Eli Drinkwitz
College BasketballCollege FootballBy Arthur Weinstein on

Missouri Tigers head football coach Eli Drinkwitz is one of the more colorful characters in the NCAA coaching ranks.

What he did Saturday enhanced that reputation. A photo posted on Twitter by RedditCFB showed Drinkwitz sitting in the student section at Missouri’s home basketball game against the Kansas Jayhawks. Drinkwitz held a sign reading, “Five Level One Violations,” a reference to the NCAA violations Kansas is accused of committing in 2019.

Another image posted by Kyle Pinnell on Twitter showed Drinkwitz with a sign reading, “Get Loud If You Hate Kansas.”

As Reddit noted, Drinkwitz’s troll job comes on the heels of a recent report that Missouri refused an offer to play Kansas in the Dec. 28 Liberty Bowl. A source told the Columbia Missourian that the school turned down the offer because it did not want to dilute fan interest in an upcoming regular season meeting with Kansas in 2025.

It’s not the first funny and/or curious thing Drinkwitz has done this season, or even in the last few weeks. After a big win over the Florida Gators, he held up a toy lightsaber and said, “May the force be with you.” The Star Wars reference was a dig at former Florida coach Dan Mullen, who dressed up in a Darth Vader Halloween costume after a win over Mizzou in 2021.

In November, Drinkwitz implored Tigers fans to show up for an early 11 a.m. start time against the Kentucky Wildcats.

“You don’t want to crack your first beer until after 10:30 in the morning. I get that,” Drinkwitz joked. “But everybody’s got to make sacrifices.”

So fans have come to expect this kind of behavior from the colorful Drinkwitz. Fans had fun trolling the coach.

[RedditCFB, Photo Credit: Reddit CFB]

About Arthur Weinstein

Arthur spends his free time traveling around the U.S. to sporting events, state and national parks, and in search of great restaurants off the beaten path.

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