Drink and the NIL

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First and 10: Eli Drinkwitz, Mizzou are giving recruits a rea$on to come to CoMo Matt Hayes | 1. I don’t want to get on a soapbox, but … There are two ways to deal with the unruly beast that is name, image and likeness: complain or connect. Eliah Drinkwitz, everyone, has decided to dance with the Boogeyman. “We say it’s important for these guys to play (in Columbia), and the opportunity they’re going to have,” Drinkwitz said when announcing his 2022 recruiting class. A class that is better than any other in the history of Missouri football. A class built on the foundation of the current coach and his 11-11 record in 2 seasons. That, and NIL cash for everyone. Or as Drinkwitz so eloquently put it, “opportunity” for everyone. As long as those in the Mizzou community give and give again. “As a fan base, as business leaders, as supporters, we have to come through with those things,” Drinkwitz said, and there was little doubt he was preaching to the Mizzou masses to reach deep into their hearts and wallets. “And make sure that these players know that playing at home is going to provide them with significant business benefits for their future in the game of football and outside of it.” You say distasteful, I say deliberate. You say embarrassing, I say engaging. When it was clear NIL had a place in college sports, the biggest complaint – outside of the old school grabbing onto the old ways like grim death – was the rich get richer. If Alabama and Georgia and LSU and Florida can get elite recruits without paying players (insert your joke here), what happens when they can begin giving NIL opportunities to the best players in high school football and the best players in college looking to transfer? Well, Drinkwitz isn’t waiting for what happens. He’s not complaining like some coaches (hello, Dabo), or bemoaning the new world but still trying to play the game like many others. He’s doing what most every coach typically does when given the outline or the rules: hard-charging down the road, searching for the smartest, quickest way to make it happen. In that sense, Drinkwitz is reaching out to the Missouri community. It’s time for those same fans and boosters who fill all the stadiums and ballfields on the Columbia campus to watch Tigers sports, who get in the ear of the administration when a particular sport or coach isn’t necessarily working as they believe it should, to put up or shut up and invest. And by invest, he means provide opportunity for current and incoming players to make money off their name, image and likeness. You want the elite of high school sports? It’s going to take more than love of dear ol’ Mizzou. Drinkwitz didn’t make the rules, but he isn’t going to sit around and hope something happens. He’s going to make it happen. “Adapt or die,” he says. So here he is, in the middle of the biggest, baddest conference in college football — when most everyone in the SEC has had a 100-year head start on Missouri – searching for a way to chase and catch and become relevant. Gary Pinkel did it for a couple of years, and since then, Missouri may as well be Vanderbilt. Because if you ain’t winning in the SEC, you’re losing. The next thing you know, the NCAA gives you a gift – a genuine get out of jail free card. It’s called the NIL rule, and the NCAA doesn’t know what in the world it’s doing or how to regulate it (because they can’t; it’s illegal to do so), and they’ve thrown open the gates. They’ve given Drinkwitz and every other coach at every other school that has complained year after year about the growing divide between the haves and have-nots, a chance to quickly gain ground on the Alabamas and Georgias of the college football world. Frankly, it’s coaching malpractice for Drinkwitz to not stand at the dais on the first day of the Early Signing Period and declare, without hesitation, that if you want a winner at Missouri, he needs help from the community. You want to be part of future college football Playoffs? We’re all in this together. “This is just a start,” Drinkwitz said. ‘We’ve got to go wherever we can to find great players.” 2. The common denominator It has always been about players and how to procure a roster greater than any other. Players win games. Coaches that now make upward of $12 million a year want you to think that coaching is everything. They don’t want you to forget that they’re game-planning and motivating and calling the shots. The players are just there on the field playing the game. Those same players that are the difference between winning and losing, between explosion plays and 2-yard losses. Between preparing for the Playoff, or the latest iteration of a bowl game that’s a mere amuse-bouche to the feed everyone is desperately trying to inhale. And now the governing body of college athletics that used to sanction member institutions for providing recruits a bagel for breakfast, has wheeled out a 12-course meal available for all to eat. You just have to figure out how to pay for it. Understand this: Missouri’s top 15 class was built on the work of Drinkwitz and his staff. He’s a charismatic and dynamic coach. Young players connect with him. But 11-11 only sells so much, and he knows it. Missouri also has to win games of significance to gain more traction in player procurement. Missouri will win games of significance when it has better players. See the Catch-22? That’s why Drinkwitz stood at the dais and preached about opportunity, and how it could get more players like Luther Burden, the nation’s No. 1 wideout and No. 3 overall recruit according to the 247Sports composite. Burden chose Missouri over Alabama, Georgia and Oklahoma. Those other 3 universities have combined for 13 Playoff appearances. Two of them are in this field together — again. The only thing Missouri had in its recruitment of Burden was Drinkwitz and geography: Burden’s hometown of East St. Louis, Ill., is just over the Mississippi River from the state of Missouri, and about 3 hours from Columbia — on a good day on I-70. There are elite players in the St. Louis area, in the state of Missouri. Most have left over the years for more successful programs. Ezekiel Elliott. Montee Ball. Josh Freeman. And on and on and on. Jameson Williams, the best receiver in the nation, is from St. Louis. He left for Ohio State, and then transferred to Alabama. That can’t happen, and Drinkwitz is trying to harness the power of the NIL to make sure it doesn’t. Because dancing with the Boogeyman is better than the alternative of not dancing at all.

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