Eli Drinkwitz jokes Missouri will play Kansas City Chiefs, St. Louis Battlehawks in 2024
Missouri Tigers head coach Eli Drinkwitz likes to joke around when he has the chance, like when he poked fun at Dan Mullen for dressing like Darth Vader.
Drinkwitz’s latest target seems to be the SEC schedule, which has seen leaks and rumors run wild about the 2024 schedule ahead of the official release. In particular, he decided to joke about how difficult every predicted schedule is going to be by saying Missouri is set to take on the Kansas City Chiefs and St. Louis Battlehawks.
“SOURCE,” Eli Drinkwitz tweeted. “@MizzouFootball to play @XFLBattlehawks and the @Chiefs in the upcoming 24 season.”
On a day when rumors are swirling about who is going to play who and concerns about imbalanced strengths of schedule, it’s a pretty good joke from the Missouri coach.
Of course, it helps that the Tigers are less concerned about protecting traditional rivals than a lot of other teams in the SEC because they only joined in the last round of conference realignment. So, Missouri hasn’t exactly had a ton of time to build long running rivalries with anyone in the SEC, save for some SEC East opponents.
Ultimately, the schedule won’t be quite as difficult as Eli Drinkwitz joked. There won’t be any games at Arrowhead. Still, it should be interesting to see who Missouri is going to be playing in an eight game format.
Why Eli Drinkwitz is in favor of a 9-game scheduling model
The SEC is going to stay at eight conference games for the 2024 season, even though not everyone agreed with that decision. One of the people who was in favor of moving to the nine game model was actually Eli Drinkwitz.
“Well, based on the last information I was given, which the last time it was really discussed at length with the coaches that I’m aware of was last year at this meeting, I’m on the nine-game schedule. I like the setup of three permanents. I think the more permanents that you have, the more that you can measure your program against consistent opponents. I also think it preserves the basis of the SEC,” Drinkwitz said.
“The Southeastern Conference is the best conference in college football because of its fans and the passion of its fan base. And I think you run the risk of losing that with the short-sightedness of, well, this schedule is not fair for me. It’s not fair for me if I have to play eight.”
As Drinkwitz went on to explain, it’s important for him to preserve rivalries within the SEC to make for a good fan experience. That’s even if it makes life harder for coaches.
“I think the reality of it is preserving the primary and secondary rivalries of this league are important for the league. I think it’s important to the fan base; it’s important now more than ever with the competition for dollars and passion and sports. If you move too far away from it; you’re going to open the door for fans to travel to other venues for entertainment,” Drinkwitz said.
“I don’t blame them; most coaches are wired because of the high turnover of our jobs. It’s hard to have any vision other than what’s right in front of us for the next six months. And [I] totally understand that it’ll be more favorable in some instances. My argument is that with one permanent and seven consistent rotating games, there’s not enough consistency in that schedule. And we don’t have enough control over those seven games. I mean, our conference ebbs and flows with teams that are up and down. And so, you may get a year where your seven games you match up with a team that’s having a heck of a run.”