Spring game weekend. First one I've missed in years.

I love the spring football game.  I hated missing it this year but sometimes when we grow up things happen, and we have to do things that we don't love because we do things we just have to do.  By this time of year I'm pretty much in full withdrawal from football.  Basketball is ok, but the end of the season dramatics, courtesy of former coach what's his name, and it really wore me out.  I'm going to trust Mike Alden that we've picked the right guy, and I'm going to trust Frank Haith because it appears that he's made at least 2 home run hires for his new staff.  Baseball has started out great for us Royals fans, but it's a marathon, not a sprint.  I've seen enough quick starts that were followed by mid season collapses that I have no intention of investing too much passion right now. But we've got some history going with the football team now as they've won 48 games over the past 5 season.  So excuse me if I get excited reading practice reports and scrimmage statistics.

Maybe the biggest news of the day happened off the field as the Tigers obtained a verbal from Texas running back Jonathan Williams.  Williams rushed for over 2000 yards and 19 touchdowns as a junior and is ranked as the 33rd best player in Texas and the 3rd best running back in the nation.  It marks the 2nd year in a row that the Tigers have snagged a recruit rated inside the Texas top 50, (Last year both James Franklin and Tristan Holt were members of this club) and shows that Mizzou is a serious contender for the top Texas talent.  Jonathan is the kind of kid that starts a domino effect with other kids and does show why, during the feeding frenzy of conference realignment last summer, he really preferred that Missouri remain in the Big XII where he and his staff had spent years developing relationships.  It also shows that hick nation is now going to have to work a little harder if they intend to keep mining Texas for recruits.  Williams is exactly the kind of back they're looking for in Lincoln.

As far as the quarterback battle goes, James Franklin will now officially enter the summer months as # 1 at the position.  James had a good day, going 13 of 21 for 116 yards and 2 touchdowns to go with a 139.7 quarterback rating.  Tyler Gabbert however was 8 of 22 for 48 yards and a rating of 45.6.  This isn't going to end until sometime next August at the earliest, but I fully expect the competition to make both of them better.  For complete stats, Dave Matter has an excellent breakdown in his blog. So now we'll be reaching for football news, but it's going to be out there and I'll try to find as much of it as I can.  Stop by and see my current event section on my web page.

More random thoughts

Generally we don't have a lot of Missouri athletics information coming out at this time of year, simply because things are winding down.  We're getting a nice run out of the softball team however so we've had that going for us.  And basketball have given us news, both good and bad since Mike Anderson flirting with Arkansas became evident to even those of us that were supporting him.  It's good if you write a Missouri-centric blog like I do, or if you write for a legitimate site like Dave Matter, Mike DeArmond or Vahe Gregorian, but frankly, I think a lot of our fan base needs a chance to chill.  I'm a member of 2 pay sites that are devoted to Missouri athletics and it used to be that you'd see posters less inclined to find fault with the athletic department than the free sites.  But now it seems that we're getting as many or more pissing matches on PowerMizzou as we do on Tigerboard.  I admit it's worn me down and I try to be selective of who I'm reading.

One thing most all Missouri fans can agree on is the new television deal announced with Fox Sports this week is going to play very nicely for the conference.   The new 13 year agreement will pump around 90 million dollars into the league per year and guarantees that a minimum of 40 Big XII football games, plus olympic events will be broadcast, giving the league a ton more exposure.  With the ABC/ESPN deal entering stages of renegotiation the conference could well be the largest money maker of the 6 BCS conferences at least until someone else negotiates a new deal.  It appears that with Nebraska and Colorado leaving the conference, revenue will increase for the remaining members, and adds a sense of stability to a league that many, including myself left for dead after the realignment talks last summer.

Frank Haith has announced 3 hirings for his staff at Missouri this week, and Tiger fan seems to be encouraged for a change.  Tim Fuller comes to CoMO from Louisville and has the reputation as a top notch recruiter.  He's been a long time friend of Coach Haith and has ties with the AAU circuit as well as Nike.  Lord knows with all the scholarships becoming available in the next 13 months, that we can use an aggressive lead recruiter.  Joining him on the bench will be Ernie Nestor, formerly the director of basketball operations at Penn State, who achieved a remarkable turnaround this year, qualifying for the NCAA tournament after going 11-20 the year before.  He's considered to be a good x's and o's guy and a nice compliment to all the youth on the bench.   Tordor Pandov also joins as the new strength and conditioning coach and comes to Mizzou with Haith from Miami.  2 more names will surface as there is still room for a 3rd assistant as well as a director of basketball operations.  I'm still holding out hope that we might bring in a guy with some St Louis ties.  The complete inability of mike anderson to recruit on the east side of the state was a huge disappointment to me.

5 biggest moments of MU athletics this year. Well, so far.....

I'm officially sick of talking about Mike Alden and Frank Haith.  Not that both these guys aren't worthy of discussion.  It's just that there's nothing to talk about right now.  Coach Haith hasn't even hired his first staff member yet, or gotten his first recruit.  There may be something if he manages to salvage something from this recruiting session, which suffered from inattention to former coach mike anderson.    As for Alden, as I've stated before, he's very unlikely to be fired due to the profitability of the AD, and the fact that most programs are doing as well or better than they ever have during his watch.  What I'd like to talk about are what I consider to be the 5 biggest moments for the athletic department for 2010-2011.  We may yet see something from the baseball, and even more importantly the softball programs, but those will be topics for another day.  So here are my 5 biggest, in no particular order.
1. The Catch
No, I'm not talking about Montana to Clark.  I'm referring to September 18th of 2010.  The Tigers season appears ready to derail before it ever gets out of the station as they trail lightly regarded San Diego State 24-20 with less than a minute to go.  Suddenly, out of no where, Blaine Gabbert finds TJ Moe for a 68 yard touchdown to save the season.   Without that, who knows where the season might have gone. 
2. The Return

If TJ saved the season, the return of the opening kickoff from Gahn McGaffie set the stage and made Missouri a contender.  ESPN Gameday was in town and Tiger nation had done itself proud, showing up over 18,000 strong to set a new record.  But what remained was the game against the # 1 ranked Oklahoma Sooners, a team that head coach Gary Pinkel had never beaten.  The game opened with a lot of energy from the crowd, and the Tigers needed a good start to keep them in the game.  McGaffie supplied that with an 86 yard return of the opening kickoff and I've not been in Memorial Stadium where the volume was that loud since the 4th quarter of the 2003 game vs Nebraska where the Tigers ended 24 years of frustration.
3. Robin Pingeton hired 
I know.  Women's basketball isn't a major sport.  In the food chain at Mizzou, it ranks about even with golf and cross country.  But it was making a statement that the Tigers weren't giving up on any sports, whether it had a following or not. While I'm not sure I always agree with the philosophy, it is pretty much the mission statement of the athletic department, and I expect to see her bring women's basketball to a level of competitiveness that we just haven't see before.
4 Mike Anderson resigns
I probably shouldn't have capitalized his name, and I doubt that he's ever mentioned again, but the cowardly and deceitful way that former coach anderson left is something that I'm going to remember.  He did raise the bar of the program after the Quin Snyder debacle, but I hope that at some point he learns to tell the truth.  Frankly, I wouldn't believe the man if he said good morning.
5 Gary Pinkel's contract extended
This just happened today and I couldn't be happier.  Coach Pinkel signed a 2 year extension which means he remains in CoMO until 2017.  Coach signed the extension for the same money he was making, although he does receive an extra 100 k contributed to his annuity per year, and an extra 150,000 to be distributed among his assistants.  This may or may not be the last extension the coach signs, but I still expect to see a statue of him outside the stadium after he retires.   

Random thoughts

Billy Butler hit a 2 run homer in the bottom of the 8th inning last night to tie the game at 6, and the Royals completed the comeback in the 12th inning when Melky Cabrera scored Chris Getz and KC moved to 4-1 with a 7-6 win over the White Sox at Kauffman Stadium.  It's the 4th win for the Royals in their last at bat also, which is probably as many as they had last season.  I still am a long way from saying they'll be a contender.  Hell, I'm quite a ways away from saying they won't lose over 90 games this year.  But right now they're fun to watch and we're seeing some things from some guys that we need to compliment the young talent that's going to start coming in later this year, or I guess now since we have 5 rookies in the bullpen and one at first base.  The starting pitching is suspect, save for Jeff Francis who looked good in his first outing.   Alcides Escobar may be the best defensive shortstop we've seen in KC since UL Washington and may allow KC to move Mike Moustakas to 3rd base since I'm fairly certain Mike Aviles isn't going to be starting next year if he's in KC at all. 

If you happen to live or travel to the Los Angeles area and you see these 2 scumbags to the left, don't turn your back on them.  These are police sketches of 2 dreamboats that attacked San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow in Dodgers Stadium parking lot last Tuesday night.   Stow, a 42 year old paramedic was taking a dream road trip to watch his Giants and was beaten by 2 assailants that resemble these drawings so badly that he's in critical condition in a coma with a brain injury.  This has nothing to do with the Dodgers or LA residents in general.  This was a cowardly attack by 2 guys that need to be caught and put away.  My biggest hope is that they haven't already reproduced.  The gene pool isn't deep enough for a couple of bottom feeders like this.

New Missouri basketball coach Frank Haith may not have wowed the entire Missouri fan base with his first press conference as the head coach of the basketball Tigers, but he hit a solid triple.  I think that MU fan is willing to give him a pass until they at least see if he can recruit some solid players at this late juncture.  And for you guys that want to see Mike Alden fired for this.  While I've disagreed that he deserves to lose his job, I agree that he's really polarizing an already and always fractured fan base, it's not going to happen most likely.  The AD appears to be 14 million dollars in the black this year; one of less than 20 athletic departments in the nation that turned a profit.  He may get spanked by the curators sometimes but very few companies fire a manager that turns a large profit.  And one thing I'll say to Mike, and by the way I did email this suggestion...Leave Haith alone and let him run his program.  The guy graduated players from Miami and kept them out of the headlines off the court.  He deserves some latitude until he proves he doesn't.

I'll take coaches you've never heard of for $500.00 Alex...

This wasn't the hire I expected.  It wasn't what anyone expected.  A week ago we were talking about stealing Matt Painter from Purdue and now we wind up with a guy that many of us never heard of.  Now to be fair, I really don't recall hearing much about Painter either, but a lot of people that I respect think this is nothing short of a bad hire.  Since being hired as the head man in Miami Haith has compiled a record of 129-101 (43-69 in conference) in the tough ACC.  He's taken the Hurricanes to 1 NCAA tournament and frankly, appears to be mediocre at best.  The talking heads have been pounding AD Mike Alden over this hire, led by former Tiger great Jon Sunvold who's disliked Alden since Norm Stewart was relieved of his duties in 1999.

Not since the day that Mike Anderson was announced as coach have I felt like Alden's job was in more jeopardy than it is today.  I've always defended Alden.  I think he's improved the overall athletic department incredibly, but you know, sometimes it's just best to move on.  That time may be coming for Mike, and frankly, I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing.  He's be accused of micro-managing the sports programs and there are indications that has been true, at least as far a men's basketball is concerned.  I remember when the youngest Rush brother was deciding on which school to attend and Alden over rode then coach Quin Snyder and forbid him to come to Mizzou.  Rush went to ku and played on their last national title team in 2008.  The firing of Snyder was handled as badly as it could have been, and even an Alden supporter like myself can't defend that.  You never hear any complaints from Alden's cadillac hire, Gary Pinkel, but the fact is that in the AD heirarchy Pinkel is the 600 lb gorilla in the room.

As for the Haith hire, there's a BOC teleconference this evening, presumably to discuss the final language on his contract.  I expect it to be resolved and we'll hear Haith announced as the 17th head coach of Missouri basketball tomorrow.  But, it wouldn't surprise me if we hear later tonight that Alden has been terminated and now we're looking for a new AD as well as restarting the coaching search.  I don't really think it is a good idea, but you know, I don't know that it's all bad either.