Everything Eli Drinkwitz Said to Preview Week 1

Ahead of the Missouri Tigers Week 1 game against Central Arkansas, head coach Eli Drinkwitz addressed the media to give his thoughts.

Drinkwitz provided updates for where things stand at the quarterback position, his evaluation of UCA and injury updates.

Here’s a full transcript of what Drinkwitz had to say.

Opening statement:

"Jason King will represent and wear No. 25 as we honor the legacy of Aaron O'Neal on the 20th anniversary of his tragic passing, and understand the significance of his life and story to our university and the significance of the changes that were brought about with the NCAA and sickle-cell testing. So Jason is excited to wear that. He's from St Louis and he is a linebacker, so it was awesome for that to occur.

Logan Reichert suffered a lower body injury two days ago that will keep him out six to eight weeks. So that's going to be really the first, hopefully only, injury that will keep somebody out of the game. We are monitoring a couple other situations, but feel good that we'll have everybody healthy.

Quarterbacks, we have a plan in place and have discussed with the team, and feel prepared to execute that plan, and don't feel the need to share that plan with you. So just want to make sure that we all know that.

As far as University of Central Arkansas, playing the purple bears, famous alumni Anna Drinkwitz, she is a proud graduate, I don't remember the year, but my sister graduated from there.

I have a lot of respect for their for their program and their head coach, Nathan Brown, he had a storied career there as a quarterback and player, and now obviously a very successful coach, and has done a tremendous job building and maintaining the success of that program through a lot of different head coaches. I think he's been there since 2004 as a player, his entire career has been there. I have a great relationship, long-term relationship, with their tight ends coach, Brooks Hollingsworth. Brooks used to recruit the area when I was a high school football coach, and so have a lot of respect for him and his career as a football coach.

UCA is used to winning and has an established program. Last year, played a very difficult, tough game with Arkansas State, scored 21 in the fourth quarter, and plays a very detailed-style brand of football. Always going to be a physical football team. Their defensive coordinator comes back, he's been there for a long time, went to Southern Miss, and now is back. So I know that they're going to be really prepared.

Really exciting opportunity for me personally — Malachi Henry, their freshman wide receiver, I coached with his dad, Moe at Springdale for several years from 2006-2009, Malachi would have been four or five at the time. It's so awesome to see his career develop, and we'll be excited to face him and to watch him chase his dreams as a Division-1 football player, so pretty cool moment there.

It's really important for us this week, as a football team, to establish and bring our identity to life. We want to be a tough football team and a team that plays well under pressure, executes in tough moments. So that's going to be really important for us. That's our message to our team this week, make our identity come to life. You get one shot at your first impression. What impression are we going to have as team 136 and this brotherhood?"

On the decision to play both quarterbacks in Week 1:

"I felt like both quarterbacks played really well, really since the spring. I think they've both established a leadership with the team, as evidenced by both being voted captains. I just didn't feel like I could make a decision without a little bit more information, and I didn't want to rush the decision.

I think the decision of the starting quarterback, for me personally, is something that I'm going to have a lot of conviction about. I felt like both of those guys, like I said, played winning football throughout camp, and I had a lot of confidence that both can execute at a high level. So really, the only other thing to measure was to put them in live competition. Nowadays, I'm never going to do that in practice, just because the nature of college football now on the investments that we have in those positions. So the ability to play live football on Thursday night, the ability to watch these guys prepare, to see how they handle the preparation, I felt life was the best course of action, and that decision, I've done that before, worked out pretty good."

What he needs to see to determine a starter at quarterback:

"I don't feel the need to share that with anybody. I feel like both of them need to play football. I think they both demonstrate the ability of toughness, preparation, decision-making, accuracy and leadership in a practice setting. But that doesn't mean they've done a game setting for us. And I know both of them have played college football before, but they haven't played it in this situation before, and so they'll get to demonstrate that this week, all those this week, and in a game."

On if the quarterback battle could continue to Week 2:

"No."

On how important the next five days are for preparation:

"I think it's important for everybody. We've talked a lot throughout the fall camp about establishing a process, whether you're a senior or you're a freshman, you gotta establish a process for how you prepare for the game. And so, it's going to be an opportunity for everybody, outside of just the quarterbacks. I know there's a lot of focus on that, which is awesome, but it's important for everybody to establish a rhythm and a routine process. I think you look back at the success that we've had, whether it's here or App State or NC State, the best players that we've coached have had a game week rhythm and routine that they could rely on, and it was able to keep them steady through the ups and downs of the season. I think about Brett Rypien, Ryan Finley, I think about Cody Schrader, Darius Robinson, Kris Abrams-Draine, those guys, Brady (Cook), they all had routines that were unique to them, that they were able to establish and maintain."

On what Central Arkansas does well and how they need to prepare:

"It's a challenge, obviously, to figure that out, to some extent, because they do have new coordinators. From a calling it standpoint, obviously, coach Brown has taken back over the play-calling duties. He hasn't done that, I don't believe, since he was the coordinator under Steve Campbell. So, we can watch last year's scheme. It's always been a little bit similar to the scheme that he played for when he was played for coach Conque. So they're always going to establish the run. They've got a big, big running back. I think the Chambers kid played quite a good for them last year. They've got two really good guards that will allow them to try to establish the line of scrimmage. They've always been a gap scheme, that's something coach Hollingsworth has always believed in when he was the line coach, even now as the tight ends coach.

Obviously, Malachi was a freshman All-American wide receiver, so they've got unique skill set there. Nathan threw the ball around a lot as a quarterback, so I'm assuming he's going to want to get back to doing that. I feel like the comments that were made was that they didn't have enough variety or explosiveness on offense. But I look for them to try to bring back some explosive-style of offense. The quarterback, I think Austin Myers from Vilonia, was a really good high school football player in the state. Big tall, got great arm size. So, not a ton of film, I think he's got less than 100 snaps. So that's a little bit of a challenge to know exactly what the offensive identity is going to be.

Defensively, coach comes back from Southern Miss, but he had been there before. I think it's going to be a similar style defense to what they've been running, but they do have variations to what they do, both in the coverage aspects and in the front. They play multiple fronts, four-down high, and will play some bear. So that gives you a unique thing for your offense to have to prepare for all three different fronts to know how to block them and protect them. So, that's going to be a challenge.

Special teams-wise, they've made some changes on their operations, and even talked about getting back to being a more aggressive style special teams. So, we haven't seen that on tape. We don't know exactly what that looks like.

So we're going to have to be prepared for a lot of different things, but at the end of the day, it's about us. It's about us establishing our identity. It's about us establishing the brand of football that we want to play. And I look forward to seeing that this week come alive."

On preparing with the unknowns of Central Arkansas:

The challenges are that there's not quite as much film that you're going to be able to dial in and say, 'Okay, this is, this is what they do.' But it really comes back down to our preparation, our fundamentals and techniques, our execution. On the offensive side of the ball, if you have base rules that you understand versus four down front, odd front or a bear front, we got to be able to execute, regardless of what front they're in. We have sound, DNA plays that we can execute versus anything, we got to be able to do that. Quarterbacks are going to have to go through progression reads and understand what the progression is, they're going to have to identify coverage, and understand how that changes their progression, which is a good challenge.

On the defensive side of the ball, it's going to be all about reading your keys. You're not going to be able to have run pass tips going into the game because you don't see those on tape. So you're going to have to rely and trust on your keys and be sure the secondary, we have our eyes in the right spot. In the front-seven, we'll have to be physical and dominate our block, and we'll dominate the blocker. We'll have to read and react based off of the type of block that we're getting. So, it's really a good challenge. It's a good test, and it's something that I think our team goes forward to.

On how it was decided who was going to be on punt return and kickoff return:

"As far as the punt return standpoint, obviously Kevin (Coleman's) done it at a high level in this league. Daniel Blood did share some of that responsibility last year, but we've really been proud of DaMarion Fowlkes and his ability to catch kicks and be explosive. We haven't obviously done that live, but it's been something that I think we've done quite a bit, and he's been the most explosive in that. That's been fun to watch and develop.

As far as a kickoff returner, I think (Tavorus Jones) has been here for a long time, and he's done a lot of different things on special teams. He's really had an explosive camp, both as a ball carrier and we try to evaluate what's going to be the best opportunity for us on the kickoff return squad. We want a big, physical guy who can run through tackles, blow through smoke, and still have the ability to make people miss. I just felt like through evaluating fall camp, he gives us the best chance. Obviously, Jamal (Roberts) has always been an off returner for us, and he's done a really good job on the other side of that. So he can be an off returner, he can also be a returner. He gives one of our play makers an opportunity to touch the ball."

On running back Amhad Hardy's on- and off-field presence:

"Ahmad's been really remarkable in his ability to assimilate to our team. He's just got an infectious personality with his teammates. But make no mistake about it, he's a physical presence playing and running the football. He's got the right kind of mentality and mindset with the ball in his hands. I think that combination has been really good. You know, he's got that 'I ride horses, cowboy,' and takes people with him to do that. But man, he puts his helmet on and wants to get after it, and gets after it. He talks a lot of trash to defense, that's a lot of fun. He's one of those guys you love to have in the locker room because he's about his business when he needs to be, but he's also about enjoying the journey, and I've been really impressed and pleased with him, and look forward to seeing him
play."

On what wide receiver Logan Muckey's journey with the team as a walk-on and beating cancer has meant for the team:

"What an awesome young man. Coach Russell says this really proudly, that when you look at the evolution of our team and the establishment of our culture, guys like Logan Muckey, Anthony Favrow, Tommy Lock, Chris Kreh, Brady Hultman, even, I'm leaving some of them out. Those guys as walk-ons have as much to do with the transformation of that locker room and establishing an 'elite EDGE' culture as anybody.

I think Logan is a really, really strong representation of that. The guy just shows up every day with the right kind of energy and attitude and effort, makes plays, no jobs too big or too small for him, and he's willing to hold people accountable. We talk about being accountable for the standard, or responsible for the standard. He's one of those guys that feels responsible for the standard that's been established and set. He holds people to that. He's willing to call people out, and you go and do that in your life and your actions are more if you're accountable to the standard. So I think he's done a really, really good job, and we're just proud of him and thankful that he's on the team."

On why Drinkwitz offered Muckey the chance to walk on:

"I think we do a really good job in the walk-on category, from establishing the high school players early on, like who can play, who we think can help us. When we first got here, that wide receiver position was a position that we knew we could flip that room, and whether that was through transfer, or whether that was through scholarship or walk-ons. Logan had all the right things about him, and obviously, he was coming from a really good high school that we wanted to recruit some
players from too."

On what Drinkwitz wants to see go well from the defense in Week 1:

"All of it. It all starts with us stopping the runs. I think we want to make sure we can establish the ability to stop the run. I think we want to see if we can rush the passer without having to be too exotic in our pressures. We want to see if we can establish the ability to affect the passer. I think we want to see what kind of coverage ability we have. Can we be a team that denies the ball or do we have to be a team that has a touchdown group defense and just trying to keep everything in front of us? Can we force takeaways and do we tackle well? So there's a lot of things to figure out. I think we know going into it what we want to try to establish but everybody goes in with a plan. You're going to have to react to the different things that occur."

On the nine-game SEC schedule coming in 2026:

"I've said this at media days, and I still believe that the two most important factors in making decisions, my opinion, from a conference standpoint or college football, is the fans and the players, and everything else is really secondary. And I don't think we should weigh in conference affiliation or finances or all that different stuff. In my opinion, it's really caused a lot of the issues we have in college football right now.

I think from a fan standpoint, it's awesome. I really do, I think adding those games are great for the fans. I think it's going to be a challenge. Obviously. I think there's going to be unintended consequences for increasing the schedule difficulties. I think there's going to be unintended consequences with having a four and five game rotation, where you only have four conference home games and there's going to be five conference road games, which now makes scheduling even more challenging, because you've just told us that we have to have one Power Four (opponent) outside of that, which you could be looking at a six home game, six road game schedule, which would make no sense when you spent $250 million building a north end-zone project. I think there's a lot of challenges there that we have to figure out, get right and it's not exactly like they're giving us a lot of time to do that. We don't even know who our three permanents are, we don't know what the schedule looks like. We got to do with it here in the next nine months, or really six months. And you're going to have buy-outs and some stuff, we figured it out before. But I do think there's a lot of unintended consequences that, hopefully everybody was aware of on that stuff. We'll go from there. I will say this, I just hope we get through this season first, because there's no guarantee anything for next year. So focus on being 1-0 this year, then we'll figure out next year's challenges next year."

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