Mizzou head football coach Eli Drinkwitz announced the addition of assistant coaches John Papuchis, Alex Atkins, Lovorn “Chop” Harbin and Garrett Riley for the 2026 season on Wednesday.

Papuchis joins Missouri to oversee special teams and serve as a defensive assistant. He comes to the Tigers after six seasons at Florida State, where he served as the Seminoles’ special teams coordinator and coached both defensive ends and linebackers. 

Atkins will take over as the tight ends coach. He spent the 2025 season at LSU as the tight ends coach and run game coordinator. Before LSU, Atkins also coached at Florida State for five years. In 2023, he helped bring the Seminoles to a No. 5 ranking in the final College Football Playoff Poll and earned a berth in the Orange Bowl. 

Harbin will oversee the defensive line after five seasons at Tennessee where he earned the nickname “Chop.” Harbin coached as a defensive analyst before being promoted to senior defensive analyst, and then promoted to outside linebackers coach in February 2025. 

Riley will join the staff as a quarterbacks coach, bringing experience from Clemson, TCU and SMU. Riley helped guide Clemson to the ACC title and a College Football Playoff berth in 2024, leading an offense that featured a 3,000-yard passer, 1,000-yard rusher and four 500-yard pass catchers in a season for only the fourth time in school history. 

Mizzou also announced the hiring of Luke Meadows as the assistant offensive line coach and Brendan Bognar as the assistant quarterbacks coach.Â