There's no doubt that there has been a significant culture change in Columbia, especially across the last three season. Mizzou has broken out as a consistently competitive team, won double-digit games in back-to-back years, and they could be on their way to another this season.
The Tigers have finally started to look like a legitimate SEC Conference threat, for the first time since they initially joined the conference, well over a decade ago. The recruiting has been superb, the stadium is twice the size that it was two years ago, and morale around Como is higher than it's been in a long time in terms of football.
That didn't come in a day - head coach Eliah Drinkwitz brought the chemistry and culture with him, when he was brought in to lead Mizzou's sidelines, following the close of the 2019-20 season.
The team immediately saw wins agaisnt programs they couldn't dream of beating, appeared in and won major bowl games, and saw themselves ranked as high as No. 8 overall, just a year before the top-12 College Football Playoff design was implemented.
Even with all of the support Drinkwitz has from administration and the majority of the fanbase, the speculation of him leaving has only grown over the course of the season. With each loss that the team accumulates, fans are starting to see a world with a new head coach next season.
Drinkwitz is a hot commodity, with how quickly he turned around a struggling Tiger football team. It doesn't help that a number of 'blue-blood' football programs have head coaching vacancies, some of which, for the first time in a long time.
The rumors began to speculate with the firing of Florida head coach Billy Napier, and only got more real with historically-talented teams Penn State and LSU terminating the contract of theirs as well (James Franklin and Brian Kelly, respectively).
Napier and Kelly had been with their respective programs since 2022, with Kelly being in college football as a head coach since 2004, and always finding success. Meanwhile, Frankling has been in the college football scene for a long time, but specifically as Penn State's head coach since 2014.
Apart from those big schools, a number of other ones also have let coaches go this year, such as UCLA and Auburn, both of which are expected to have interest in Drinkwitz.
Most noteably, SEC rival Arkansas fired Sam Pittman who's been there since 2020. Even with a subpar record each year, it's important to note that Drinkwitz is an Alma, Arkansas native, and coached at Arkansas State prior to Mizzou.
With the Tigers window of winning it all quickly fading, it's valid for a fan to wonder if their leader will depart, and many of them have. It'll likely come down to what jobs are avaliable for him, money, and his chances to win.
Drinkwitz has constantly tried to drown out the noise of the media, emphasizing his focus on winning now, but even with his current contract with the Tigers, which will last through 2029, there is always potential for a buyout if he decides to leave.
Last month, on 'The Paul Finebaum Show' Drinkwitz made his intentions for the season clear, saying “All that stuff is all fake right now. It’s October 20-whatever. Like, the only thing that matters is us playing our current game."
Other veteran head coaches, such as Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss, are rumored to depart as well, all a part of the famed 'coaching carousel', where teams just flip who coaches what team, rather than bringing in a new, inexperienced coach.
So, will he actually leave? Whether the answer to that is yes or no, it's clear Drink is simply focused on finishing this campaign strong, and going from there. He wants to win here, but more than that, he wants to win, and if he's offered a better job for him, we might not see him in black and gold next season.
For now, Eliah Drinkwitz is the head coach of the Missouri Tigers, and he seems more than happy for that to be his title, as they look to end the year by stringing a few wins together.