Eli Drinkwitz congratulates Kirby Moore on Washington State job, shares impact on Missouri staff

Another job in the head coaching carousel was filled on Friday when it was announced that Washington State was hiring Missouri offensive coordinator Kirby Moore. Moore, who played at Boise State, previously coached at Fresno State, and was born in Washington, returns to the region he knows best.

For the past three seasons, Moore has been instrumental in Missouri‘s success. Over that span, the Tigers compiled a 29-9 record and won back-to-back bowl games (2023 Cotton Bowl and 2024 Music City Bowl). With Moore calling plays, Missouri has averaged 32.2 points per game since the beginning of the 2023 season.

Prior to kicking off Tuesday’s media opportunity, Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz congratulated Moore and his family on the opportunity.

“Congratulations to Kirby and Kayla Moore for being named the head coach at Washington State,” Drinkwitz said. “What an awesome opportunity for them. As assistant coaches, you always dream about the opportunity of being a head coach. For him to be able to get so close to home in a place that he values and cares so much about, I think it’s really, really cool. We wish him the absolute best.

“We really, really enjoyed our time with Coach Moore and he certainly left it better than he found it. He contributed to 29 wins in his time here and saw this place continue to grow and develop, so a lot of our success is owed to Coach Moore. We wish him all the best moving forward.”

Eli Drinkwitz reveals Missouri’s play-calling plans for Gator Bowl

Missouri finished the 2025 season with an 8-4 record, marking the first time since the 2022 season that the Tigers haven’t won 10 games. They will have a chance to reach nine wins however, as they will face Virginia in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl on Dec. 27. Although bowl games have lost a bit of luster lately, this will serve as a big opportunity for Missouri, as Virginia would have been a Playoff team had it downed Duke in the ACC Championship Game.

Asked about who will be calling plays in Jacksonville due to Moore’s departure, Drinkwitz joked that they’d just flip a coin on a play-by-play basis.

“We’ll probably just flip a coin,” Drinkwitz joked. “Each play, we’ll just flip a coin and see who wants it. We’re putting it together. Honestly, a staff collaboration will probably be one of the best things we can do with how we design and operate gameplans. Somebody’s gotta call it and call it the way they do, but we’ll work through it the rest of this week as we go through who’s calling and talking to the quarterback and all of that stuff.”

If Missouri can pull off a win over the Cavaliers, it will mark the program’s first three-game bowl winning streak since 2011, 2013-2014.