Eli Drinkwitz was not about to jump in the deep end of commenting on the projected future annual opponents once Oklahoma and Texas join the SEC.

For starters, he was asked by 247Sports about Arkansas, Oklahoma and Vanderbilt possibly being on Missouri’s schedule. He also referenced Alabama’s Nick Saban making critical comments about having to play Tennessee, LSU and Auburn.

“I don’t have nearly as much clout as Coach Saban, so I’m not going to make any comments on the record, like I know for sure that that’s the 3 proposed teams or not, and I’m not going to complain and side one way or the other,” Drinkwitz said. “I just know that we’re in a situation where we’re going to have to figure out a way to play 9 games. My biggest challenge is we figure this out sooner rather than later because what people are not talking about is if you have 5 away games in the SEC, you better make sure that your non-conference schedule doesn’t have 2 away games, or you’re going to be looking at a season where you have 7 away games and just 5 home games.”

The Missouri coach also noted the ACC-SEC rivalry games that alternate home and home, and how complex the proposed system is to accomplish.

“It’s not going to be perfect for everybody, nothing is,” he said.

Proper perspective

Drinkwitz takes a good perspective here in that Missouri, and several teams in the SEC, will be in a position where scheduling, and rivalry games, will have to sacrifice. The SEC and Missouri and Arkansas have done a decent job promoting the Battle Line rivalry even though it’s truly a secondary rivalry to Mizzou fans behind Kansas. After all, Drinkwitz seems to have the proper perspective about where he and Mizzou stand in a group meeting of SEC coaches and other leaders.

The Oklahoma addition here, hypothetically, could open up some recruiting pipelines for Mizzou the way Texas has been historically. As always, the key for the Tigers is to beat the mid-tier and lower-tier SEC programs, like Kentucky, South Carolina and Vanderbilt in a division format, and the likes of Arkansas if divisions are eliminated. If Drinkwitz can have a winning record for an extended period over those programs, he will coach there a long time if he wants to, and maybe even finish his career at Mizzou.