Mizzou’s Eli Drinkwitz sounds off on college sports’ latest shakeup: ‘Did we count the cost?’

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Eli Drinkwitz paused for 11 seconds. Shortly after Saturday’s preseason practice, Missouri’s football coach met with reporters for the first time since another blistering round of realignment shook up the state of college athletics, placing schools more than 2,900 miles apart in the same conference, all while Congress is introducing bills to regulate how college athletes can earn compensation for their name, image and likeness.

Asked for his thoughts on the wild past few days that saw five more schools leave behind a carcass of what was once the Pac-12 Conference — Oregon and Washington are off to the Big Ten, following the path of longtime Pac-12 peers USC and UCLA, while Arizona, Arizona State and Utah joined Colorado’s exodus to the Big 12 — Drinkwitz couldn’t resist speaking his mind. But first he paused, surely recalling the last time he sounded off and the Twittershpere quickly twisted his words into something else. But this time he couldn’t resist.

Here is Drinkwitz’s full response to Saturday’s question about what unfolded the past few days. “All right, well, I’ll say it,” he said. “I thought the transfer window … the portal was closed.

Oh, that’s just for the student athletes. The adults in the room get to do whatever they want, apparently. “And it’s just sad that there’s … Look, my question is, did we count the cost? I’m not talking about a financial cost.

I’m talking about did we count the cost for the student-athletes involved in this decision? What cost is it to those student-athletes? We’re talking about a football decision — they based it off football — but what about softball and baseball (teams) who have to travel cross country? Do we ask about the cost of them? Do we know what the No. 1 indicator or symptom or cause of mental health is? It’s lack of rest and sleep. Traveling in those baseball/softball games, those people, they travel commercial and they get done playing at 4 (p.

m. ) They gotta go to the airport, they come back, it’s 3 or 4 in the morning. They gotta go to class.

I mean, did we ask any of them? Are we going to look back … ? “I don’t worry at all about the game (of football. ) The game is going to be strong. Football is going to be fine.

We’ll all figure it out. But did we consider the people that we entrusted … (and) consider the student-athlete? Because then we’re asking them to go out on their own to get NIL. We didn’t say we’re going to revenue share.

We’re not saying they’re getting a piece of it. So that’s the thing that’s bothering me right now in this whole situation is we keep trying to limit what the student-athlete can do, but then we act on our own. And everybody’s got their own reasons.

And I’m not questioning those. I’m saying as a collective group have we asked ourselves what’s it gonna cost the student-athletes? “I saw on Twitter, several (Pac-12) student-athletes talking about one of the reasons they chose their school was so that their parents didn’t have to travel. They chose a local school so that they could be regionally associated so their parents could watch them play and not have to travel.

Did we ask them if they wanted to travel from the East Coast to the West Coast? “Man, I love the game. But every game that I coach, I look up in the stands and find my family. I make sure they can be there.

Because that’s what I’m doing this for. You’re talking talking about volleyball, baseball, softball, track, all those other sports, man. They don’t get they’re not fortunate to travel like the way we do football all the time.

Football will be fine. Still did we count the cost of the collateral damage for everybody else? I don’t know. Only time will tell.

But that is my biggest (thought) looking this 24 hours after. I don’t think we did. ” Asked further about the possibility that realignment leaves only three mega-conferences still standing, Drinkwitz declined to address what he called a hypothetical.

“That affects nothing about my season this year,” he said. “I know what the schedule is this year. I know what the SEC is.

So I’m fine on that aspect of it. I’ve got no real ideas or assumptions on the future of college football. I feel confident that we’re gonna play in about three and a half weeks.

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