COLUMBIA - The coronavirus pandemic has touched the lives of every American in one way or another, and the members of the Missouri football team are no different.
Missouri coach Eliah Drinkwitz, speaking to media members via video conference Wednesday, did his best to remain upbeat in the face of so many unknowns while also addressing the severity and wide-reaching effect of the novel coronavirus and its associated disease.
"There's some real-world issues back at home," Drinkwitz said. "There are players on our team that have gone back home and parents have been laid off, they need to get jobs to help their family. Try to get that job at Walmart or Amazon or whoever's hiring so they can help out their family while they're home. That's real. That's real life that's going on right now.
"It's not that they're back at home on spring break for six weeks, that's not the case at all. We've got people in all kinds of places in the world right now, and they're scared, just like we are."
Drinkwitz himself has many family members involved in health care - all currently healthy - from nurses (sister, mother-in-law) to pediatrician (brother-in-law) to physical therapist (sister) to medical stenographer (sister) and hospital administrator (his brother Jeremy Drinkwitz is the president of Mercy Hospital-Joplin). There are players on the team with family members who work in medical professions, as first responders and as supply-chain workers.
"It's so much bigger than football right now, and I think that goes back to the first question about, are we going to have a football season? Like, man, it's so much bigger than that right now for us," Drinkwitz added. "It's bigger than the game that's going to be played. And we want to play, because it's going to provide hope that we're on the other side of this, but right now, that's (not) on our minds.
"The one thing on our mind is the essential things of, 'Are our players safe? Are they in a safe place? Are their families safe? Are they getting through? Are they going to be able to pay their bills this month?' And that's real. And that's what we're trying to make sure."
ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit made waves Thursday in an appearance on ESPN radio, saying, "I'll be shocked if we have NFL football this fall, if we have college football. I'll be so surprised if that happens," citing the lead time of a potential vaccine and the need for social distancing - and thus empty stadiums - to prevent spread of the disease.
It is possible the threat of transmission postpones, shortens or cancels NFL and college football seasons, but so much is changing so rapidly, few in sports media have seriously addressed the topic.
Drinkwitz brushed aside those concerns when asked about them Wednesday.
"I don't know about y'all, but Sept. 5 seems a long way away," he said. " For me to forecast anything in the future I think is a lot of wasted energy and effort, in my opinion. And I think what it does is it gets people concerned about things that aren't relevant right now.
"What's relevant right now is for us to be taking care of our families, to maintain proper social distancing, to adhere to the rules and standards that our administration, our president, our governor has put in place. That's my focus. No offense to Mr. Herbstreit, but deciding who's going to win a football game on College GameDay is a lot different than getting the world in a panic about whether or not we're going to play a college football season."
In an appearance Wednesday on the Paul Finebaum Show, Drinkwitz apologized to Herbstreit.
"I did not mean anything toward Kirk Herbstreit or to take a shot at him," Drinkwitz said. "I hope he would accept my apology. My point was we are focused on today."
Drinkwitz said he does not think college football players and coaches need a lot of advance notice in order to play games, as long as everybody gets the same amount of time to prepare.
Coaches are allowed, by new NCAA rule, to have two hours of meetings with players per week via video conference to review film or go over scheme, with the only restriction being they can't lead instructional workouts.
Missouri's coaching staff holds its daily meetings by video chat, and the coaches are allowed to use phone calls and texts to stay in contact with players and recruits when recruiting periods are open.
Because most gyms are closed, Missouri's coaches have suggested workouts for players with resistance bands or weights if they can access them. Coaches are not allowed to require workouts or to ask players if they worked out, and rely on players' self-motivation and creativity to stay in shape.
"We've challenged each position group to find a leader and to make sure that they're holding each other accountable and connecting with each other," Drinkwitz said. "We're trying a few different things, in order to create some chemistry and to create a deeper relationship amongst the team. We are utilizing peer-to-peer connection and leadership to try to create a sense of team and relationships during this time."
Some Missouri players are in Columbia, either because it's home or because they've elected to stay in town, and like all athletes are permitted a prepared meal and two snacks per day from the Missouri Athletic Training Center. Players who are going through medical rehab, like quarterback Connor Bazelak or offensive lineman Case Cook, are permitted to use team facilities to get treatment.
Drinkwitz's first year in charge of a Southeastern Conference program, after just one year as a head coach at Appalachian State, was always going to be a challenge. This is something else entirely. Missouri completed three spring practices before the SEC canceled all spring competition and practice in mid-March.
"We still don't know the strengths and weaknesses of our individual players relative to the scheme that we're going to try to utilize," Drinkwitz said. "I think that's put us behind the eight ball. I think any time you're trying to instill your culture and what you're trying to do and build that trust and respect, you can only really do that through time and time spent together. So, yeah, it's not ideal.
"The one thing that I think kind of evens the playing field is college football is constantly in a state of flux with coaching transitions, and other than a couple of schools on our side of the division, most schools, whether or not they had a head coaching change, had coordinator changes, position coach changes, so those guys are kind of in the same situation we were."
As for that scheme? Drinkwitz gave the quick hits when asked what he hoped Missouri will look like in the fall.
"Offensively, we base out of a pro-tempo style offense, which is pro-style concepts, tempo-based, with a dominant downhill run game emphasized on outside and inside zone," he said. "A detailed, disciplined, unselfish pass game that creates horizontal seams and vertical rows, but the hallmark of it is execution. When you talk about what it's going to look like, hopefully it looks like those three things."
Drinkwitz added the defensive scheme will mainly stay the same with defensive coordinator Ryan Walters being retained.
"Which is an aggressive mentality, plays a lot of man-to-man, multiple-front defense that is going to stop the run and then get after the quarterback in multiple ways," Drinkwitz said. "That's really what we'll look like. Now, that's what our mindset is. Who's gonna do it and how we're gonna do it, we'll figure that out when we get guys back on campus."
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