Missouri announced Sunday that the UM System Board of Curators has approved a contract extension for football coach Eliah Drinkwitz that will keep him under contract in Columbia through the 2028 season.
The extension comes at the completion of Drinkwitz’s fourth and to this point most successful- season piloting the Missouri football program. Drinkwitz was named Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year at the conclusion of the 2023 regular season. Missouri finished the regular season 10-2 before earning the program’s first ever New Year’s Six bowl bid in the College Football Playoff era. He and the Tigers went on to a 14-3 victory over seventh-ranked Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl on Friday night.
Drinkwitz’s original contract to coach Missouri, signed in 2019, was a six-year deal worth more than $4 million per season. The Board of Curators extended Drinkwitz last November after the program’s win over a then-ranked South Carolina, which upped his annual value to $7 million per season and would have kept him in Missouri through 2027. Details of Sunday’s extension are not fully known, but Drinkwitz is likely to have received another pay raise after a compelling 2023 campaign.
Though Missouri’s 2023 season officially came to a close with the Cotton Bowl victory Friday, coach Drinkwitz’s schedule has remained quite busy in the days following. Drinkwitz made an appearance on “SportsCenter” with Scoot Van Pelt following the victory, and he campaigned for running back Cody Schrader to earn an invitation to the Senior Bowl. Schrader indeed did get invited to the postseason game a mere 12 hours later.
Drinkwitz and Missouri have also been active in the transfer portal, as punter Riley Williams announced Sunday morning that he would be leaving the program. Williams appeared in seven games in his only season at Missouri, averaging 40.2 yards on 28 punts, including a career-long 53-yarder against Kansas State, while sharing duties with Luke Bauer. Former Murray State punter Orion Phillips announced his intention to transfer to Missouri on Dec. 23, and he will compete with Bauer for the starting job in 2024.
Drinkwitz’s coaching staff will look virtually identical as the Tigers look forward to the 2024 season, as the program announced Dec. 21 that each of his top assistants, first-year offensive coordinator Kirby Moore and second-year defensive coordinator Blake Baker, had also signed contract extensions at the conclusion of the 2023 regular season.
