COLUMBIA, Mo. 鈥 Missouri football coach Eli Drinkwitz just might be a popular invite to this season鈥檚 coaching carousel, but he has a lot of reasons not to accept a ticket to ride.
The 2025 college football season is only halfway gone, and nine Football Bowl Subdivision programs have fired their coaches. In a post-House settlement financial landscape that looks a little bit more stable for university athletic departments, there are likely to be a good handful more openings.
And Mizzou鈥檚 Eli Drinkwitz, having rebuilt his program into consecutive 10-win seasons and a current Top 25 ranking, will continue to be linked to some of those jobs.
The question 鈥 the fear, for some 鈥 is whether he鈥檒l entertain any of them.
The threats to the University of Missouri losing its prized football coach are not schools like Oklahoma State, Oregon State, Virginia Tech or UCLA, all of which got the coaching search ball rolling early. A school like Arkansas, at the moment lower than Mizzou in the Southeastern Conference pecking order, isn鈥檛 especially threatening either.
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But Penn State, which dramatically dismissed James Franklin from his post Sunday, is a tier above MU in reputation. Drinkwitz鈥檚 name has already been floated on some Happy Valley hot boards.
SEC schools like Florida and Auburn, with demonstrated national championship potential, may very well open during this coaching cycle, too. The swamp and the plains may well give Drinkwitz a look, too, should they move on from Billy Napier and Hugh Freeze, respectively.
To be clear in delivering the bottom line: If Drinkwitz wants another job, he鈥檒l take it. There isn鈥檛, technically and contractually speaking, much standing in his way.
He (or the school that poaches him) would owe MU $5 million if he left before Dec. 1 of this season. After that point, his end of the buyout drops to $4 million 鈥 or less than half of his yearly salary. That鈥檚 insignificant to the dwindling number of programs in better positions than Missouri.
Therein lies the reason Mizzou administrators can sleep soundly these days. There aren鈥檛 many jobs inherently better than coaching the Tigers, and the University of Missouri has done everything it can to keep Drinkwitz happy and progressing in Columbia.
For example: It鈥檚 not like Auburn or Florida, with sky-high expectations and pressure, are comfier places to coach than CoMo.
Having won 26 games and counting in the past three seasons, Drinkwitz has made himself fairly untouchable at Missouri. He has received contract extensions in 2023, 2024 and 2025. According to the recently refreshed , he鈥檚 tied with Lane Kiffin (Mississippi), Josh Heupel (Tennessee) and Mark Stoops (Kentucky) for being the 10th-highest-paid college football coach at $9 million before bonuses come into play.
There are some, certainly, but not many schools that could comfortably offer Drinkwitz a raise.
And if it did come down to money, MU administrators would very likely be willing to up the ante to try to keep him around. Administration gave Drinkwitz a 50% raise after the Tigers鈥 breakout 2023 season to ward off suitors. And when former defensive coordinator Blake Baker was prepared to leave for Louisiana State, the administration was OK with offering Baker a second extension in as many months to try to remove money as a factor.
As far as money goes, Drinkwitz鈥檚 reasons to stay at Missouri aren鈥檛 just about the dollars headed directly to him.
MU has given him the resources to hire two play-calling coordinators and a well-regarded coaching staff. Drinkwitz鈥檚 most recent contract extension, signed in February, raised the amount of money he has to spend on assistant coaches each season from $9.8 million to $12 million.
Through both revenue-sharing and name, image, likeness (NIL) funds, Drinkwitz has had the buying power to acquire big-name 鈥 which generally means expensive 鈥 players via the transfer portal. Just this season, key contributors like running back Ahmad Hardy, defensive end Damon Wilson II, middle linebacker Josiah Trotter and quarterback Beau Pribula arrived via the portal. Some newcomers were signed to multi-year contracts, per people familiar with the agreements, and Mizzou has already begun the process of negotiating raises and renewals with some key players.
It鈥檚 not like there aren鈥檛 other schools with financial might in the NIL age, but Missouri has shown it can compete with the well-armed.
The biggest investment MU has made in Drinkwitz is one he sees every time he looks out the window of his office: a $250 million ongoing renovation of the Memorial Stadium north concourse. Approval for that project followed construction of a new $33 million indoor practice facility specifically for the football team and other upgrades.
鈥淟ittle by little, little became a lot,鈥 Drinkwitz said after the UM System Board of Curators approved the north end zone project in April 2024. 鈥淲hen we first got here, we needed lights on a practice field. We needed a new grass practice field. Then we asked to have a new indoor facility. Then we asked to redo the weight room. And now we鈥檝e asked for a $250 million stadium renovation.
鈥... It鈥檚 kind of hard to put into words the level of excitement that I have but also the level of responsibility that we have,鈥 he said.
Will that be enough to keep Drinkwitz at Missouri? It won鈥檛 be clear until or unless other offers do, in fact, come in. The real chaos and churn of the coaching cycle won鈥檛 come for another month or two.
But for now, Mizzou鈥檚 leadership should have a degree of confidence from continued investments in and commitments to its football coach, for whom this may be the year he has to decide whether to stick with the school that has given him raises and resources or pursue a greener pasture.
