Mizzou Football Notebook: Drink is okay with not calling plays in future

After back-to-back .500 regular seasons and a 3-4 start this season, some people wanted to know if Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz would be willing to be a head coach and hire an offensive coordinator to call the plays. Drinkwitz said on Tuesday that it’s not something he is opposed to.

“I could see myself doing that if the timing was right with the right people in the right scenario and situation,” Drinkwitz said. “I mean there’s not enough ego there for me.”

This won’t be something that will happen during the course of the season, but it’s telling. Drinkwitz said that he believes the team has improved with its recruiting, strength and conditioning, nutrition, defense, fan attendance and facilities since he’s arrived, and believes that the offense 一 at least for now is his problem to correct.

“I think one of the things that I have accepted the challenge right now is that this is a situation that I’ve created and I need to fix it,” Drinkwitz said. “It’s not somebody else’s responsibility. I can’t walk out of that room right now because it’s not working. I got to dive in there with everybody and say, ‘Okay, what can we do? How can I help these guys?’ And so, whatever the future might hold as far as that we’ll decide at the end of the season.”

Another sign that Drinkwitz isn’t opposed to help is the fact that he gave up quarterback coaching duties to Bush Hamdan at the beginning of the year when he believed he had too much on his plate.

“I do think the past two years of college football’s changed quite a bit and my job description’s changed quite a bit with full-time recruiting as far as now your own team, the portal, high school and NIL,” Drinkwitz said. “There are some responsibilities that led me to say, ‘Okay, I wasn’t going to be able to continue to coach the quarterbacks at the level that they needed to be coached.’ And so, I’ll just have to reevaluate at the end of the year and say the same thing there.”

Note: We went on the official sites of each team. This is divided by teams who list someone outside the head coach with the job of offensive coordinator. Not all of those offensive coordinators call the plays, so this isn’t a perfect distribution, but there isn’t a simple way to find out who calls plays and who doesn’t.

Mizzou is one of four Power 5 programs along with Mississippi State, UCLA and Virginia that doesn’t have someone other than its head coach listed as the offensive coordinator. A lot of schools, including Missouri, do have someone listed as pass game coordinator and the run game coordinator.

In the chart above, you can see that the total offense as a whole has tailed off a bit from when he first arrived with the most obvious decrease in production being in the average passing yards per game per season.

Also, it’s important to note that in 2021 the offense got better in four of the five categories listed above compared to the 2020 season. Part of that improvement can be tied to a non-conference schedule as opposed to the all-SEC slate in 2020. This season, the offense has gotten worse in every statistical category compared to the 2021 season.

Not only have there been questions about a potential offensive coordinator hire, but why some plays are called when they are called. It has been evident, especially on final possessions down the stretch that the Tigers have not been able to execute offensively.

There have also been a number of plays in key moments throughout the season that left more to be desired. For instance, on Mizzou’s last offensive possession, up 17-14 on its own 25-yard line with four minutes left versus a Vanderbilt team with three timeouts, Mizzou ran a quarterback counter for a gain of four yards. The drive stalled and Mizzou would go three-and-out. In Mizzou’s last game against Florida, down 24-17 with less than three minutes, it started its final drive with a similar quarterback-designed run play that was stuffed for no gain. Mizzou would turn the ball over on downs.

“So, it was more of a number scheme designed play that we felt like in a four-minute offense, use your quarterback as the extra runner,” Drinkwitz said. “We have not been running the outside zone particularly well. And so it was kind of like at this point in this situation, what can we execute?”

Drinkwitz hasn’t had a problem taking the blame for the offense’s shortcomings despite some of the shortcomings being more about a lack of execution than the playcalling. But he offered some insight into how the offensive preparation for a game week goes and how he gets to some of the plays he calls in those crucial moments.

“So, the process really starts on Sunday as soon as we’re done putting our film away, we self-scout,” Drinkwitz said. “What are the things that we do well? What are the things we got to really work on? Then we begin watching our opponent and decide what plays we feel can be successful. What are the plays that we do well? Where are the number advantages? Where are the schematic advantages? Then you go into practice and say, ‘Okay, we practiced it. Is this going to be good or does it not look good? That goes all the way until Friday. We have everything kind of compartmentalized into this is run downs, which is first, second down, second and six or less, run down, run down passes, second and seven plus, runs and passes, shots and special, screens, red zone, third downs.”

Cody Schrader transferred over from Division II’s Truman State over the offseason and went from walk-on to gaining a scholarship to now being the Tigers’ featured running back going forward.

Schrader had been splitting snaps with Stanford transfer and Columbia native Nathaniel Peat, who has two 100-yard rushing games this season and has rushed for 387 yards on 87 rushes (4.44 yards per carry) and a pair of touchdowns.

Peat got his second start of the season against Vandy and rushed the ball 11 times for eight yards and his second red zone fumble of the season. Schrader on the other hand rushed for 84 yards on 14 carries.

Drinkwitz said Schrader will get to handle a bulk of the running back snaps going forward due to his consistent production, ball security and pass protection.

“I think there’ll be a more defined role moving forward with Cody (Schrader) taking the lion’s share of the reps,” Drinkwitz said. “And it’s amazing that if you’re consistent in your discipline, and you’re consistent in who you are with character good things seem to happen and that’s really what happened with him.”

Schrader has rushed for 364 yards on 68 carries (5.35 yards per carry) and four touchdowns this season.

Entering week eight, true freshman quarterback Sam Horn was told by Drinkwitz that he would play against Vanderbilt if Drinkwitz was in a comfortable enough spot to allow Horn to go in. Drinkwitz never got comfortable after seeing a 17-0 lead diminish quickly in the second half, which led to the audible of keeping Cook in the game.

“I wasn’t planning on being up 17-0 and the game going the way it did in the second half, so you know, things adjust,” Drinkwitz said. “And as we all know, we all got to adjust. I don’t think it really bothered Sam at all.”

Drinkwitz said in his post-game presser that current starting quarterback Brady Cook won’t last long if he keeps taking hits like he took during the strip sack in the third quarter in week eight. But he didn’t reveal who would be the one to replace Cook if he was unavailable for any reason.

“Yeah, it all depends on the timing of the situation of the game,” Drinkwitz said. “We’re actively working with all of our quarterbacks in practice to see who can develop depending on the situation of the game and what the injury would be. It would determine who would be the next quarterback and so long and short I’m not going to tell you.”

The last time Cook was not playing was when Drinkwitz made a quarterback change in the third quarter against Kansas State in week two. The quarterback who entered that game was Jack Abraham, who promptly threw two interceptions on consecutive drives before being benched for Cook. It was Abraham who appeared to be warming up to come in when Cook took the big third quarter hit against Vanderbilt, but Cook was able to stay in the game for the ensuing series.