Everything Eli Drinkwitz Said on National Signing Day

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Missouri football officially signed 19 high school players to its 2026 class on Tuesday, the first day of the early signing period for college football. Head coach Eli Drinkwitz spoke to the media to give his thoughts on the class, and the way high school recruiting is chaning. Here's a full transcript of what Drinkwitz had to say.

Opening statement:

“Excited to welcome this great group of freshmen to our program and brotherhood. And really want to start by thanking our recruiting operations staff, on campus staff, personnel staff. It takes everybody in this building to recruit, and I think they did an excellent job of early identification with the personnel department, combing over and finding the right fit with our coaching staff, and then obviously the on campus, creating a unique on campus experience that allowed us to build connections and sign these players.

This is a top-25 recruiting class for the fourth time in the last five years. To put that in perspective, from 2000 to 2020, we only had two top-25 classes. So we're continuing to recruit at a high level, even in a time where high school recruiting has been de-emphasized because of the portal.

We got 19 signees, 10 on offense, nine on defense, eight different signees were rated four star or higher, we signed players from 13 different states. We had either the No. 1 or No. 2 JUCO player in the country with DeMarcus (Johnson), and so we're really excited about that.

We got 15 of them that are going to be mid-year enrollees, which is awesome in getting their development, acclimated to the brotherhood and how we do things. And then I think what's really cool is we’ve signed three guys who are still competing for a state championship and will be playing either Friday or Saturday in Gavin Sidwar, Tajh (Overton) and DJ (Johnnie Jones). So, very fired up about that.

On if he anticipates any of the signees contributing as true freshmen:

“I think everybody's got their own path. Like, if you would have asked me last year at this time about, ‘Do I think Matt Zollers was going to play early?’ coming off an injury and having to rehab, we didn't even know if he's gonna be able to participate in spring practice. To fast forward, and he’s started several games, played really well at times — you just don't know.

I think it's really important for our guys to come in and understand the message of embrace your role, put the team first and improve every day makes us better. And they got to come in here and assimilate to how we do things, be uniquely them, but assimilate to how we do things, and we'll figure out. I do think there's some really talented players here. And with guys moving on and leaving, you're never quite sure what opportunities are gonna present themselves.”

On the role high school recruiting now plays in roster building:

“I think we're always going to (have) a foundational recruiting of high school players, and we always have to have a foundation of guys that we want to recruit and develop that become players for us. You look at our current roster — Daylan Carnell, Connor Tollison, Marvin Burks, Josh Manning, Marquis Johnson, Brett Norfleet, Jordon Harris, Jamal Roberts — and these are just off the top of my head, that have come in developed, played significant contributors to us. So that's always going to be a key piece to what we want to do. And I feel like we still have those pieces moving up. And then, it's okay how do I go in the portal and either A, replace people who are wanting to leave, or B, replace people or fill in gaps that maybe we weren't as right on in their development. Or their development is slowed or not been as fast as we anticipated. I think we're kind of in this 18-22 range of high school players each year, and that's probably what it will be moving forward.”

On how the recruiting process was different this year with revenue sharing:

“It's really different. It's really different. I don't think there's an awareness nationally or with agencies or parents that the previous style of NIL, pass-the-hat fundraising, renegotiate, ‘Okay, well, we'll go call a booster and find a little bit more money to answer that.’ That's not possible anymore. You have a rev-share amount. You have a 3PN, third-party NIL, that is potentially there, but not guaranteed. And so you have a budget. And much like people have to balance their checkbooks, you have to balance the budget based off of this is what we have slotted for this player, and if I change this number, then it's going to have to come from here. And I think that's a new reality.

It's a new reality for our players on our current roster, because again, last year there was front loading. Last year, there was work arounds in the system that just aren't there yet, that aren't understood. And so you're kind of stuck with hard numbers, hard caps. And to go in and renegotiate is going to have to come from somewhere else.

And, my personal opinion is I think we're going to see a lot more because of a misunderstanding, I think this will be a very, very active portal season. I think you'll see more players in the portal probably than we’ve had before. Because they think, or are being advised, that that's going to be a way to create leverage. And again, what we're being asked to do has never been done in the history of college football before, and so we're all kind of learning at the same time. So that's kind of the way it goes.

I think high school players have done a really good job of, or at least our class, has done a really good job of ‘Why do you want to come to Mizzou? I want to chase two dreams. I want to develop an elite edge. I want to compete for championships. I want to do that through having the system of core values that we believe in. And while we're doing that, we're going to be compensated for it.’ And it wasn't the other way around. I can't speak for everybody else, but other players are saying, ‘How much money am I gonna make?’ Money doesn't lead, it follows. I believe you have to have a long-term vision for what you want to accomplish. And for our players, we want to establish a vision for what their life can look like in five years, 10 years and 20 years and 40 years. How you do that is chase two dreams — chase that dream of becoming an NFL player, where there's a lot more potential money than what you can make in college. Chase two dreams of getting a college degree from one of the top public universities in the country, an AAU institution, that can change your life for the better, that you can be a positive contributor to society, even when football is done. Come develop an edge of understanding how to operate on a daily basis and then compete for championships. And really, that's what it's about. It's about finding those players who want to do that first and then figure out what the compensation is.”

On the process of putting this class together:

“I think it kind of happened the way we expected it to and wanted it to. I think for us — we've always talked about production on the potential. And when you're investing money in a product, you want to see that product’s senior tape. You want to see the most recent film. Because can you imagine if the NFL drafted its players a year before they signed? So think about this. Think about the quarterbacks in the SEC — if they were drafted in June last year, then play their senior years and then went and then went to their NFL teams. Everybody would be shocked. So why would we do that? That's not how we operate. How we operate is, we like them in June — we'll take June commitments, absolutely. But we're going to reevaluate your senior tape before we send you the offer that you can finalize from your financial, because we want to make sure that you're really all who you say you were, and that's how we're going to operate moving forward. I still believe in senior tape and senior growth. Again, I couldn't fathom if the NFL drafted players and then letting them play another year and seeing if that worked out for them. So we're not going to operate that way either.”

On defensive end DeMarcus Johnson, benefit of having players come in with JUCO experience:

“I think it's obviously a different level of competition. And so there's a level of growth in what they've done. Really, the biggest thing for junior college players is to get acclimated to how we do things here, it will be a little bit more structured than maybe what they were accustomed to. And so that'll be the key to the transition to being able to elevate their level of play here.”

On multi-year contracts:

“Yeah, we like them. We operate with a lot of those. We utilize them because, again, we want to be a developmental program, and we understand that that gives them a level of security to grow and develop, and it gives us a level of security of not investing in somebody who's already trying to negotiate the next opportunity.”

On Gavin Sidwar, being able to recruit three quarterbacks from Pennsylvania

“I think Gavin is an extremely talented thrower. I think he's got elite arm strength, obviously, a winner and a leader, leading his team to the state championship appearance this week. He's got really good anticipation, throws the ball really well, and he's just the right fit for us. Really loved when he was on the visit, loved our conversations. Think we've done a really good job of building some relationships in that area. And we're an SEC team that's got a northeast footprint, so that’s kinda cool.”

On his transfer portal approach, expectations for departures:

“Based off of what we have here (in the high school recruiting class), then we have a couple of positions that we've already targeted, said ‘Ok, we want to take a couple of corner(backs), oof (realizes he didn’t mean to say a specific position) Yikes. Cut.

We want to take a couple of players at this position, and maybe a couple of players at this position that we already know is going to have people graduating and whatnot. And then the rest of that would be based off of the attrition, our ability or inability to sign or resign players. We have quite a few guys on multi-year contracts already, so we've been ahead of that game. But we do have some guys who have NFL decisions that they got to make as underclassmen. And we have guys that aren't on two-year contracts that have to make decisions on what their future looks like here, and if that means that they go to the portal, then we'll have to replace them in the portal. So I don't really have a firm number for you on that.”

On bringing in five offensive linemen:

“I think offensive line is a developmental position, so if you can get the guys with the right STI — size, toughness and instincts. And then get a chance to develop them and coach (Ryan) Russell’s strength program. Those guys aren't as easy to find out of the portal as you want. So again, if you can water your own grass and develop those players, and you can get them for a price that makes sense, then let's do it that way.”

On the challenges of the new transfer portal schedule:

“Brand new challenges. You’ve never experienced it before. And it's one of those things that it sounded like a good idea at the time, and now, as you get closer to it, you go, that's not quite as good of the idea as we thought it was. I think coach (Lane) Kiffin was a guy who was very adamant about that we should be for the two portal windows. And all of us at the time were like, ‘Man, it's easier if you just have one, at least knock it all out.’ And now that you're looking back on it, like, maybe it was a little bit more beneficial to have two. It's not going to be an exact science in January. And one of the key things that we don't have that the NFL system has is they have waiver wires and they have trades. And we don't have that. And so once you establish your roster in January, you're locked in.

One of the things that the SEC has put us at a disadvantage at is that we're only at 85 scholarships, while other conferences are 105. That puts us at a, I’m not real smart, but that puts us at a 20-man disadvantage for the future. And we are the best conference in college football. We've added a ninth game. And now we're at a disadvantage to the rest of the country in what we're doing that doesn't seem like a recipe for success that needs to be reevaluated in my opinion.”

On wide receivers Jabari Brady and Devyon Hill-Lomax:

“We needed to get more size in the receiver room, and felt like that both Jabari and Devyon presented that size and speed and length and the ability to make contacted catches. Last year, we got some really good players, but it wasn't at the height that we needed, and so we got to do a good job of always balancing that room out, and those two guys do that.”

On balancing development, recruits who want to play right away:

“I use this verse all the time with our players and our recruits: Your gift will make room for you and bring you in front of great men. Like, if you have the ability to play, you're going to be able to play early. That isn't really up to me. That's up to you and your work ethic and your desire. We had several guys do that this year. I think we had several more that could have, but they had some really good players in front of them. So I think they did a really good job of just embracing their role, playing their four games, not getting in that comparison, running your own race, instead of comparing your race to somebody else's. And I think a lot of that comes from pressure from home and pressure from outside noise on why you aren’t playing.

But I think our guys see our culture. They see the development that they're doing. They see the weight that they're adding, knowing that if they'll just trust their process, run their race, then their time will come. And I think again, one of the things that we have to do is continue to sell who we are in our message. We've got an opportunity to win 30 games in three years. There's a pretty cool graphic going out right now in our comparison versus everybody else in the SEC in the last three years. We’re showing who we are. And you can believe in it, buy into it. And it really is not about a logo or about chasing a brand. It's about chasing your own development and running your own race. And I think we're doing a really good job at being able to display that. I mean, you look at who we're going put out in the NFL draft this year. I mean Zion Young is a great example of what an opportunity he's got. I think Keagen Trost is going to be a great example of coming here, and even though it was a short time, developing into a really good player. And so I think we're continually selling that.”

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