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“Nothing has changed,� Drinkwitz said. “Sam and I had conversations, we’ve talked to his agent, nothing’s changed that I’ve heard of. I anticipate Sam’s commitment to our football program and our team.�

Horn was picked by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 17th round of the draft. Because he’s able to throw 98 miles per hour off the mound, he was a top-100 prospect despite having thrown only 15 innings in three seasons due to Tommy John surgery.

In terms of pure upside, Horn probably would’ve been picked earlier. But his agent made clear to MLB teams that Horn intended to play football this fall. The Dodgers, then, knew what they were getting into when they picked Horn.

He has until July 28 — likely the first day of MU’s preseason camp, incidentally — to decide whether or not to sign with the Dodgers. It’s not clear if the franchise would sign Horn and let him play football or if he’ll forego a deal now and hope for better draft position in 2026.

Horn is competing with Penn State transfer Beau Pribula to be the Tigers’ starting quarterback.

“I told him the day he got drafted I was proud of him,� Drinkwitz said, “and I would see him at 6:30 workouts in the morning.�

Young takes spotlight during homecoming

Mizzou defensive end Zion Young hits quarterbacks for a living. He’s part of a deep position group that he says is full of “alpha males.� And just a few minutes into his first of many interviews as a player doing the rounds at the Southeastern Conference’s media days, he was nearly in tears.

Young, one of three players Drinkwitz chose to represent the Tigers, was back in his hometown of Atlanta for the event. He starred at Westlake High School, about 16 miles from where media days were held at the College Football Hall of Fame.

“It was unreal, just being back in my hometown where I played football,� Young said. “Me being an Atlanta native, I just can’t believe I’m here right now. … It feels good, you know what I mean, to represent this team.�

His straightforward, easygoing and energetic personality made him a hit among attending media. Soundbites like “If you were a tiger, would you want to date a cat? … You’d want to date a lion� earned him a round of applause from a collection of TV reporters as he left one media session.

Drinkwitz egged on Young by reminding him of what happened during the player’s 2021 high school signing day. He snubbed Drinkwitz and MU at the last minute to sign with Michigan State.

But after two seasons with the Spartans, Young was in the portal. Drinkwitz set aside any hurt feelings to give the defensive end a call. They made up, though Drinkwitz still finds ways to remind his senior what happened.

“I didn’t make the right decision the first time,� Young said. “But we doubled back, so we here now.�

Giudice grabs right guard spot

Who will start at another of Missouri’s open offensive line positions became clearer Thursday when Drinkwitz said Michigan transfer Dominick Giudice will mostly play right guard this season.

Giudice mostly played center with the Wolverines. Of his 317 snaps last season, 250 came at center, 63 came at right guard and four came at left guard.

Returning starter Connor Tollison, who’s on track to play Week 1 with no limitations, is holding down center, though, so Giudice will bounce one spot over for his starting role. He impressed while filling in for Tollison during spring, so coaches moved him to right guard to get him comfortable working at that spot.

Giudice is likely to have one more year of eligibility to play in 2026, if he submits a waiver that MU expects would be approved, at which point he may switch back to center. For 2025, though, the right guard spot seems to be his.

Four spots along the Tigers’ offensive line are now firmed up heading into fall camp. Wake Forest transfer Keagen Trost won the right tackle job in spring practice. Giudice will play right guard, Tollison will play center. And Cayden Green will reprise his left guard role, now as one of the best in the nation at that position.

Several linemen will then compete for the left tackle job during camp.

He wanted to contrast what he saw as “whining� from his peers who’d spoken earlier in the week and in doing so offered plenty to the smaller group of media who attended his news conference from on-the-nose conspiracy-theory zingers to a thought-out vision for a 30-team College Football Playoff.

“I was sent a text message the other day by one of my good friends,� Drinkwitz said early in his opening remarks, “that said, ‘What a privilege it is to be exhausted by a challenge you choose for yourself.’ That’s something I think about a lot. When we talk about college football and college athletics, we choose to do this.�

His emphasis was on the choice, the agency that coaches still have amid widespread cynicism toward the direction of college football’s changes. Drinkwitz is as willing to critique those shifts as any other SEC coach, if not more so — and did exactly that Thursday morning with the concession that he might draw the ire of conference commissioner Greg Sankey for his suggestions.

But before he dug into the college football topics du jour, Drinkwitz fired off some wit from his hip.

“I know there’s a lot of burning questions in this room by the 14 of y’all that showed up,� he joked. “But just as a reminder, I’m not going to answer any questions about the Epstein files, about the radiation belt, and whether or not it was possible for Lee Harvey Oswald to get three shots off in seven seconds.�

There went the Post-Dispatch’s planned lines of questioning.

If Drinkwitz entered the event with a reluctance to bite on any big-picture debates, his inhibitions vanished when he was asked about his preferences on a 12-, 14- or 16-team format for the College Football Playoff in 2026 and beyond.

“This is not going to do me any favors with our commissioner,� Drinkwitz began. “When I think about college football right now and think about what we need to do, I think it really comes down to two things: what’s best for our players and what’s best for our fans. The rest of us are really only important because of the players and the fans.

“So when you think about whether it’s 12, 14 or 16, to me, if we’ve decided to go into this expansion of the playoffs and we’re trying to follow the NFL model, well, the NFL takes 44% of their teams into the playoffs to keep the passion or keep the fan base engaged. If we’re talking about 12, that’s 9% (of FBS teams). If we’re talking about 14, that’s 11%. If we’re talking about 16, that’s 12%. That’s really not changing the math for the fan base. So I really don’t understand what the big fight is about.

That doesn’t mean Drinkwitz is anti-playoff expansion. Quite the opposite, actually.

“I think we should go back and try to find more ways to include teams,� he said. “How do we get more people involved? Because that’s better for the players, that’s better for the player experience. Have more people involved in the potential to play for a championship. It’s better for the fan bases. I think we all would agree that the four college football playoff games at home campuses was a huge win for college football. We need to expand that opportunity, that energy and excitement.�

Drinkwitz then outlined his vision for a 16-team CFP format with more automatic bids given to conferences and the introduction of intraleague play-in games, bringing the total number of teams with a postseason game up to 30.

His math would give four spots each to the Big Ten and SEC, then three each to the Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conference. Each of those 14 spots would go to the winner of a play-in game, though — probably requiring the No. 1 team in the SEC to play the No. 8 team, No. 2 vs. No. 7 and so on. That adds up to 28. The final two spots in the CFP field would go to the best Group of Six conference champion and one at-large team, a berth generally set aside for Notre Dame if the Fighting Irish are good enough.

It’s a unique and bold proposal considering the idea of any play-in games is up for debate, much less that many of them. Still, Drinkwitz seemed excited to float what’s essentially a 30-team model for feedback.

“Now we’re talking about an opportunity for 30 teams, 30 fan bases to be excited and engaged — engaged and getting revenue,� he said.

The Tigers have 10 verbal commitments in their 2026 class, which puts them just 75th in 247Sports national rankings. That’s second-to-last in the SEC and not where MU generally wants to be.

Except now, in the age of ready-made starters arriving every offseason via the transfer portal, it might not be that far off.

“I know there is some angst amongst the fan base — or at least on Twitter or X — about recruiting,� Drinkwitz said. “I would just say: Relax. We’re building a roster. In the past, when it came to recruiting and building a roster, there was really only one way to do it, and there was only one window to do it. That was why there was so much focus and media attention and so much to do with signing day. That’s not the case anymore. That’s not the only way.�

Of the 38 newcomers on Missouri’s 2025 roster, 17 are freshmen in from the high school ranks, and 21 came in from the portal, Drinkwitz pointed out.

And it was as he was building that roster last December that Drinkwitz rolled out his “production over potential� catchphrase to explain why the program remained bullish on its talent despite losing some talented freshmen who’d redshirted in 2024. While the compensation players like Williams Nwaneri, Kewan Lacy and Courtney Crutchfield — three of the more noteworthy outgoing transfers — received isn’t clear, it’s likely Mizzou paid a significant amount for their signatures out of high school.

Yet that trio didn’t play much at all in 2024. Nwaneri was on the field for 38 defensive snaps, Lacy for 43 on offense and Crutchfield for 10.

“How much money can you pay to have players not playing and contributing?� Drinkwitz said. “That’s a decision everybody’s got to make.�

His decision, based on those players’ exits and the current state of MU’s high school recruiting, seems to be that those who play less will make less.

“Freshmen feel like, recruits feel like they have a certain amount of value that maybe was generated in the past,� Drinkwitz said. “I’m not sure that’s exactly going to be the value moving forward because in order to get a big-time payday, they have to be slotted to come in and start Day 1. If they’re not, my value and somebody else’s value on them may be different.�

Some schools are still willing to splash the cash on recruits. In a well-publicized recent example, Texas Tech — which is unafraid to splash the cash on anybody in any sport these days — picked up a commitment from a five-star offensive line prospect in exchange for a multimillion-dollar revenue-share contract.

With the arrival of revenue sharing via the House settlement and stricter rules on what athletes can receive through NIL deals, there’s a soft salary cap on college football rosters now. Managing that cap is part of the job for coaches and an aspect that Drinkwitz — who relinquished play-calling duties two years ago — has leaned into.

“Now, it’s about selecting the strategy and sticking to some principles,� he said, “in how you want to construct and build a roster. ... Each year, you’ve got to figure out how you want to build your team and where you want to invest your money: how much you want to invest in returning players, how much you want to invest in future players. That’s a formula that we’re working to build.�

Evidently, it’s a formula involving less on the high school front and more reliance on the portal. Hence, Drinkwitz asks fans to remain calm and cool while he waits to collect his 2026 newcomers.

“I think we’ve proven — I hope that we’ve proven — as a staff to our fan base that we know how to build a construct a roster,� he said. “Just got to put faith and trust in us, and I’m confident in our process. ... We’ll be fine when it comes down to putting a very competitive team on the field.�

Joining him from Mizzou will be center Connor Tollison, defensive end Zion Young and hybrid safety Daylan Carnell — a trio of veteran players.

Media days might not carry the same importance that they did before the proliferation of social media and fear of going viral for the wrong reasons, but questions will still be asked and some might even get answers.

Here are five questions this beat writer has heading into Mizzou’s 2025 SEC media days appearance.

Does Drinkwitz hype up or downplay the Tigers’ talent?

Missouri’s coach is on the record as saying he’s got his most talented roster yet. National media, at least based on a lack of preseason hype and accolades, would disagree. So does Drinkwitz let the “meh� feeling about his 2025 team linger without much opposition, or does he take an opportunity to build them up?

Last year, riding a 2023 breakout into preseason playoff contender status, Drinkwitz tended to side-step the excitement to avoid feeding into it too much. Will that remain the same with a very different-looking offense now, or does he turn a bit more boastful?

A confident Drinkwitz could check some of the national consensus around his program.

Does his quarterback competition rhetoric change?

Coming out of spring practice, Drinkwitz was clear he hadn’t picked a starting quarterback yet, just like he promised he’d be heading into spring ball. From the moment Sam Horn and Penn State transfer Beau Pribula came together for those workouts to compete with each other, Drinkwitz has suggested their battle would come down to fall camp.

In May, he acknowledged this quarterback competition is “a little bit different� from past ones because he’s “got one of them (Horn) who’s playing baseball and the other one who’s able to be around more.� That’s seemingly a point in favor of Pribula, who already entered the battle as the external favorite.

It’d be surprising if Drinkwitz were to, say, name his starter at media days. It’d also be surprising if he doesn’t get a question or two about what’s next at football’s most important position. Will he use the same analogies, mention the same priorities as past answers about the topic? Or has anything changed that would shift his rhetoric?

Oh, and you can count on the Post-Dispatch to ask if he’s heard from Horn since the quarterback/pitcher was drafted by the Dodgers earlier this week.

Does the Border War’s return break through an SEC media circus?

The most-anticipated game on Mizzou’s 2025 schedule isn’t an SEC matchup. It’s the return of MU-Kansas in a Sept. 6 Border War matchup. Will that be of interest to an SEC media contingent?

Drinkwitz and his players usually get questions about other teams, players and stadiums, usually from reporters looking for angles related to the team they cover. What’s it going to be like to play a game at Auburn’s Jordan-Hare Stadium? Do you want to sack/intercept Arch Manning? How do you think Oklahoma looks this year?

It’s not like Missouri is the only SEC school with a rival outside of the conference. Clemson has South Carolina. Kentucky has Louisville. Florida has Florida State and Miami. But the Border War rivalry that dates back to the beginning of MU’s football history might not carry as much intrigue in a self-interested SEC.

Is Tollison good to go?

Tollison missed the last few games of 2024 with a leg injury and was limited during spring practices. If he’s got the green light to fully participate in fall camp and play in the opener, that’s good news for the Tigers: Tollison has emerged as one of the best centers in the conference.

His presence at media days would point toward his being healthy, but the distinction between ready for the opener and cleared for contact at the start of camp is important. Checking in on the health of the rest of the MU roster will also be noteworthy.

How much does Drinkwitz go big picture?

With college sports changing plenty during Drinkwitz’s Mizzou tenure, he hasn’t been afraid to opine on the state of the game, from realignment to transfers to the lack of a clear entity in charge. Coaches who’ve gone earlier in the week have been asked about the potential of a nine-game SEC schedule, tampering and more.

Drinkwitz could, in so many words, shut those questions down or talk around them. Or he might engage, putting his thoughts on the record. He’s fully capable of fueling a headline or two if he opts for the latter.

The SEC QB contingent includes five of the top nine Heisman Trophy candidates in terms of preseason betting odds. Six media days representatives are returning starters.

Are those the kind of quarterback stats that will matter once games kick off in six-ish weeks? Not at all. But the SEC’s quarterback dynamics — and how Missouri’s QB battle fits into them — are a compelling canvas for what’s to come in 2025.

Does SEC experience matter? Do transitions to new starters progress better with a transfer or a successor who’s waited his turn? The multiplicity of paths to starting jobs in this conference is what will be fruitful to follow.

Grabbing, by far, the most media attention this week has been Texas quarterback Arch Manning. No surprise there. He wasn’t the starter for his first two seasons with the Longhorns, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t tailed by the spotlight.

With 95 passing attempts in 12 career appearances, he’s not quite an unknown, but Manning is hardly an experienced college quarterback either. Yet that’s done little to slow the hype train that has him as the betting favorite for the Heisman.

Arguably the main basis for why Louisiana State quarterback Garrett Nussmeier is second in the odds, however, is that he’s experienced. Like Manning, he waited his turn. And after 2023 Heisman winner Jayden Daniels moved on to the NFL, Nussmeier took over in the Bayou.

His debut season as a starter was uneven. Nussmeier led the SEC in completions but also interceptions. He posted 4,052 passing yards for 29 touchdowns and 12 picks. LSU coach Brian Kelly was adamant Tuesday that it’s that kind of season that sets up Nussmeier to be one of the best in the nation this year.

“I can’t underestimate how important the development was,� Kelly said. “I think we all, you all saw it. Jayden Daniels’ development in Year 1 to Year 2 was astronomical — if that word even suits it. It was incredible. Garrett Nussmeier will have a similar jump. It’s because you go on the ground and it’s sold out, you play teams that are so well-coached and so balanced and have great players that you have no choice but to learn, develop and get better or you’re going to be left by the side.

“So that’s why I’m confident that experience, in this league, at the quarterback position is the most important thing. Could you come in and play as a freshman? Absolutely. But there will be those moments where you look like a freshman. You look like a first-year player. Garrett will tell you that, and he wasn’t a true freshman.�

Kelly’s philosophy ought to mean good tidings for the likes of South Carolina and Florida, which will start redshirt sophomore LaNorris Sellers and true sophomore D.J. Lagway, respectively. Maybe even Auburn quarterback Jackson Arnold, who transferred from the Plains after a disappointing season at Oklahoma.

He’s a unique intra-SEC quarterback transfer. Arnold played a bit in 2023, the Sooners’ last season in the Big 12. Then he struggled in 2024 behind the conference’s worst offensive line, taking a beating and at one point getting benched for a true freshman.

“Now it was just a matter of, man, let’s give this guy a restart and let him regain his swagger and confidence,� Auburn coach Hugh Freeze said.

Does SEC experience count as helpful when it’s requiring a quarterback to undergo a mental reset?

Some coaches would seemingly like to have more experience at quarterback than they do. Take Georgia’s Kirby Smart, for example. He’s been one of the best coaches in college football, but his Bulldogs will look quite a bit different in 2025: 54% of the roster is made up of first- and second-year players, comprising the youngest UGA team of his career.

“There is a youthful exuberance,� Smart said. “That can be both positive and negative. ... It’s their first time getting a chance to start. It’s their first time being a major player in the rotation. There’s good and bad about both. We’ve got to manage that. We’ve got to be patient with them, and we’ve got to get them better.�

The almost-wishful nature of those words go for his entire team but fits quarterback Gunner Stockton, who’s entering his fourth season overall but first as a starter. Can Georgia afford to be patient with a starting QB?

Then there’s the matter of the five programs that didn’t bring any quarterbacks to Atlanta: Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas A&M and Missouri. Are they just less confident in the position?

Kentucky’s Zach Calzada transferred in from Incarnate Word but via Texas A&M and Auburn, so he has SEC experience. Aggies quarterback Marcel Reed was their signal-caller of choice at times last season. There’s some upside to both.

The other three programs that left their quarterbacks at home have ongoing battles at the position. Mizzou is down to Beau Pribula and Sam Horn, neither of whom have all that much experience. Alabama is down to Ty Simpson, Austin Mack and Keelon Russell.

And all of them are probably feeling better than Tennessee right about now, which is moving on from Nico Iamaleava’s messy spring exit with the kind of spin from coach Josh Heupel that just can’t come off as confident.

“It’s never about who’s not in your building but about who is in your building,� Heupel said.

In 2025, the SEC will show whether it’s about the experience in your building, too.

There aren’t many metaphorical pins with which to poke the collective ego of the SEC when it comes to competitive depth in football and men’s basketball in particular. Even if the past two football national championship games have been played without any SEC teams involved, there’s still a combined might to the conference.

And a commercial might, too, which by the sound of it is arguably more important now.

Sankey touted a statistic that roughly 40% of linear TV viewership for 2024 college football games was of SEC games. The Big Ten, he said, brought in about 30%.

That’s the kind of odd relationship that college sports’ two biggest conferences have. They’re competing with each other, having swelled in size to “superconference� status. But the Atlantic Coast Conference and Big 12 have grown, too. Together, they’re the Power Four. But really, it’s two and two.

There are fault lines on topics like College Football Playoff expansion. Sankey remains in favor of a “5+11� format for a 16-team bracket that would give automatic bids to the five highest-ranked conference champions and leave the other 11 up to the selection committee, whereas the Big Ten has backed a “4+4+2+2� model that would give more automatic bids to power conferences and leave less up to the committee.

Speaking of postseason expansion: Sankey spoke loosely in favor of bringing the NCAA basketball tournaments up to 72 or 76 teams, though he didn’t cite those exact numbers.

“In general, we are supportive of expanding both the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments,� he said. “Nothing in college basketball is static. Tournament expansion is certainly worth exploring. As last season showed, the Southeastern Conference is going to be fine whether the bracket expands or not.�

What the SEC did last season — 14 of its 16 teams made the men’s field, 10 made the women’s — goes against the argument for the league to be behind it. Does the league really want to reward the team that finished 15th in its men’s hoops standings, 3-15 Louisiana State, with a postseason spot? On the women’s side, should 5-11 Florida have earned a bid?

This is where Sankey’s philosophy seems to diverge from the priorities of fans and coaches. Ask a coach or a fan what they’d like to see changed with college sports and you’re probably going to get a whole laundry list — confusing new compensation rules, the transfer portal, scheduling imbalances — before someone passionately suggests adding four or eight more teams to March Madness.

To his credit, Sankey mentioned the general malaise toward the modern age of college sports in his remarks — “an inventory of all that’s happening,� as he called it.

“We wonder what might be the next state law to be introduced or the next lawsuit,� he said. “We’re interested in litigation that has resulted in individuals being able to participate in college sports well into their mid-20s. That starts to remove opportunities for aspiring high school athletes.�

Sure, that’s a concern for some. Maybe even many. But there’s a tense juxtaposition to that Sankey comment as well: In the media days spotlight, wearing a tuxedo as one of Vanderbilt’s three player attendees Monday was quarterback Diego Pavia. His play style and personality have rejuvenated the Commodores — and his legal victory set off a wave of eligibility-related lawsuits around the country. Nothing comes without a little tension for Sankey these days.

Mizzou, Ole Miss in similar spots

The last time Missouri and Mississippi played each other in football was 2019, and there’s no indication of when the Tigers and Rebels will face off again. It’s too bad, because there are still some interesting parallels between the programs.

At this point last year, Mizzou and Ole Miss were programs gunning for CFP spots after breakout 2023 campaigns. Then both went 9-3 in the 2024 regular season, missing out by more or less one too many bad losses: at Florida for Mississippi, at South Carolina for MU.

With 21 wins apiece in the past two seasons, both programs are trying to sustain the success they’ve found in a new age of college sports with heavy turnover across their rosters. Mizzou and Ole Miss will both have new starters at quarterback, running back, multiple receiver spots and most offensive line positions.

While Tigers coach Eli Drinkwitz won’t talk about his quarterback situation until his turn at the podium Thursday, Rebels coach Lane Kiffin was candid in the risks of moving from first-round draft pick Jaxson Dart to new starter Austin Simmons.

“They’re very different,� Kiffin said. “If you look at how they throw — (Dart) right-handed, (Simmons) left-handed — that would basically be everything about them. Everything is different. That’s OK. Austin has to make sure he doesn’t have to try to be Jaxson. Jaxson wasn’t Jaxson until he was a third-year.�

Kiffin’s answer is not quite an outright admission that Ole Miss could take a step back in quarterback play, but that’s a possible interpretation, even if he also underscored his excitement for the Simmons era.

When it’s Drinkwitz’s turn on Thursday, will he talk similarly of MU quarterback suitors Sam Horn and Beau Pribula? The degree of confidence in his QB battle is something to watch for amid the broader similarities between Missouri and Ole Miss.