Full interview with Mizzou football coach Eli Drinkwitz after signing 2021 class

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yeah it's uh always exciting to get the national signing day stand up here like a proud uh father and recruit of coaches and and uh you know know that there's been a lot of hard work uh a lot of uh and time involved in building trust and respect with all the players on this board but also all of their mentors and parents and everybody that's associated with these young men i want to say thank you to our coaching staff and our coaching staff's families our recruiting staff and everybody associated with mizzou you know we all have to work together recruiting is the lifeblood of our program and everybody within our organization has an aspect and handles some aspect of recruiting from the strength staff to the training rooms the equipment room to our coaching staff recruiting department sports sports information and our administration and so this really is a cumulative effort of all of that worked extremely hard to get here we really wanted to start first in our state and that's where it always is going to start for as long as i'm the head coach here at mizzou we've got to build a wall around the state of missouri and um you know that starts with building relationships with the high school coaches and so i think we started establishing our roots there we were able to sign what we consider to be eight in-state players um and that's very exciting for us and we recruited uh you know guys that we feel like can play at the sec level and help us win a championship and so very thankful for those eight players who decided to stay home and wear that m on their helmet and the tiger logo on their chest and that's very exciting the second second thing we're looking for is always the right fit focused and tangible's talented and tough you know we were able to recruit 10 state champions so this signee class 10 of these guys played and won a state championship 11 of them played in it but 10 of them won the state championship and when they win a state championship you understand that they come from a culture of winning they have a standard of winning standard of performance um and so that's that was exciting for us um and then the next thing we had to do is really dive in and we have some roster management i wouldn't call them issues but definitely some needs um you know our roster was a little bit out of whack in a couple of areas specifically the defensive line and defensive backs and so we really went hard to sign both of those and we felt like we really got what we needed there to build not necessarily just quality depth but quality at that position you know we talked about uh specifically that defensive line is where you're going to win championships and when uh this program has been at its best d-line zoo was producing nfl players at the defensive line position and so we definitely had to get out and get that get back to doing that i mean at the defensive back position you know we're losing two uh senior bowl players at that position and several other seniors and so we had to go uh get some guys you know we play with five defensive backs so it was important to go get them you know not only were we able to to dive in and get high school players we had to go get junior college players obviously needed to go get some transfers too and were able to find those went out across the state across the united states of america dipped into florida texas tennessee indiana california junior college north carolina been to a kansas juco and colorado and so very excited about being able to touch all those places build relationships uh in such a a weird time with this pandemic so again excited about this class i feel like we did exactly what we set out to do and can't wait to get these young men on campus which several of them will be enrolling early and get started to building the program to where we want it to be with that i'll open it up for questions first one's going to come from gabe diarmond ui how important is it in recruiting offensive players especially to have your quarterback in the class on board you know maybe early in the process and what did you what did you see in tyler that that you liked so early on well i think the the number one thing for uh tyler is is he's a winning quarterback um he led his team to a state championship um i know last year obviously didn't get an opportunity to play this year but was undefeated as junior year um you know and just does an absolute tremendous job of being a leader a gatherer type when you watch his tape he's got a tremendous amount of toughness he's accurate with the football he shows improvisation you know he's able to improvise when the play is not there and create with his feet or create with the scramble to find the ball uh to find a throw you know i think he he proved himself as a thrower in his elite 11 performance this summer and then like you said you know quarterbacks are leaders and so he was able to really uh when some people were trying to make some late moves on our players he was able to really hold down the fort and then able to be very influential and getting us a late uh flip of his teammate dave matter go ahead eli uh trevion ford one of the many kind of pass rushers that you added what what about him kind of fits what you guys like to do defensively and and with a lot of these guys enlisted as dns how many of them can eventually kind of move around play different spots yeah you know the trevion ford was a class three defensive player of the year totaled over 35 sacks in his high school career was a state champion as a junior obviously as a guy who can really rush the passer has got a dynamic ability to use speed to power cost turnovers with his link really plays extremely hard and so um he's a guy that that we targeted early and i think his um commitment i believe it was in april really spurred uh the rest of st louis to get going with us you know i know st louis has always been a priority in the past but maybe not as as uh uh mined recently and so i think we ended up with with uh maybe six guys from that st louis area depends on how you count jackson but uh really excited about being able to get those guys from st louis and and treyvion being one of the first to jump on board was exciting you know there's a lot of position flexibility within our defensive line and what we ask guys to do um you know the bandit position and field defensive end positions are really true defensive end spots that boundary end is is a four eye that's maybe a little bit longer and more versatile than a true three technique in a 4-3 scheme and so you know that's that those are positions that people can grow into again we look for length and body size uh and so some of these guys when they get here and get with zach they're going to really grow and develop and we'll put them in the best position to be successful next one's going to come from peter ball from the athletic peter yeah eli you mentioned this a little with tyler but with makai wingo specifically how much did he mean specifically just to i mean i guess recruiting other players within the st louis area and i guess across the country yeah you know makai again class six defensive player of the year was a state champion as a junior has a relentless motor and competitive spirit played both ways for his high school this past season um but he was our first commitment and he he was the first one uh to get on board with the new zoo and he was one of the ones that was able to get on campus before the pandemic can experience a junior day and really just feel like all right this is home um and he was tremendous throughout the year you know i remember him really getting and developing a relationship with ryan horse camp and really developing a relationship with arden walker which ultimately led to us getting that late surprise today so uh really thankful to uh to him and his mom tanika and just uh what an awesome family and excited about that young man and obviously as head football coach coach steeples former mizzou alum obviously you know knew he was coached well and and uh excited that he was able to be here with us next one's going to come from max baker from the columbia missourian max yeah coach with players having like the unique opportunity to come back next year how are you able to assess how many kids you could sign and did you have to get sort of a sense from the guys on the team now if they were coming back just so you knew how many guys could sign in this class we didn't have to it didn't have to affect your signing numbers at all because the seniors that come back are not going to be uh counted towards your 85 scholarship limit so it's just like having a few extra numbers but you know again with our roster the way um let's just say it was out of sorts on the defensive line um it's going to be imperative that we get some of these seniors to come back and uh we are um but again i don't want to steal their thunder and there's still a couple of games to be played which may change their mind but we are going to get a few of those guys back next one's going to come from eric blum from the columbia daily tribune eric hey eli now that you see i think it's the 21 guys that you had signed today or 20 guys where's the biggest position of need or area of need you look into that february date for um i think that's what we're going to be evaluating over the next two weeks as we finish out the season see some of these underclassmen continue to grow and develop and uh see where bold practice leads us and and it'll give us a chance to really breathe and check the roster out and say okay you know with this guy gone and this guy gone this is where we've got some holes to fill but uh you know i don't really worry about what's coming next i'm excited about what's coming right here and know that these guys are gonna be able to help us uh round out the roster and fix compete you know compete immediately so we're excited about these guys i don't i don't necessarily know what else is going to be out there but i know that we're very excited about the ones we got next one's going to come from mitchell 40 from power mizzou mitch eli you mentioned darden walker being a surprise today i'm curious did you find out uh as you as you were watching the commitment ceremony or the announcement uh that he was picking missouri and i guess just what was your your communication like with him uh leading up to today well i mean obviously we've been communicating pretty good for the last 48 hours but uh last night we were supposed to get on the phone and i we we didn't we missed and so uh this morning you know in my mind if you don't if we weren't able to get him on the phone um then that wasn't a good sign and so you know uh coach walters and coach haley felt pretty good about it um i on the other hand i guess i took a pessimistic view of the of the time and and um and then later after he committed found out from his mom that uh he had worked out pretty hard went to bed and she was supposed to wake him up and she didn't and uh so that's why we didn't get on the phone um but i told her she had me worried and i and i told arden i'm gonna get him back at some point next one's gonna come from ben arnett from kobu ben eli you mentioned the the eight in-state kids five or six from st louis um a year in here and and your first you know full class i mean how important is that to the program what does it mean for you moving forward to establish that well hopefully it's just a beginning of taking root where the best players want to stay and and there was still some that got away um um but you got to start small and continue to expand and lay the foundation and lay some roots and and i think we were able to create some in-roads uh specifically in rural missouri and in st louis and we've got to continue to do better on the west side of the state and get into kansas city and continue to develop relationships there and make sure that people understand and young men understand that you know you don't have to look anywhere else if you want to play the best football in college if you want to play the best football in the country you can stay right home and and uh wear that in on your you know block in on him on your helmet that tiger logo on the chest and you got a chance to accomplish all your dreams right here at home next one's going to come from suichi tarata from the star go ahead suici hey i know we talked about this a little bit but just from from your perspective as a head coach kind of looking in what's kind of the relationship like between the recruits and it seems like they're pretty vocal on twitter and especially getting other guys to commit and everything are you asking what what's the relationship amongst the group yeah yeah yeah um i mean i think that's what we kind of preached all the time is um the relationship you have with the players that you come in together is going to be you know some of the strongest bonds you have while you're here um you know besides your position group it's going to be the guys that you uh signed with because you're going to be the ones working out together you're going to be the ones living together you're going to be the ones you know going through this some difficult times together and creating a brotherhood and a bond and so you try to do that early um and that again i think that helps when you get some some waves of you know the commitment issues and all those other things that might occur so i think the bond has been very strong i think it always helps when you have a core group specifically in state um and then you know i thought our coaches did an excellent job of building connections you know amongst uh the positions you know specifically like you know zach lovett and damian uh wilson the two linebackers i know coach smith did a great job of you know unifying that group so there wasn't a it's not a competition between the two it's a competitive spirit that they're going to collectively raise the level of the linebacker play in our team next one's going to come from gabe diarmond gabe yeah eli the uh the offensive line in this class um first of all are you you've got two is that about where you want to be or would you like to add more can you talk about conor and the process of getting ej here even though he was a little different situation obviously we knew about that a while ago yeah um yeah we're still going to be looking for one more offensive lineman potentially um and there's still that we're still looking for um i'm not sure what the ncaa rules but what if i can say what specific position but we're looking for length um and really creating some length at that position but you know when you count this class zeke powell really counts in this class uh because of how late he was and what number he's going to count towards in your 85 and what number he counts towards in your 25 part hard limit that you can sign so you know with z conor and ej that was the three we were originally taking three in this class um so that's that's the three we could potentially take four if we feel like it would strengthen the roster um or it's the right position there was a couple of guys who have reached out to us and wanted to come [Music] but just to be blunt it wasn't a position that we felt like we had to have in this class and so again we have to have length and we need a freshman with length or an instant impact player um you know connor tulson has been unbelievable um a young man who bleeds black and gold a young man who again has been a part of a state championship team and played back-to-back state championships he comes from jackson's got an incredible high school football coach you know he's a great athlete um you know he says he's bold the game of 300. you know we're disappointed that we didn't get an official visit to really see if that's true he says he's a scratch golfer we haven't taken him out to midway yet to find out for sure but he is a good athlete and you know we're very excited about he's a young man that we think can play multiple positions and give us position flexibility um but he's got the right kind of demeanor and he's got a really bad haircut so you could combine all those things and you got yourself an offensive lineman and molded case cook the next one's going to come from len jennings len go ahead hey you touched on this about recruiting in the kansas city area where there's just more challenges of making those connections or maybe there's the players weren't in this area for you to be focusing on no there's always great players in kansas city there's there's always great players in kansas city there's great football in kansas city tremendous high school coaches and we just quite honestly we just missed we we missed on a couple of guys um weren't able to get it done they end up going other places and and uh you know just haven't built the enroll roads that we have to in order to make sure that those guys stay here and um you know we're going to make sure that we're really pushing that for the next class and felt like we've already kind of got that going uh to be to be honest but just didn't didn't didn't for whatever reason weren't able to make the right connection but there is tremendous players in kansas city and there was tremendous players in kansas city this past year but for whatever reasons it just didn't work out [Music] mitchell i know this early signing period actually goes through friday so i was curious are you expecting any more uh this week or do we think we're done adding signings until february um i don't think you're ever done we got we got about i think with our hard limit we we potentially have five spots that we could still sign so recruiting's 365 24 7. never done don't know that we'll get any but [Music] next one's going to cover from dave matter dave eli back before the dead period set in i think it was late january early february you were able to get a lot of these guys on campus for unofficials especially you had that weekend with all the east st louis guys just how pivotal did that end up being because it after that you couldn't have the face to face really well i think ultimately that's what helped us land dominic um a dynamic play-making receiver that was committed to another school that you know ultimately him and his mom we felt like the whole time was going to end up here just because we had made a connection they've been here and i think that's you know makai was here that weekend um connor was here that weekend ryan horse camp was here that weekend and uh and some future tigers that'll still be coming we're here that weekend so i think when we look back here in several years we're gonna realize that that weekend had a huge impact on the future of mizzou football um you know i think one thing that i've also forgot to mention was just um extremely proud of this class including having to deal with ncaa sanctions from previous issues in 2015 and so for our staff to do to be able to be creative and have to go weeks at a time without having any type of contact with any potential recruits when you can only have contact with recruits through electronic communication i think has been pretty impressive and still got a few more to go um but uh we'll keep on battling andrew kaufman go ahead coach to to sign the the 20th ranked class in the nation i believe that's the highest that mizzou's ever had it's only your first year what kind of statement do you think that makes for for the future of this program i mean that's the number one core value is always compete to do it better than it's ever been done before um you know i'd seen the stat with i think we had the since 2017 to 2020 i think we'd only signed four or four stars or better which is the lowest in the sec i think we signed five or something like that you know which ranking site you looked at in this one class that's that's the always compete spirit and mindset um i will say i don't get a ton of um caught up in the rankings and all that stuff i think you got to find the right fit um but but you know i mean it's good to be recognized and it's good to have a you know like a a benchmark of what we're trying to create i don't know if it makes any kind of statement to the rest of the sec but i know it makes a statement to our state to our fans that this staff and myself is going to push recruiting and we're always going to compete we're never going to settle for anything less than our best and it starts right here in this state it starts with making sure that we shut down the borders of the state if you sign the best players in the state you're going to sign the top 25 class i firmly believe that next one's going to come from jack sobel jack eli i was just wondering if you could touch on dominic lovett i wha what about his skill set do you like so much and uh what kind of role do you see him playing in your offense down down the line well um he was a guy that's um you know he plays the slot but he's got tremendous speed and return ability a guy that we feel like can return punts and kickoffs for us which is something that we needed to recruit and get um i think he averaged somewhere around 17 yards per catch last year you know it was an explosive play waiting to happen um you know him and tyler obviously had a great connection but as guy who can who can win at the line of scrimmage stretch the field vertically get off pressman get off man-to-man coverage find holes in zones reminds me of a guy that i was able fortunate enough to coach at nc state jacoby myers with with just his short area quickness and natural ball catching skills but also finding holes in zones and that's why it was so important for us you know he's a guy who can play slot reverses jet sweeps vertical throws um i mean he's a nimble player and just a guy that you know can get the ball in space peter ball go ahead yeah eli you signed a good amount of cornerbacks this class i guess what what do you see from that group of players that you were able to bring in well i mean again that was an area of need that we had to have um you know defensive backs are um a huge part of what we do and just with you know seniors attrition and numbers they just we really needed to sign quite a few and so i thought um you know obviously darius jackson's a guy that coach gibbs had seen and seen live in evaluation and so that was really big for us being able to get his commitment so early and you know he's a guy that's still playing football right now in the playoffs which is awesome for us um and then you know we were able to get a couple of guys out of florida which we've had very good past success obviously with jc um kyrie and those guys in the past and so again link you know um zaquon reeves uh obviously a guy that's it's long and and has you know great ball skills but i think you know another guy is uh davion sisstrong who's a tremendous basketball player he's got really good hops um so that translates to having good ball skills in our opinion and being able to play man-to-man defense and so uh you know you got tyler hibbler as a guy who um you know we got out st louis who's got position flexibility in the right in the mold of maybe a uh martez manual you got dalen carnell who's a highly ranked uh young man out of indianapolis which i'm extremely proud of dj smith you know going into a state we've not really been in and for him to find uh you know not only fine it wasn't hard to find them but to build a connection to get two four star players out of state of indiana and get them into the sec i think it's a tremendous thing for our university but also for a demonstration of what kind of recruiter relentless recruiter he is um but back to the dbs i mean it's just it was important that we found them and that's really a tough position to evaluate without camps but our staff did a really good job of watching film and finding those guys and some of those guys sorry we got time for three more peter so we got to move on um kyle pennell go ahead yeah peter tried the follow-up coach with 2020 being the way it has been and a lot of these people a lot of these recruits who recruited today not being able to get to the campus what's made this year so unique for you as a coach and just how hard is it um to sell a program and what's your message to these recruits who uh haven't been fortunate enough to get to missouri before today i think we've become the uh experts at virtual zooms and walking around and you know you got to be careful when you walk around this building you know tory or jake or kp or evan are going to be walking around with her with an iphone showing people around and and you know i just had to be creative i think the one thing you miss is just interaction um you know i don't know what the stat is off top of her head but how much of our communication is non-verbal and it's hard to get that when you're not in you know in person it's a little bit more difficult to read people um so i think that's one thing that they're gonna have not experienced necessarily um but other than that i think they understand it's not necessarily bricks and stones it's the people inside the building that make the culture and the program successful and i think they felt that within our staff and they felt that within the people in the organization you know it's one thing when when people say you know this coach is a salesman or what what not but it's it's going to be extremely hard to fake him out with your equipment guy your trainer your strength staff your nutritionist your academics and all the different people that we surround these guys with every day and i think collectively we just showed who we are and what we're about and um the culture within our organization eric blum go ahead eli you look across the entire class are there one or two guys that you brought in today that you think maybe didn't get the attention they deserved and so you think might be somewhat of a steal or a standout in terms of what the attention they got before you got them and then can do big things for you in the future well i don't want to sell anybody short by just singling out maybe one or two um but i'm extremely excited about jonathan jones a defensive end out of mckinney texas a guy who's got great length and plays extremely hard against great competition and a guy again who uh can play multiple position for us and really affect the game in a positive way um you know i highlighted darius jackson a guy that we saw live and think you know he's got length his dad's a high school football coach he's still playing right now and and does it does a really good job um you know gavin mckay was hurt most of the season but uh and plays wide receiver but you know we were able to coach woods was able to have him in camp when he worked at another institution and just saw his ability to block and we're excited about his growth potential and what he's going to become you know zach lovett's a linebacker that really is a downhill sideline to sideline rushes off the edge on his high school tape and and does a lot of different things but i tell you what damian wilson's a thumper i mean just a guy that is explosive when he hits you finds the football comes downhill i know coach smith always says the best linebackers come from uh north carolina which i guess because he's from there and all that but uh was excited to get that young man here um you know so i think those are some guys that that jump out at me you know daniel robledo's a guy that was a teammate with ben key um and so we were able to see his film last year and just really recruited him he didn't get to play this year because of covid but really excited about daniel and what he's going to do and bring so um yeah i think i think that's kind of it all right we'll go to back to peter and then gabe you can close us out go ahead peter yeah eli back to the i guess defensive backs are those guys do you have them kind of peg down as either cornerbacks or safeties or could they i guess is there positional flexibility with those guys yeah i mean i think with what we do there's a lot of position flexibility um you know we ask josh bledsoe even though he's listed as safety to play a lot of nickel man-to-man and so you know however you define that we've got three tremendous defensive back coaches and so we'll let those guys kind of work it out i think there's some natural positions they might fit um but you know jc was a was a high school wide receiver and came in and started as a safety and now move this a corner and display that position really well so i think we'll we'll figure that out as we move forward all right gabe close this out all right anybody else want to close this oh i'm sorry i hit sean unmuted me and then i muted myself um i i don't think it's directly related to signing day but the ruling today on the transfer rule i think was kind of a result of this recruiting process uh i know it just happened today but do you have any thoughts on this you know one year how how that's going to change things for program you guys and programs across the country over the next year gabe i'm gonna be real honest i have no idea what you're talking about i was on practice fields and been in meetings since one so if you'll update me then i'll answer what are you talking about yeah they uh basically approved a one year uh exception where that you can transfer without sitting anybody can transfer without sitting out for for this year anywhere i believe that they're in sec is there an sec i mean it was ncaa council yeah i mean great for the kids tremendous for the young men um i'm gonna watch my words carefully um i try to believe the best in people and so hopefully the integrity of of tampering and all that stuff will will hold true um you know i think we have an unintended consequence right now in our transfer portal i saw a stat where there was 60 of the young men who go into the transfer portal don't end up with a scholarship um sometimes uh the grass you know there's a saying grass isn't always greener on the other side and sometimes when you face tough times you know sticking it out and figuring out on the other end is the best path forward not always all right i'm done with this i'm going to just move on i get it sometimes it's not a right fit not every situation is the same not every situation is the same uh but man oh man we're gonna have to be really careful because this is a tremendous game because of what it teaches you about what you can accomplish when you face adversity and fight through adversity and come through on the other side and i guarantee you every one of these young men as great as they are and every young men that's in my locker room night right now has at some point or another thought about transferring and sometimes you gotta stick it out sometimes you gotta finish sometimes you gotta have a fight to the finish spirit and i just hope we're not creating an easy way out for young men and again every situation is different tremendously different and you know when it benefits you you're all for it when it goes against you i guess you're all against it but just in general in generalities i hope that we don't create a scenario where we find you know we're giving young men an easy way out when they face adversity like i said there's been young men come in and talked to me about transferring and i agreed it was in their best interest and felt like hey for the interest of both parties absolutely it's been young men that come in and i thought boy this is absolutely not the right decision but i'll support it so ultimately i want what's in the best interest of that young man and their family and hope they make the best decision but again not everybody who's walking into that transfer portal is getting a scholarship on the other end of it and there's a lot of young men who put their name in the transfer portal in the fall and they're not going to have a scholarship in january because they didn't get a place to go and that is ultimately not what the goal of college football is the ultimate goal of all of these young men and what i've asked our coaching staff and their players and their parents to make sure of is we chase two dreams a life with football and a life out of football outside of football we want them to be uniquely successful and develop playing this game and we're going to surround them with all the different things that they need in order to achieve their personal best playing the game but ultimately they're going to be measured in this life on what kind of life they live outside of the game of football and do we prepare them for that life by making sure that they have a degree in life skills that can make them a positive contributor to society and that's what we're going to push and make sure of and that's the dream of the collegiate model that's the goal of college football is that we give young men opportunities that they might not have outside of their god-given ability to play this game at a high level and um ultimately that's that's our jobs and that's what we're going to do and we're going to push them um to be the best on the field but also their best off the field and sometimes there's some growing pains in that there's some growing pains in that and you know with that i guess i don't know if that answered your question but i had no idea that that happened it's going to be hard to manage rosters and hopefully there'll be some sort of relief and this wasn't just a ready shoot and then aim afterwards type deal but usually that's what how it played out at least the last 365. anyway again if it's in the best interest of the kid great i don't think that's the question i'm debating i just i hope we're not setting young men up to think that anybody that goes into the transfer portal comes out all right we'll let coach go with that one thanks coach thank you miz
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Channel: ABC 17 News
Views: 2,260
Rating: 4.9024391 out of 5
Keywords: news
Id: jVhmiSOpm0o
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Length: 35min 52sec (2152 seconds)
Published: Wed Dec 16 2020
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