So you were upset with the Barry Odom firing? I'm not sure why I'm getting the heat either when a vast majority of this thread is people saying the same thing I am. Also, things are a bit different between Appalachian St/NC State and Mizzou. I've never once pushed back on the idea that he's securing resources, but that should be on the administration of the school to pull those resources and not the head coach. It was supposedly the entire god damn reason we moved from the Big 12 to the SEC was all the money it'd bring in to improve the sports programs.
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Yeah, the relationship with the fan-base/boosters is worth pointing out. Odom was shit canned not necessarily because of his record but because of waning support (and meddling success with recruiting).

Given the resources and $$, as well as location. behind the programs, the only schools that can consistently expect to compete for titles in the SEC for football are Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, LSU, Florida, A&M, Tennessee, and Auburn.

Mizzou falls in the next tier in the pecking order with South Carolina, Arkansas, and Ole Miss.

Then bottom tier is Mississippi State, Kentucky, and Vandy.

Mizzou’s realistic expectations in football should be make a bowl game 7/10 years, with contention of being in Atlanta once or twice a decade. With the possibility of 9 or 10 win seasons about twice a decade.

Mizzou isn’t a bad job, but the financial support compared to other schools as well as regional recruiting base just isn’t there.
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I call Drinkwitz “Crosseyes.” If you have ever seen him without the glasses on.
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Unfortunately Kentucky has passed us by.
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:-) Yeesh, didn't expect we'd slip into Stockholm Syndrome so soon defending this schmuck but here we are.
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Not in terms of program ceiling.

In most years, Mizzou has a much better in-state pipeline to recruit from in KC and STL than Kentucky does with Louisville and Lexington.

Stoops' success has been recruiting heavily from Ohio.

Mizzou's floor as a program is still higher than Kentucky's long-term, similar to the ceiling.

Take Stoops away and replace him with a guy with a below average hire, Kentucky goes back to what it was like with Joker Phillips.
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I'm not saying Drink is a great coach and is the next coming of Saban, far from it, but to act as if he's like Muschamp is silly.

Dude is 40, only been a HC for now 5 seasons (4 at Mizzou), and has made changes to his staff and gave up play-calling.

People bitched about Wilks. Wilks leaves. Hires Baker and has one of the best defenses in the country year 1.

People bitch about Drink calling plays. Hires an OC and gives up play-calling.

It's not like he's making the same mistakes and refusing to change. If you do that, that's how you become Jimbo Fisher.
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There is one mistake he is not learning from and it’s the most important one, starting Brady Cook.
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Yeah, and when you combine the above with a complete failure to recruit or develop an even average QB, the failure to keep the momentum in recruiting up, and having most of the talent he DID manage to bring in jump ship, it's pretty obvious why folks are starting to get sick of his shit.

But hey, apparently he plays SEC TYCOON: Booster edition relatively well and it's pretty darn tough to find success at a program like Mizzou so fuck it, let's just keep him.
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Last year he was forced to play Cook because Macon did not end up being who he thought was, Bazelak experiment didn’t work out, and Horn was a true freshman.
He also missed on transfer QBs.


This year, Horn has a year of development and brings in a 4* transfer from Miami and says it’s a competition.

Unless Garcia is better than Cook or Horn shows he’s ready, settling for inferior alternatives for an average college QB who has shown he’s admittedly average while also playing with a torn labrum and an atrocious OL would be stupid.
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I think you're severely underestimating how hard it is to both develop, keep, and evaluate a QB. The only coaches who have shown they can develop good QBs consistently are Saban, Riley, Day, and Swinney.

Swinney had probably his worst starter in a decade the past 2 years and Saban has his weakest or most unsettled QB situation since either 2014 or 2015.

Kirby Smart chose Jake Fromm over Justin Fields and an incredibly athletically limited Stetson Bennett over whoever else he had.

I think Mark Stoops is a great coach. He hasn't a QB that's he recruited out of high school start Week 1 for him since 2016. Nor has he had a QB from HS that's he recruited from HS finish the season as a starter for him since 2015. He's relied on JUCO and Power 5 transfers at QB. It's hard as fuck to get good QB play.

Regarding players jumping ship, wouldn't you do the same if you could get more playing time or money elsewhere, especially in the NIL/transfer portal era? That problem isn't unique to Mizzou.
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A little bit, but only in the sense that I thought it was premature. And when it looked like we were hiring Skip Holz I was friggen livid.

But I do think he was the wrong coach stylistically. Both in terms of his approach to roster construction and his handling of media/fans/recruits. I think Odom has no real ceiling to speak of whereas Drink has some fundamental strengths that can REALLY make him a heck of an asset.

In the end, the HC will always make a difference in gathering resources. That's the public face of your program - you can't expect him to be a glowering old gym rat and get the boosters enthusiastic. Even Saban is actually charismatic as hell.

We moved to the SEC and got more resources than we would've in the B12, yes. But everything is relative - the guys we're competing against are getting that same amount. Now how do we get beyond that? Well, that's a slow burn and it's one I think Drink is making substantial strides in.
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Also treating it like a given the resources will keep coming in. At a point the dude is going to have to prove he can actually provide results from these substantial investments or it's going to dry up. And sorry, I'm not seeing where that's going to come from given the state of the program and what's in the pipeline.
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It's weird in that I think you can view Odom and Cuonzo to be the same kind of hire.

Odom was hired because I don't think boosters really wanted to spend $ to hire a coach and the messy situation he inherited. Ultimately, I think he reached his ceiling at Mizzou. I do think he should have been given 1 more season to show what we could do with his own guys in a full 4 years of recruiting, but the result would've likely been the same.

Cuonzo inherited an absolute dumpster fire from Anderson. He probably had a bit more upside than Odom, but largely brought in due to his STL recruiting ties and showing some possibility at being a second-weekend team. He never reached that ceiling and never really delivered on his recruiting ability aside from year 1 (which I'd argue was probably his best year coaching-wise).

Drink has potential to be more than Odom and is showing adjustments and changes, but he has to eventually deliver wins.

Dennis Gates is going to be a fantastic hire long-term due to his recruiting abilities and what he did year 1 was nothing short of phenomenal.
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It's not a given that the investments will keep coming in, but if Drink is able to not alienate the boosters or fan-base to the point that Odom did, which I don't think he will, there's no reason not to think that the investments won't continue.

I do agree he does need to deliver results at some point and personally would move on from in 2024 if he doesn't hit 8 wins either this year or next, but Mizzou isn't Georgia, Florida, Alabama, etc. It takes time to develop and establish recruiting ties in football for most teams before seeing results.

I think Tennessee Year 2 under Heupel was an aberration. He inherited Hooker, and decided to bench him for Milton initially in 2021, then Hooker performed at an unsustainable rate of play with regard to his interception rate.

Similar with South Carolina. I think they improved under Beamer, no doubt, but it's hard not to when you go from starting a grad assistant at QB to a Power 5 transfer. You don't just go from getting curb stomped in Gainesville to a mediocre Florida team to dropping 63 the next week and then winning on the road at Clemson and can expect that to be the new norm in terms of performance. They'll probably finish 7-5.
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