Look, I'm not really optimistic about this staff's chances of succeeding (mainly because Pinkel insists on carrying slapdick recruiters like Walker, Jones, his nephew), but this is one area that is changing.

Seven yard shotgun + 5 WR + empty backfield + no help for tackles sounds like it is a thing of the past. Henson has been vocal about changing many of these things, especially attaching TEs to the line to help in pass pro.

From what I hear, this type of stuff isn't even Pinkel. He delegates EVERYTHING. Coordinators are given complete control over their areas. Henson has made some major changes that I think will help quite a bit.

Pinkel's delegation combined with the buffoons he's had running his units helps explain the pathetic lack of in-game adjustments for the entirety of his tenure.

I'll believe it when I see it. If James Franklin is the starter this year does it really matter?

I really don't consider myself a Franklin homer, but it would have been nice to see what he could have been capable of if he hadn't gotten hurt last season.

Mizzou? Football? Come on. Really? ****em

He was rarely really hurt. He's soft and injury prone.

After Gabbert played after having his ankle ripped off I have little patience for someone who won't take a cortisone shot because they equate it to doing drugs.

Fortunately, we have a backup this year. If Frank goes down, Mauk should be ready to go.

Mauk should be the starter from day one but we know how Pinkel is...

As far as offenses go, Meyer's was/is far more "gimmicky".

True. However, our OL splits were straight out of a carnival.

I wonder how my life would be different today if I wasn't a fan of the Chiefs, Royals, and MU Tigers? Would hope and happiness be a part of my life, and would despair and misery vanish?

Mauk has not been as good as I was hoping he would be. The fact he is still not the clear-cut No. 2 over Corbin Berkstresser should say all that needs to be said about his readiness to start.

If Mauk is struggling to beat out Berkstresser, it's hard to say he deserves the No. 1 QB spot.

Didn't go to the spring game?

They were 5 yards deep in the shotgun the entire game.

I just come from the mindset that he assume he's the future so why not let him get reps now and start building that chemistry with DGB and others.

We aren't winning jack with Franklin at QB so what's the point...I get that Pinkel is coaching for his job and that's why Franklin is his QB, just irks me.

What is it with Chiefs/Mizzou fans and QBs that haven't played a down? The new guy isn't always better, be he a QB in the draft or a RS freshman. I have not doubt that the best QB will play (see Brad Smith).

I'm not saying he's better...I'm saying let him get experience now...Franklin is a lame duck QB.

Yeah if we had a great team and could contend for a serious bowl, I'd say sure trot Franklin out there.

The only reason Franklin will be the starter is because Pinkel knows his ass is on the line and Franklinay eek us into a bowl game.

Mauk looked like dogshit in the spring game. The guy was only a 3* recruit. Maybe we just need to accept the fact that he's more Chase Patton than Chase Daniel.

I think I'll wait until halftime of the first game of his career before writing his epitaph.

Which likely means that he's coaching for 7-5 and a meh bowl game. We need new AD/staff with higher expectations.

That's fine, but he's also never done anything to suggest that he's actually going to be an answer. Fans have always assumed that he's going to be great, but neither his recruiting profile nor his offseason play should promote any type of confidence. He's just a generic RS QB at this point.

Patton was a total bust. He was a four star recruit who became a dentist instead, that was just amazing, like Hamas says, just ****ing Mizzou..

Patton got beat out by arguably the best QB in Missouri football history. I wouldn't call him a bust just because of that.

They're probably a nice bowl team with him, similar to what the Tigers were under Gabbert.

I understand that, Daniel was a stud but when Patton would get playing time he looked flat out awful, I could tell by the way he played in garbage time that he never could have been the first string QB at Mizzou, not at all. Weak ass arm. Thats why I would always pray for Daniel to stay healthy because I knew we would be done if that kid had to take the reigns.

Gabbert gets really underrated by Mizzou fans because of one bad throw against Iowa. I think we all forget how awful his skill position players were compared to what Daniel and Franklin had to work with.

Gabbert was really good but my only knock on him was that he had trouble with the deep ball,if he ever threw a deep ball towards the sidelines you could bet your ass it would be fly 50 ft. into the stands. However you're right, he had and amazing 2010, one game away from a BCS bowl if it weren't for Yosts ****ed up play calling in the Texas tech game. He had one bad game that year, he was pretty damn good.

Did you see them practice?

I covered Patton a lot before work took me to St. Louis/SN. He had a rifle. Arm strength was very similar to Gabbert's. And much, much better than Daniel's. He had an NFL-caliber throwing arm.

He wasn't as good at reading defenses or playing at high pace as Chase. But his phyiscal talents were good enough to be a good starting QB in college.

The offense they ran under Chase was also designed to fit Daniel's talents - quick reads, distribution of the ball, exploiting tight and crowded areas of the field.

Under Patton, it would have looked a little different and more like what it did with Gabbert at QB (though without the David Yost fruit-loopiness.

Patton had an insane arm, which is why he was actually scouted by NFL teams (as a backup QB). Anyone claiming that he had a weak arm is flat-out lying.

He had a concussion in that game. He got his bell rung on a H2H hit in the Nebraska game, played the rest of the game with it, then played next week. They should have had Franklin start that TTU game.

Gabbert was ass cheeks before the concussion. He pretty much lost both Nebraska games and really folded when preasured. Chase Daniel was a better qb.

We were up 12-0 going into the 4th quarter of that Nebraska game. Two things kept you in that: 1) The weather. 2) Suh ripping his leg off.

Besides, our defenses folded like cheap whores in that second Nebraska game. Helu had 150 yards on his first five touches. He took the first one to the house untouched.

Chase P is a really cool dude. He just graduated from dental school Saturday, was a class ahead I me.

Ok, I just saw clips of the Black and Gold game on you tube and that was a disaster. They still can't snap the ****ing football and Matty Mauk has worse butterfingers than Franklin. Terrible, awful. I'm cringing, just cringing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ5Li-KnzgI

If Evan Boehm gets hurt, snaps will be a problem again. He looked sharp snapping the ball, though (the first few series, where the snaps have zip on them and are at the chest? That was Boehm).

Expectations are low on this end, though, overall.

Recruiting is kind of a mess. They've got some decent commitments, but it's a lot of reaching and guessing. The 10 commitments break into four categories, IMO.

Category 1: Solid major kid, not a star
Michael Fairchild, Blue Valley West (Overland Park)
Paul Adams, Christ Presbyterian (Nashville)
Kevin Pendleton, Lee's Summit West (Lee's Summit)
Greg Taylor, East St. Louis (East St. Louis, IL)

Category 2: We're taking lotto tickets to get footholds in new areas
Rocel McWilliams, West Florida Tech (Pensacola, FL)
THomas Richard, Christ Presbyterian (Nashville)
Finis Stribling IV, Independence (Thompson's Station, TN) (This guy was viewed by at least one CUSA program as a December backup plan)

Category 3: Meh
Kendall Blanton, Blue Springs South (Blue Springs, MO)

Category 4: I have a pity offer because my family is involved with the program
Darnell Green-Beckham, Hillcrest (Springfield, MO)
Grant Jones, Rock Bridge (Columbia, MO)

It just astounds me that Missouri as inept as it is in recruiting.

I wish they would just raze Faurot, but there just isn't space for the stadium. Only thing I could think of would be to bulldoze Hearnes, build most of the stadium in its footprint and parking lot, then turn Faurot into a lot, building a small multipurpose building elsewhere.

I never understood why Daniel agreed to this photoshoot, I always thought the cover made him look like a short and chubby kid in line at a Jack in a Box.

I don't think the cover is to blame for him looking short and chubby.

Faurot has always annoyed me, its like your watching them play 10 ft. underground, its really hard to explain, anyone know what I'm talking about? Its like the field is lower than other stadiums.

Patton looks like a guy you would see a lot at harpos in westport

Unlikely. He's a very religious guy who has been married since at least the start of dental school to his HS girlfriend.

Great, great kid, though. He and his wife (who also was a stud track and basketball star at Rock Bridge) are one of the happiest couples I've come into contact with.

ROFL

I will say that pulling the jersey up over his gut didn't do him any favors.

Stribling just won the 400 at state in Tennessee.

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/colle...3fe1298d1.html

Wow. Missouri officially has zero **** recruits from the 2013 class.

Bravo, Gary. Bravo.

This was part of that...

Abbington took some easy HS classes before he realized he was going to be a D-1 recruit that didn't count as core courses according to the NCAA and was unable to catch up.

Adios Pinkel

COLUMBIA — Around the first week of May, Missouri defensive coordinator Dave Steckel was at South Grand Prairie High School in Texas, checking in on a few prospects, when the school’s head football coach, Brent Whitson, dropped a bombshell on him.

“I said ‘Coach, I’ve got a kid for you that I think is gonna qualify,’” Whitson recalled. “The kid has a great highlight tape, so after five or six plays, we shut the video off and got him out of class.”
So began a whirlwind process that eventually led to Missouri’s latest addition to its 2013 recruiting class, as 6-foot-1, 295-pound defensive tackle DeQuinton Osborne officially pledged to the Tigers on Friday night.
“I honestly think Stec and I have talked every day for a month now,” Whitson said a laugh. “Missouri was waiting to see if someone they liked would qualify, rather than give one to somebody they weren’t excited about.
“There will be a story like DeQuinton’s every once in a while.”
Whitson said Osborne, a two-star prospect according to Rivals.com, originally had offers from Texas Tech and Baylor, but both were contingent on him qualifying academically. Things looked bleak for him on that end – he needed to raise his GPA in his core classes heading into his final semester of high school – and he committed to Kilgore Junior College in February, just in case he failed to make the grade.
“He needed 3 A’s and a B his last semester and he’d never done that before,” Whitson said, “but he pulled it off.”
Which, in turned, cleared the way for Missouri to take a chance on Osborne, who becomes the fourth defensive tackle in the Class of 2013 to commit to the Tigers, joining three-star prospects Josh Augusta (Peoria, Ill.), A.J. Logan (Columbia Rock Bridge) and Antar Thompson (Maplewood, Mo.).
Thompson, however, is expected to head to junior college, a possibility Osborne managed to avert with a strong academic push over the past several months. Whitson, however, says his star tackle has also come a long way on the field, especially since a disappointing junior season in which he was about 10 pounds too heavy and only a part-time starter.
“When (coaches) came, I wouldn’t show his tape,” Whitson said. “He’s a big-time player but he didn’t play that way. I felt he underachieved.”
But Osborne began to turn it around in spring 2012, when he asked Whitson what he needed to do play Division 1 football. Since then, Whitson said Osborne has done everything asked of him, including paring himself down to 295 pounds.
“He didn’t miss a day in the weight room in the summer,” Whitson said. “The kid was faithful to the program and a great leader.”
All that hard work paved for the way for a senior season in which he racked up 58 tackles (14 for loss) and four sacks from his nose tackle position, despite routine double teams. He also did it in Texas’ biggest classification, 5A, and in the same district as perennial powers Cedar Hill and DeSoto.
South Grand Prairie finished 5-5 and lost to both teams handily, but Whitson said he made sure Missouri had the film of Osborne’s play in those games.
“If you’re going to watch him, watch him play against the best in Texas,” Whitson said. “He plays with low leverage and he’s great with his hands. Coaches want to see arm length, fast hands and explosiveness and he has all those things.”
Steckel and defensive line coach Craig Kuligowski served as the lead recruiters for Osborne, who Whitson says benches 340 pounds, squats 555 pounds and has the arm length of someone who stands about 6-feet-4.
Whitson added that Osborne could eventually bulk up to 325 pounds or so, potentially making him an ideal one-technique nose tackle in Missouri’s Tampa 2 defensive scheme.
But for now, the coach of Missouri’s newest commitment will revel in a huge achievement for a player that’s worked hard for the opportunity, both in the classroom and out.
“The great thing is I get to point to that story now when I talk to other kids, at least until they run me out of town,” Whitson said with a laugh.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/06/01...#storylink=cpy

While there seems to never be good news in this program...ever.

Mizzou had one of the highest academic performance figures from their football team in the country. Only Northwestern, Boise St., Duke, Wisconsin, Clemson and Georgia Tech did better.

It's not a bowl game, but hey, at least the student athletes on the football team are doing student things fairly well.

Congrats, Mizzou. Now please try to win 6 games this year - thank you.

Yippee,Like James Caan said in "The Program" , "When was the last time 80,000 people showed up to watch a kid perform a ****ing chemistry experiment" Win football games, now. Couldn't care less about academics.

This. Best thing for this program would be for Missouri to miss a bowl game and then hopefully Pinkel is finally shown the door.

Do you have a degree from there? I don't expect most folks to care much, but I live in Columbia, wife works for the University and my grandparents taught there for decades between them.

For those of us that are a fan of the University and not just their laundry, it does mean something, even if that something isn't as significant as a BCS game.

The program's not in fantastic shape right now from a W/L standpoint, but it is producing quality kids. As someone who views the University as more than just a football team, that's relevant, though certainly dispositive or even paramount.

We're struggling for good news here, fellas - you might want to take what you can get.

The academic support that Missouri student-athletes receive is excellent, as well as the degree of importance the majority of coaches place on academics at that university.

The next good news I'll care about is Stinkel and his whole shitty staff getting ****-punted out the ****ing door. Time to hire a competent, nationally recognized coach and get back in the game.

That's too bad. Players that are intelligent and able to perform in the classroom as well as on the field are a rare commodity. As such, the development of such athletes should be encouraged. Not only to create better student athletes, increase university prestige, etc. but from a football/coaching perspective, having smarter players generally allows you to be more creative and expand your playbook/philosophies. Working with dumb brutes who can't understand how to properly perform sight adjusts as an example, is a poor route to go down. While not every player is going to be a genius, ensuring that they are working academically also instills/builds discipline and prevents less opportunities for bad things to happen.

I have nothing against academics I should have elaborated more of what I was trying to say, I'm a college graduate myself and no I don't want dumb athletes that always get into trouble, however I don't feel that has anything to do with improving the football teams play on the field in the present. mizzou is in a very bad situation right now athletically and academics isn't going to change that, in fact Mizzous high academic standards have hurt the athletic program more than its helped it. Face it most of the best talent are dummies because they only know football. How many of their top recruits have had to go to JUCO because they can't hack it academically due to the high standards ala Sheldon Richardson? He was a moron who couldn't keep his yap shut but guess what? He was the best defensive player on the team.

I don't think Mizzou standards are really much of a roadblock for young recruits. The NCAA sets the admission standard for Div 1 football, not the school. The school can have a higher standard if it wants to, but I'm pretty sure Mizzou doesn't do that.

My dad is an MU alum and was a former football/track player. He told me that a big reason MU's football team hit the pits in the 80's was due to some new female University President that MU had hired at that time. Supposedly she made the academic standards extremely difficult therefore making it hard to recruit good talent because a lot of the best athletes aren't too bright and they couldn't make the grades to get in. Going off what my dad said and what I've seen myself with several of the good MU JUCO recruits the last ten years that would be the case. Heck I remember my college advisor telling me my senior year that Mizzou,Baylor, and Colorado were hands down the most difficult Big 12 schools to get accepted into academically. I could be wrong but that whats its always seemed like to me. I do know they require a 21 score on the ACT as well, they probably make exceptions for scholarship players though.

Or maybe because Woody Widenhofer and Bob Stull were pretty shitty coaches...

That didn't help either. You can also contribute the horrid facilities Mizzou had back then, it was God awful.

You can take it back farther than that.

Missouri's biggest mistake was in hiring Frank Broyles instead of Bob Devaney, who wanted the job.

Devaney went to Nebraska and was dominant as college football started to take off. We know the rest. With no Devaney at Nebraska, there's no Osborne there, either.

My dad hates Babs Uehling, too, though. Her direction of the academic side - and refusal to seek or release investment to the facilities at Mizzou - really crippled not just football but also basically all other sports at Mizzou.

Bingo, told you guys, my dad is an MU alum, I had to believe him. They could have had Devaney? They really focked up, just wow. It could have been vice versa, ugh.

Oh, and to top it off... I think Bill Snyder and Bob Stull were hired in the same year. Snider was a Iowa assistant from Missouri who SURELY would have taken that job over the worst job in college football had it been offered.

I don't think Snider was ever considered, but in hindsight...

I think I have the cherry, wasn't Bud Wilkinson an assistant to Don Faurot who would go on to make Oklahoma a powerhouse?

Yes. But I can top that...

Wilkinson and Jim Tatum both learned the split-T (wishbone) offense that made Oklahoma a powerhouse from - guess who ...

Don Faurot. Who taught it to them while coaching Army teams during WWII. At the time, the split-T was a powerhouse that no one else really knew anything about it, and without video, it was much harder to pick up opposing offenses.

All of these coaching follies can be explained by my signature. There is something inherent in the university that will always cause such futility.

If you're not shooting yourself in the foot, you must be aiming too high.

LMAO Did you make that up or did you hear it somewhere?

I made it up, I think. I was in a bit of an altered state of consciousness a day or two ago, and it popped into my head...first chance I've had to use it.

There are some who believe that the Academic crowd still pretty much controls the actions of the University to it's detriment.

I swear the last time I was in Florida (2 months ago) Widenhofer was manning the toll booth along I-4.

Hopeless and Depressing isn't it?

COLUMBIA — Two Missouri football players were involved in a car accident Tuesday.

Freshman linebacker Eric Beisel, freshman cornerback Anthony Sherrils and a third person — driver Danielle Williams — all sustained minor injuries in a car crash at Stadium and Monk Drive, according to Capt. Scott Richardson of the MU Police Department.
Richardson said around 10 a.m., Williams, driving a Mazda 6 eastbound on Stadium, failed to yield to a Ford Escape while attempting to turn left onto Monk. Richardson said Beisel, Sherrils and Williams were all taken to University Hospital and released after being treated for minor injuries. None were wearing seatbelts.
Richardson said the driver of the Ford Escape, Anna Becker, remains in the hospital.
Sherrils, a three-star prospect according to Rivals.com, graduated from Hogan Prep. Beisel, a three-star prospect, attended Rockwood Summit in Fenton, Mo.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/06/12...#storylink=cpy

Any chances that Deaton's retirement could lead to a new chancellor that will quickly flush Alden+Pinkel?

Hope so, that dude is a pancake fluffer. How dorky did he sound at the SEC announcement. "Everyone glad to be Tigers?" (With the gayest 2 thumbs up i've ever seen)

I would have loved to have answered him and said actually no I'm not because I'm sick of losing **** stick.

Mizzou got a commitment from Logan Cheadle a few days ago.

Yes, getting a 3-star recruit from Kansas City with offers from Indiana, Iowa State and Northern Illinois is big news for the program these days. Mostly I'm just excited that nobody was arrested or injured.

What a miserable state of affairs.

Don Cheadle will be the T. Boone Pickens of Mizzou athletics.

Not going to get it done, how the **** are they going to be able to recruit size? The SEC powerhouses are 3 times the size of Mizzou boys. Just ****. You want to hear some more bad news? So far Kentucky has the number 1 recruiting class in football for 2014, thats right football. I know that won't stay at Number 1 but even they will soon be above Mizzous level, just great we are the doormat of the SEC.

wow,, i just got the reference... are these guys related?

Yes. Don is Logan's uncle.