Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz just made a strong point that every Tennessee Vols fan should immediately embrace
Most Tennessee Vols fans aren’t big fans of Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz, but they’ll love what he said on Monday at SEC Media Days.
Tennessee Vols fans aren’t big fans of Missouri Tigers head coach Eli Drinkwitz — due to some drama with Josh Heupel over the years — but he dropped some important truth on Monday at SEC Media Days that UT football fans should agree with.
Drinkwitz said on Monday morning that coaches in the SEC are already regretting moving to a nine-game conference schedule (2026 will be the first year of a nine-game SEC schedule).
“We’re all saying it (that it’s a mistake to move to a nine-game SEC schedule),” said Drinkwitz. “I think we’re all saying it when we look at our schedules. It’s going to be a real challenge. I think Coach (Lane) Kiffin has been somebody who’s been, whether publicly or privately, been on the forefront — even last year in these meetings — saying, ‘Guys, I don’t think that this is the right play for us.’
“But at the end of the day, it is what it is. And we’ve got to meet those challenges head on. Now, I think the one thing that that we don’t get enough credit for in the SEC is the challenge of the stadiums that we play in — the environments that we play in. Obviously, the FIFA World Cup has done a tremendous job of putting our stadiums on display. And the stadiums they’re playing in, they’re great stadiums, but they’re not comparable to the SEC stadiums that you’re talking about. I mean, I think yesterday FIFA’s World Championship was in front of 80,000 fans. That’s 25,000 short of some of these other stadiums that we play in — Death Valley and Athens. Ben Hill Griffin, I think it’s 88,000. But I mean, Knoxville, that’s a whole different deal. And there’s nothing you can do to remove 20,000 people from a game. That’s a tremendous challenge for anybody to walk into. And we’ve got to play Starkville at night this year with those cowbells. I think that’s about 80,000 strong there. That’s going to be a real challenge for everybody.”
Part of the reason that Drinkwitz is concerned about the nine-game conference schedule is because it’s not clear how the College Football Playoff committee is going to evaluate it when they compile the playoff rankings.
“The bottom line is wins and losses are the number one metric that they’re going to value,” said Drinkwitz on SEC Nation. “And then number two, there’s some analytics and stats that don’t make sense that none of us would even recognize that they value in the process.
“I think the challenge for me is there shouldn’t be a committee in determining who enters into the playoff. It should be decided on the football field. Football is a game that’s played in a stadium on a field, and there’s a winner and a loser. … I think in any format, whether we expand the playoff or not, when there’s a committee that’s going to determine who’s in, there’s going to be a lot of controversy in that.”
I think Drinkwitz is spot on. There’s just no upside to the SEC moving to a nine-game conference schedule. There’s no guarantee that a 9-3 SEC team with three SEC losses is going to get into the playoff. It’s inevitably going to be harder to make the playoff as an SEC team now than it’s ever been (at least until the playoff expands).
I recently noted that 2027 is when Tennessee’s national championship window will truly open.
Well guess what? Tennessee has to play five SEC road games in 2027 (Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma). It’s really, really hard to win on the road in the SEC. And adding a fifth SEC road game to the schedule is just going to make it even tougher for the Vols to lock down a spot in the playoff. Tennessee could have a championship-caliber team but lose to Alabama, Georgia, and Oklahoma on the road (while beating Florida, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, and Mississippi State at home) and realistically get left out.
Drinkwitz is right — the SEC made a mistake. And everyone is going to feel it — at least until the playoff expands (like it or not, college football is a tournament sport now — the college football we all grew up with is dead and gone).