Basketball season's over. Time to talk a little Gary Pinkel.

Basketball season ended with a thud last night as the Tigers fell 78-63 to Cincinnati last night.  I'm going to talk about that some as I get a chance to read a little more and watch as the Mike Anderson questions play themselves out.  But spring football is going on, Blaine Gabbert just completed his Pro Day exhibition and we have a quarterback question for the first time since Brad Smith's red shirt freshman year.  Since that day Mizzou has entered spring ball knowing exactly who the starting quarterback was going to be.  The fact that we don't know at the moment is due to the fact that Pinkel has recruited well enough that he's making a decision between two highly rated players that held multiple offers before picking the Tigers.   

Brad Smith carried the Tigers on his back during his time in CoMO and never had the advantage of having the talent around him that Chase Daniel and Blaine Gabbert had, but Brad also just didn't have the luxury of Gabberts arm or Daniel's decision making ability and swagger.  The Tigers would probably have won more games had they decided to let Brad be Brad and run an option attack such as Nebraska in their prime.  However, I doubt Chase Daniel would ever have wound up in Columbia on Saturday's if it hadn't been for the wide open attack the Tigers were committed to playing.  For that matter I don"t believe talent like Jeremy Maclin, Will Franklin, Danario Alexander, Chase Coffman and Martin Rucker would have played here, not to mention young guns like Bud Sasser, Marcus Lucas and Jimmy Hunt.  Pinkel made a conscious decision to place the program ahead of the current state of that team and has won 40 games the last 4 years by sticking to that decision.

As I said, I don't have any idea who will be taking snaps for the Tigers in September.  The 2 prime suspects would be between James Franklin and Tyler Gabbert.  Both have been making their case as to why they should be the starter this fall, but that won't be decided for some time yet, at least in my opinion.  I do think the winner will be more than capable of leading the team in what will be a much tougher conference.  I'm excited for the news over the summer and watching how things develop.  I've always been a football guy first.  But as I said, next time I'm going to talk about my feeling following a disappointing end to what began as a promising basketball season.

A true son, Chase Daniel

If he wasn't already, Chase Daniel became my favorite Tiger ever on Saturday.  He gave us a true revival in Mizzou football when he won 30 games in 3 years as a starter, and sat as a finalist for the Heisman Trophy his junior year.  He had the team within 30 minutes of football at the Big XII title game from playing for the national championship.  He was the heart and soul of 3 of the teams that won more games than any other in Tiger history.  If you were a Missouri fan you hoped that when he graduated that he'd get to realize his dream of playing in the NFL.  But, despite all the success and accolades he went undrafted before signing a free agent contract with Washington where he was released at the final roster cut.  He did however catch on with the Saints, where he is today, as the backup to Drew Brees.  I hoped he'd have a long and injury free career before returning to Missouri to begin his inevitable journey into coaching.

But Chase decided not to wait to express more thanks to the university and Coach Pinkel.  On Saturday he announced the creation of the "Chase Daniel Lone State State Scholarship", intended to pay for the scholarship of one football player from Texas, preferable to come play for Mizzou.  I'm going to play a hunch and guess that next year James Franklin will be playing on Chase' dime.  It's an incredibly generous gesture and while I don't expect it to impact Texas recruiting dramatically, it does free up some cash for recruiting trips, and does keep the Mizzou name and Chase in the same sentence.  He's still a legend in the Dallas area.  It also puts a little pressure on former teammates Jeremy Maclin, Sean Weatherspoon, William Moore and Ziggy Hood to think about doing something similar since they are all in the league also and probably making more money than Chase is as a backup.

I'm sure there have been other gifts such as this.  I believe that former hick defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh gave some large gift a last year and I'm sure there have been others.  I already expect former beak quarterback Todd Reesing to do something similar since he basically spent his career trying to be Chase.  Perhaps to immortalize his legacy at kansas he could award a membership to the "box wine of the month club" to a deserving member of the beaks football team.  Of course as long as the Reverend Gill is coaching them the kid won't be able to use it during the season.