****Official 2013-14 Missouri Tiger Football Repository Thread****

['Hamas' Jenkins]

We have two things to look forward to this year:

1) The potential beginning of the Maty Mauk Era. Mauk represents the best chance for this program to get back to a level of respectability after horrendous QB play cost us multiple games last year.

2) The last year of the Gary Pinkel era. Pinkel's entrenched cronyism won't play in a conference this competitive, especially if he couples his abysmal gameday coaching with lackadaisical, worst-in-conference recruiting. Pinkel was the formerly adequate meal that has now turned into a four pound bowel obstruction. It's time to jam a Fleet's enema up our collective asses.

Here is the schedule. We dodge Alabama, LSU, and Arkansas in the west and the Non-con is decidedly weaker than years past.

8/31: Murray State
9/7: Toledo
9/21: @ Indiana
9/28: Arkansas State
10/5:@ Vanderbilt
10/12: @ Georgia
10/19:Florida
10/26: South Carolina
11/2:Tennessee
11/9: @ Kentucky
11/23: @ Ole Miss
11/30: aTm

Looks like 6-6. Undefeated in non-con, 2-6 in league play.

I will eventually update the OP with a list of high profile in-state recruits that decide to go elsewhere after a half-assed attempt to gain their services. The inevitable cavalcade of *** rejects, skeezers, skanks, and scalliwags we get will fill out the ranks.


Razors, cyanide capsules, and Jonestown Kool-Aid are available in the break room. Second door on the left.

Since every Mizzou thread eventually dies of AIDS, I recommend starting anti-retroviral therapy immediately. I believe Walgreens covers Express Scripts.


Premium In-State Players:

Roderick Johnson: **** OT, Florissant, MO.
Monte Harrison: **** WR, Lee's Summit, MO.
Jimmy Swain: **** LB, Lee's Summit, MO


Commitment List: From to and possibly

Spoiler!

Committed - Not Yet Signed

Name	Pos	Location	Ht	Wt	40	Rivals Rating
Paul Adams	OL	Nashville, TNChrist Presbyterian Academy	6'6"	270		5.5
Sam Bailey	OL	Lamar, MOLamar Jr/Sr R 1	6'5"	245		5.4
Andy Bauer	OL	St. Louis, MODeSmet	6'6"	304	5.2	5.9
Kendall Blanton	TE	Blue Springs, MOBlue Springs South	6'5"	225		5.4
Nate Brown	WR	Suwanee, GANorth Gwinnett	6'3"	215	4.5	5.7
Logan Cheadle	DB	Lee's Summit, MOLee's Summit West	5'10"	165		5.6
Kenya Dennis	DB	Raymond, MSHinds C.C.	6'0"	190		5.5
Michael Fairchild	OL	Overland Park, KSBlue Valley West	6'6"	262		5.4
Darnell Green-Beckham	WR	Springfield, MOHillcrest	6'5"	175		5.3
Zach Hudson	OL	Tampa, FLSickles	6'5"	280		5.5
Stepfawn Hughes	ATH	Fort Worth, TXDunbar	5'10"	170	4.6	5.5
Grant Jones	ATH	Columbia, MOHickman	6'3"	216		5.5
Lawrence Lee	WR	Pensacola, FLWest Florida Tech	5'10"	167	4.5	5.6
Rocel McWilliams	DE	Pensacola, FLWest Florida Tech	6'3"	240		5.5
Kevin Pendleton	OL	Lee's Summit, MOLee's Summit West	6'4"	329		5.5
Thomas Richard	WR	Nashville, TNChrist Presbyterian Academy	6'1"	185		5.4
Tavon Ross	ATH	Cochran, GABleckley County	6'1"	196		5.4
Finis Stribling IV	DB	Thompson's Station, TNIndependence	5'10"	170	4.5	5.4
Greg Taylor	DB	East St. Louis, ILEast St. Louis	5'10"	181		5.7
Trevon Walters	RB	Bradenton, FLManatee	5'10"	189		5.4
Jhonathon Williams	DE	Berrien Springs, MIBerrien Springs	6'6"	230	4.5	5.5
Thomas Wilson	ATH	Buford, GABuford	5'10"	176		5.5
Roderick Winters	LB	Arlington, TXBowie	5'11"	196	4.5	5.3
Ish Witter	RB	Tampa, FLAlonso	5'8"	190	4.6	5.5
Marvin Zanders	QB	Jacksonville, FLRaines	6'1"	175		5.5

[Frazod]

Originally Posted by Cochise

Pinkel has his shortcomings but has never deserved to be fired... I have always found it to be the silliest meme around here. The last thing we need to do is KU ourselves and fire the coach who built the program to where it is while he's still having success.

I didn't have a very high opinion of Franklin at one time, and I don't think I was nearly alone in that. Fans are often wrong about players, but the coaches usually know better.

Dude, he was just mocking Zach's douchiness.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by Cochise

Pinkel has his shortcomings but has never deserved to be fired... I have always found it to be the silliest meme around here. The last thing we need to do is KU ourselves and fire the coach who built the program to where it is while he's still having success.

I didn't have a very high opinion of Franklin at one time, and I don't think I was nearly alone in that. Fans are often wrong about players, but the coaches usually know better.

If going from ten wins to eight to five with dwindling recruiting classes, a DUI, a high profile divorce, and rumors of a bastard child don't put your balls a millimeter from the bandsaw, what does?

[|Zach|]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

If going from ten wins to eight to five with dwindling recruiting classes, a DUI, a high profile divorce, and rumors of a bastard child don't put your balls a millimeter from the bandsaw, what does?

Having a bad football team?

[Pitt Gorilla]

MIZZOU FOOTBALL’S MAX COPELAND NOMINATED FOR BURLSWORTH TROPHY

http://www.garypinkel.com/mizzou-foo...sworth-trophy/

Mizzou senior offensive lineman Max Copeland has been selected along with nine other players across the country for the Burlsworth Trophy, the award given annually to the best college football player that began his career as a walk-on.

Copeland was originally a part of a group of 50 players on the watch list, and with his dominating play this season at left guard, has grabbed the attention of the Springdale (Ark.) Rotary Club who is the governing body of the award.

This award is special, though, because Mizzou fans can become involved in the process. Fan voting is a contributing factor in deciding the winner, so fans are encouraged to go to www.burlsworthtrophy.com and cast a vote for Copeland. Voting is limited to one ballot per day, so you can visit the site every day to help out.

Voting ends at midnight CST on Nov. 24.

Copeland walked on and spent three years on the scout team before starting 11 games in the 2012 season and earning the Unsung Hero Award. His level of play has skyrocketed as he has proven to be one of the premier linemen in the nation as well as one of the hardest workers and team players there is. Copeland will be in action as Mizzou travels to Ole Miss this Saturday in a pivotal SEC matchup. Game time is set for 6:45 p.m. CST and will be televised nationally on ESPN.

[duncan_idaho]

Originally Posted by Cochise

Pinkel has his shortcomings but has never deserved to be fired... I have always found it to be the silliest meme around here. The last thing we need to do is KU ourselves and fire the coach who built the program to where it is while he's still having success.

I didn't have a very high opinion of Franklin at one time, and I don't think I was nearly alone in that. Fans are often wrong about players, but the coaches usually know better.

I wouldn't have said he SHOULD be fired following last season, but he did deserve to be on the hot seat entering 2013. His team and staff needed to answer the bell.

Considering all the negative momentum that was snowballing at that time, that wasn't unfair. There were legitimate questions about his motivation, whether the program/process was still working/could still work, and whether the staff was good enough.

They have answered, across the board. I think part of that is good fortune - Josh Henson being a star, for example - and part of it just a return to normal. Part of it is raising the game a little bit.

In addition to Henson being an upgrade, other coaching spots have stepped up as well.

Washington, who looked like a desperation hire, has been a nice addition and I think has injected some new life/enthusiasm/competition into the staff.

Grinch, who looked like a nespotic hire, has made big inroads in Southeast recruiting.

Even the dead weights - Walker and Jones - have coached their positions really well. I still wouldn't weep for either if they left or were replaced, but their lack of recruiting prowess doesn't look like as much of a problem when they coach their positions well.

[Pitt Gorilla]

Nice article on Copeland.

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/colle...fbdca2f7e.html

COLUMBIA, Mo. • The night before Max Copeland left Billings, Mont., for the great unknown fate of becoming an undersized walk-on offensive lineman at Missouri, he had one message for his mother.

“Mom, this isn’t about me playing football,” Joanne Copeland recalled in a phone interview. “It’s about me showing not to myself but to anybody else out there who was told they aren’t good enough and will never make it. It’s about showing them that you still don’t stop trying.”

From that moment in 2009, Copeland’s fire hasn’t stopped burning at Mizzou.

As No. 8 Mizzou (9-1, 5-1 Southeastern Conference) plays tonight at No. 24 Ole Miss (7-3, 3-3), the walk-on-turned-scholarship starter has become a mainstay at offensive guard, a beloved leader in the locker room and one of the most colorful players in recent history to wear the black, gold and … orange?

Copeland came to Mizzou a 230-pound freshman with closely cropped hair — and will leave a 305-pound senior with a wild orange mane that hasn’t been cut since he arrived, with an unkempt beard to match. Emblazoned with black face paint on game days, Copeland gives life to the madman that’s been brewing inside for years. A gash between his eyes spurts blood every Saturday and only adds to the mystique.

“I was honestly scared of Max when I first met him,” sophomore center Evan Boehm said. “It was on my recruiting trip. I was like, ‘Oh my God, this guy is scary. I’m staying away from him.’”

Tailback Henry Josey had the same reaction when he came to Mizzou in 2010. Copeland reminded him of a soldier from the fantasy battle film “300.”

“He wasn’t weird but just a crazy guy,” Josey said. “I said, ‘I don’t know if I need to be around him.’ In the weight room, I was like, I’ll go do my own thing and stay out of his way. He was out of control.”

Their fears have subsided, to say the least.

“You get to know him and he’s the same brother as anyone else,” Josey said. “What’s there not to love about Max? He’s his own person.”

ONE OF THOSE GUYS

Michael and Joanne Copeland had their first of four children while living in Nashville, Tenn., and when Max was entering second grade, they moved to Liberty, Mo., closer to Michael’s alma mater, Mizzou. By seventh grade, the Copelands moved to Montana, and while Max didn’t become a star on the football field, there was only one place he wanted to go for college, especially after he attended a Mizzou camp and visited campus for a home game in 2006.

“He identified with those guys in the black and gold,” Joanne said. “He was going to be one of those guys.”

But football hardly defined young Max. He loved all kinds of music except country and devoured books on history and philosophy. He learned to play the guitar and bass and performed in his high school’s philharmonic orchestra. Heavy metal became his favorite — an older cousin introduced him to the Motörhead classic “Ace of Spades,” unbeknownst to Joanne until years later, she recalled — but his palate had room for more than one flavor. Even Russian composers.

“He could have a decent conversation with you about Dmitri Shostakovich,” Joanne said.

By his senior year, Copeland became a starting offensive lineman and earned a scholarship offer to Montana, a Football Championship Subdivision program in Missoula.

Thanks, but no thanks. There was only one place for Copeland, only one path. Missouri, as a walk-on.

“For a reasonable thinking person I can understand why that might be crazy,” he said. “But I’m not a reasonably thinking person.”

Not everyone in Billings understood Copeland’s decision, including some of his coaches.

“This is going to sound so cheesy, but this is totally sincere: He’s playing for all the little kids out there who people say, ‘You can’t do this. You’re not good enough,’” she said. “That’s not something Max ever heard from his parents. We told him to go for it. But coaches told him otherwise.”

NO WAY IN HELL

Four years ago, Missouri offensive line coach Bruce Walker never would had envisioned the walk-on from Billings becoming a two-year starter.

“No way in hell,” Walker said. “No way. He had these stupid little beads in this goatee beard, and I wasn’t going to play a guy who had that.”

Over time, Copeland grew on his coaches. He became one of the team’s strongest linemen and what he lacked in athletic skill he compensated with technique and energy.

“Early on in his career,” offensive coordinator Josh Henson said, “Coach Walker and I kept saying, ‘This kid, I know he’s not very good right now, but he does a lot of things right. He works really hard. And he really cares.’”

“He’s smart. He’s tough. He’s strong,” Walker said. “And he’s a great competitor. And you’ve got a chance to play in our world if you can do that.”

Still, all those qualities didn’t guarantee playing time, much less a scholarship.

“I’ve worked as hard as I possibly could going on five years,” Copeland said. “But working hard is only your ante into the hand. That’s not your guarantee that everything’s going to work out.”

It worked out for Copeland because it didn’t work for others last year. Early in preseason camp, a vicious run of injuries depleted Missouri’s depth along the line. Travis Ruth suffered a season-ending triceps tear. Jack Meiners twisted his knee. Two weeks into camp, the two best guards were a freshman, Boehm, and a walk-on, Copeland.

Joanne came to Columbia to watch a preseason scrimmage, and shortly after Michael and the rest of the family picked her up at the Billings airport, Max called with some news.

“I don’t know how but I knew,” Joanne said. “He was calling to say, ‘Dad, I got a scholarship.’ Of course, my husband started crying and the rest of us were screaming in the car, literally just screaming.”

A WARRIOR’S GAME

Copeland, no longer a walk-on, started 11 games last year and held off Ole Miss transfer Mitch Hall for the starting job this season. A sprained ankle kept him out of the starting lineup against Indiana and Arkansas State, but he’s been back for every SEC game, including the Oct. 12 victory at Georgia, after which Copeland put his broad tastes on display and quoted a line from a book he’d been reading on Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman. That led to a brief media gag order, but he’s filled notebooks and tape recorders since then, sharing his worldly views on topics beyond football.

Copeland, a physics major who’s already earned his undergraduate degree, is one of 10 finalists for the Burlsworth Trophy, given annually to the most outstanding college player who began his career as a walk-on. Not that Copeland is looking for awards.

Just some metal, a touch of face paint and someone to hit for a few more Saturdays along a journey he knew he was destined to make.

“Football, I don’t care what anybody says, this is the greatest truth of all: It’s a warrior’s game,” he said. “And you can be the greatest athlete in the world, but if you’re not a warrior, you’re screwed. It’s not the place for you.

“If you’re a warrior and not an athlete, you’ve got an OK shot. And I’m definitely the latter. I am a warrior. And I hope that’s what they see in me, because I may not be good looking or smell too great, but I am a warrior.”

['Hamas' Jenkins]

He's probably the most singularly interesting player on the football team, but he is not a good lineman. He gets beat and commits more penalties than anyone else on that unit.

[Sassy Squatch]

What channel will the game be on?

[Frazod]

Originally Posted by Superturtle

What channel will the game be on?

ESPN

[Sassy Squatch]

Originally Posted by frazod

ESPN

Thank you

[duncan_idaho]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

He's probably the most singularly interesting player on the football team, but he is not a good lineman. He gets beat and commits more penalties than anyone else on that unit.

He's nasty and tries hard and is OK in combo blocks. About the best things you can say about him. I think the attitude the OL has played with starts with him, so he contributes that much.

But yes, they will be better with a fully healthy Anthony Gatti at that spot next year.

[Mosbonian]

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho

He's nasty and tries hard and is OK in combo blocks. About the best things you can say about him. I think the attitude the OL has played with starts with him, so he contributes that much.

But yes, they will be better with a fully healthy Anthony Gatti at that spot next year.

But I don't think you can discount what he brings to the line....even if it is just the attitude. Many good teams have a guy just like him, not the most talented but their attitude can help elevate a team.

[Mizzou_8541]

The Grove isn't all I expected it to be. Hope Franklin is better.

[kepp]

Originally Posted by Mizzou_8541

The Grove isn't all I expected it to be. Hope Franklin is better.

They said on the radio that its pretty chilly down there?

[TribalElder]

Concerned about frank the tanks timing

Hope he goes off