Few things can backfire on a millionaire coach like telling fans how to spend their money.
It says plenty about where Eli Drinkwitz has led his football Tigers that when he went there this week, he largely got his point across effectively without much, if any, legitimate backlash.
Sure, there was some social media grumbling. Welcome to 2024. But I think most understood where Drinkwitz was coming from with his remarks. And we will find out Thursday if they were buying what he was selling.
“In my opinion, if we don’t sell out that first game, that shows me that we’re not where we want to be as a fan base yet,†Drinkwitz said.
Drinkwitz knows he’s earned the right to have some opinions. He carefully phrased the message. It’s a challenge. Don’t make Thursday about Murray State. Make it about Mizzou.
If his quote offended some, there’s a pretty good chance those in that camp weren’t going to be convinced to go to the game in the first place. They are the ones who complain about a Thursday kickoff, ignoring that the reason Mizzou moves Labor Day weekend games to Thursday night is because a significant amount of feedback says most fans both want more night games and also don’t like when games land on holiday weekends.
I’d bet there are some out there who heard the coach’s message and decided, you know what, they would go to the game after all. That’s who Drinkwitz was trying to reach, and if it worked, so did his play.
He’s not going to stop pushing, folks. Drinkwitz’s never-settle nature is a big part of the reason he’s reached this point. Right now, the Tigers hold in their paws a legitimate shot to crack the first ever 12-team College Football Playoff. It would be huge. Mammoth, to borrow an old phrase from Gary Pinkel.
A sold-out season opener would not just keep Mizzou’s active sellout streak alive. It would send a message that Mizzou has embraced its place on the big stage. Now would be the perfect time for it, especially here in ºüÀêÊÓƵ.
The Cardinals are running out of time to make a comeback. City SC, which surprised many by becoming the ºüÀêÊÓƵ pro sports team of the summer a year ago, is navigating second-season growing pains. The Blues have a climbing sense of optimism about them, but they haven’t started yet and they have missed back-to-back postseasons during their retool. It’s the Tigers’ time, if they seize it.
Coming off an 11-win season and a takedown of Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl means there will be no buy-in win needed, like Kansas State last season, to get fans off the fence about dreaming big. Securing a preseason ranking of No. 11, the program’s highest since 2008, could matter more than most preseason rankings in previous seasons, as it will absolutely influence the bracket-defining CFP rankings that come later. A schedule that is as inviting as one can be for an SEC team starts with four consecutive home games; launches conference play against bottom dwelling Vanderbilt at home; offers bye weeks before massive games against both Texas A&M and Oklahoma; and gives fifth-year coach Drinkwitz what should be an upper hand against multiple coaches who are entering their first seasons at their respective programs.
Eleven wins gets you in. What about 10? Decent chance, especially if you have style points from lopsided wins against overmatched foes, like Murray State. So, when Drinkwitz is still nudging the same fan base that already sold out season ticket sales and doubled its student ticket sales since 2022, there is a method to his message. Mizzou isn’t really playing Murray State on Thursday. It’s writing the first chapter of what has the chance to be a special story, and doing so gets easier if Murray State — and Buffalo and Boston College, for that matter — feel like they’re walking into the same sold-out hostile atmosphere that will welcome Oklahoma on Nov. 9.
Other than encouraging folks to subscribe to the Post-Dispatch, I’m not interested in telling them how to spend their dollars. But I will say this. If Mizzou wants to continue to take steps toward the Georgias and the Alabamas of the world, one of the steps is committing to each game being a big game, because of where each game, even the cupcake ones on the nonconference schedule, could add up to lead.
It didn’t make sense to many outside of Alabama when now retired coaching legend Nick Saban would scold fans for leaving lopsided wins early, or yap about student sections that filled in too late for his liking. But it did resonate with his supporters. And it did cause some to adjust their thinking. That’s why Saban did it more than once. It worked.
If Mizzou winds up selling out its opener, I’d imagine you will hear praise, not pointedness, from Drinkwitz after the game. What he’s trying to stress is that a big-game atmosphere is part of big-time college football, and that it can help feed a team that has something a lot larger to play for than just a win against Murray State.