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Who is Eliah Drinkwitz, the soon-to-be Mizzou football coach?

By Thomas Huitt-Johnson

CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA - SEPTEMBER 21: Head coach Eliah Drinkwitz of the Appalachian State Mountaineers celebrates with his players and their fans after a win against the North Carolina Tar Heels at Kenan Stadium on September 21, 2019 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The Mountaineers won 34-31. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA - SEPTEMBER 21: Head coach Eliah Drinkwitz of the Appalachian State Mountaineers celebrates with his players and their fans after a win against the North Carolina Tar Heels at Kenan Stadium on September 21, 2019 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The Mountaineers won 34-31. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images) /
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Eliah Drinkwitz has been around the border states and has coached in the SEC before.

Eliah Drinkwitz wasn’t an early candidate Mizzou football brought to the UM System Board of Curators, but he was one the Tigers kept an eye on from the beginning.

Once athletic director Jim got the opportunity to hire Drinkwitz, the committee was all in — and three of the board members flew out to North Carolina to meet with Drinkwitz on Sunday, according to Dave Matte of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Tigers haven’t made it official, but Mizzou has hired Drinkwitz as its new football coach.

Missouri Tigers Football
Missouri Tigers Football /

Missouri Tigers Football

So Mizzou has its guy. The new Tiger at the helm will be the second-youngest coach at a Power Five school, second to Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley. Drinkwitz will turn 37 years old in April.

He spent one year at Appalachian State, where he guided the Mountaineers to a 12-1 record, a No. 20 ranking in the top two polls and won a Sun Belt Championship. They are set to take on UAB in the New Orleans Bowl later this month.

Drinkwitz took over a Mountaineers team that went 11-2 in 2018 under then-head coach Scott Satterfield, who took over the Louisville program this season. Drinkwitz took over a good team, yes, but even Satterfield’s teams weren’t beating Power Five teams like Drinkwitz.

The Mountaineers knocked off North Carolina 34-31 and South Carolina 20-15 this year — both on the road.

Before his year at Appalachian State, Drinkwitz spent many seasons in Arkansas. Because of that, many believed he was the top candidate for the Razorbacks. He was directly asked about the Hogs opening after his team took down Louisiana 45-38 on Saturday to win the Sun Belt title. But Mizzou came in over the weekend and won the battle for its next head coach. Arkansas hired Sam Pittman to be its coach, also on Sunday.

A native of Norman, Oklahoma, Drinkwitz was an assistant coach for four years at a pair of Arkansas high schools and coached under now-Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn. He worked on Auburn’s 2010 staff, the year the Tigers won the national championship under Gene Chizik. He then went to Arkansas State, where he was a running backs coach, once again under Malzahn. After a couple offensive coordinator stops at Boise State and North Carolina State, Drinkwitz got the nod for his first head-coaching gig.

Now, that has led him back to the SEC to coach the Mizzou Tigers.

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