitz said. “(He) can be a sounding board for Steve and continue to help us improve, and be somebody who can really be a number two in that room to help Steve as we must make improvements on the defensive side of the ball.”
How will Drinkwitz’s role change in 2022?
Now that he’s no longer coaching the quarterbacks, Drinkwitz will be able to focus on other areas of the program next season. So how will he be using his extra time?
“It goes to everything,” Drinkwitz said.
On Tuesday, the head coach sat in the defensive line meeting and took notes. He intends to be involved in more position meetings across the board and also plans to be more hands on in developing relationships with players on the team.
“Everybody can identify problems, the question is how are you gonna fix them?” Drinkwitz said. “After two years, I felt like you know what, maybe we just didn’t have the right process with me being sitting in that (quarterback) room all the time and not sitting in some other rooms and not being around the other guys, not spending enough time with those guys.”
Drinkwitz said he will also have more time to focus on recruiting, both in terms of incoming players and boosters and donors.
