By Jim Johnson
SouthernPigskin.com

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Throughout his career, if nothing else, Missouri’s new head coach Eliah Drinkwitz has proven to be adaptable.

After the ousting of Barry Odom, the Missouri brass has announced that Eliah Drinkwitz, most recently the head coach at Appalachian State, will take over.

Drinkwitz steps in to fill a surprising void, tasked with replacing a man that few expected to be let go.

Prior to his brief, one year tenure at App, Drinkwitz served under Dave Doeren, in Raleigh, as NC States offensive coordinator and as the tight ends coach at Boise State before that, in 2014, and as the Broncos offensive coordinator in 2015.

Hes had some previous SEC experience as well, on staff for Auburns 2010 national title run.

Throughout his career, if nothing else, Drinkwitz has proven to be adaptable.

Heres how his various units fared when he was an OC, the four years prior to this season:

The FEI and S&P+ rankings are opponent adjusted measures of overall offensive efficacy, excluding garbage time. Granted, its a small sample size, given that those were the only four offenses that hes ever had full control over, but one thing that stands out is how although his impact wasnt immediate, both Boise State and NC State suffered a slight regression in year one relative to the year before, the Wolfpack were notably better off in years two and three than they were even under his predecessor Matt Canada, a talented play caller in his own right.

Plus, aside from the improvement, hes also never headed up a bad offense. So, even if the Mizzou offense stagnates, and it wasnt exactly otherworldly this season (98th in offensive OAYP), as long as he makes a good defensive coordinator hire and the Tigers stay solid on that side of the ball (39th in defensive OAYP), theres no reason to panic. A potential short term stall is worth the opportunity of long term dividends.

The rushing S&P+ and passing S&P+, along with the corresponding run rates, offer evidence of his aforementioned malleability. When he could run the ball effectively, he ran the ball more. When he couldnt, he didnt try to force the issue. Balance for the sake of balance is an objectively pointless endeavor. Drinkwitz is apparently aware of that and willing to play to the strengths of his personnel, as opposed to trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It seems obvious, but coaches from sea to shining sea fall victim to the trappings of whatever theyre personal schematic preferences are. Jimmys and Joes win more games than Xs and Os.

Based on the respective success rate and IsoPPP rankings, he also values efficiency over explosiveness. Neither is inherently more effective than the other, but establishing efficiency is generally more reliable. Big plays are like three pointers in basketball — sometimes they just dont fall. Now, this doesnt mean his offenses dont create a high rate of big plays, the IsoPPP metric simply indicates that the successful plays his offenses do create arent quite as explosive as the average successful play. That being said, the only way to manufacture big plays is to first create successful plays, which his units do at a high clip. For example, despite ranking 97th in IsoPPP in 2018, NC State was 15th in the FBS, gaining 20+ yards on nearly 10% of their snaps.

Another thing that should please the Missouri faithful is his history of top end offensive line play. Mizzou churned out one of the best blocking groups in the SEC last season. This year, however, the protection inexplicably took a marked step back. Anything less than a return to form under Drinkwitz would be a surprise.

Finally, looking at his offenses average non-garbage time points per drive and touchdown rates, with the exception of 2016, his squads have consistently found ways to score at a rate above their expected output, based on overall efficiency and explosiveness. Basically, when his teams take care of the ball, theyre elite. When they dont, theyre still fine, but dont meet their full potential.

For what its worth, as good as his App State team was this season, I have a hard time giving him much praise for it. That was a straight up maintenance job, taking over for Scott Satterfield, that would have been harder to mess up than keep going. Credit where its due for keeping the Mountaineer machine rolling, but that has been one of the elite G5 teams pretty much since joining the FBS and returned a ton of talent on both sides of the ball. They are currently at #18 in overall OAYP — 29th on offense and 16th on defense — which is better than Missouri on all three accounts, but his one year at App says more about that program than it does about him.

As mentioned above, his defensive coordinator hire will be crucial. For all that he promises on the offensive side of the ball, defense has been this programs calling card in each of its most successful campaigns, since joining the conference.

Still, if the status quo can merely be upheld under the new regime, the return to offensive form under Eliah Drinkwitz brings with it a higher ceiling for the program at large — one that has already established itself as being capable of competing for the SEC East with some consistency.