Just five days ago, defensive coordinator Steve Wilks left Missouri’s staff to join the Carolina Panthers. Eli Drinkwitz now has his replacement.
A source confirmed reports that Drinkwitz plans to elevate recently hired safeties coach Blake Baker to defensive coordinator to replace Wilks. In addition, PowerMizzou.com has learned that linebackers coach D.J. Smith will serve as the Tigers’ co-defensive coordinator.
Neither move has been announced by the school at this time.
Baker served as Louisiana Tech’s defensive coordinator for four years and then had the same role at Miami (FL) for two seasons. Last year, he was LSU’s linebackers coach. Drinkwitz hired him to coach Mizzou’s safeties on January 20th.
Smith came to Mizzou with Drinkwitz from Appalachian State. He was on the staff for four seasons at his alma mater, the last two as the outside linebackers coach in 2018 and 2019. Drinkwitz hired him for the same role at Missouri when he took the job in December of 2019. Smith also recently added the role of recruiting coordinator to his resume when Casey Woods left to be the offensive coordinator at SMU.
With those moves planned, Drinkwitz still had one vacancy on his defensive staff. A few hours later Monday, Pete Thamel of ESPN reported that Missouri is aiming to hire Troy’s Al Pogue to coach cornerbacks. Pogue coached cornerbacks for the Trojans last season. He worked alongside Drinkwitz as an offensive quality control assistant at Auburn in 2011. He has also worked as a full-time assistant at Auburn and West Virginia.
Aaron Fletcher coached the corners in 2021, but left for a similar position at Arizona State following the season. The expectation is that Baker will continue to work with the safeties.
A source has told PowerMizzou.com that while the staff has changed since last year, the defense is likely to remain mostly the same. The Tigers plan to maintain a similar scheme to what Wilks ran in his year as the defensive coordinator.
Missouri is set to open spring practice late next week.
