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.

Bits and pieces

It's been a while and I apologize but I always said I was more of a college football guy.  Compound that as I've been bidding on a couple of outside projects and contemplating my own independent website and there just hasn't been a lot to talk about.  However, last weekend was the black and gold game and the 4th annual PowerMizzou tailgate so I'm feeling a bit recharged today.  Saturday was a beautiful day in Columbia and the tailgating was spectacular.  The football is usually (ok, always) secondary to getting back together with some good friends, trying out some new recipes and firing up the grill that's sat under the cover for the last 4 months.

The day before the game I had both smokers going and had 18 lbs of ham injected with honey and teriyaki sauce and a beer and pineapple marinade brisket that apparently was quite the hit.  My old tailgate buddy beach deep fried a couple of turkeys and we brought in wings and ribs from 2 of the local restaurants.  I'm going to guess we had around 150 in attendance, which made up about 1% of the 15,000 that reportedly attended the game.  One of the highlights for our group was Missouri basketball player Kim English stopping by to have a few photos taken with some of the kids.  I did hear one young man describe it as "like Christmas morning" after he'd had his photo snapped with Kim.  A fine representative for the university.

As for the game itself, well, I've never believed you could take anything from a spring football game when it's 1's against 2's, the quarterbacks can't be tackled and the play calling is vanilla.  But it was a nice diversion from the last 5 months of a fairly brutal winter here in the midwest.  And anyway, it may be just a scrimmage, but the Golden Girls were in mid season form.

Now something else that has raised its head this week is the Big 10 and expansion that may come a year earlier than previously announced.  Apparently the Tigers are now on a short list and many are thinking this could be something that happens within the next few weeks.  I really doubt that.  When this began, I thought that they'd prefer to drag it out and keep the conference in the headlines for as long as possible.  While I suppose they could have found some university or universities that have just blown their doors off, or maybe just worrying that the Pac 10 or another conference could leapfrog them, I kind of think this was just them throwing a little fuel on a fire that had started to go out.  I mean they can keep running it 24/7 on the Big 10 network but they have all of those fans anyway.  Why not throw out a few rumors and get everyone talking about it?  Hell, who knows.  Maybe I'm just jaded.

Finally we had the Mike Anderson to Oregon rumors floating around all weekend.  I've got pretty mixed emotions about this.  I believe it's his obligation to listen when he's offered a huge raise from someone else and I'm certainly glad he stayed.  I just hope this isn't something we're going to have to deal with on a yearly basis from now on.  If so, then he'd better have as good a year as this recruiting class indicates he might have or I can see the athletic department and fan base turning on him pretty quickly.
That's really all I have at this time, but don't be surprised if you see me opening up my own website before long.  I have some ideas that I'd like to try that just aren't possible with this platform and then I could overwhelm you with some cheesey advertisements just like this.Missouri Tigers 28"x40" Collegiate Banner Flag
Have a great week folks and I'll be back soon.

The endless winter.

Is it just me or does this seem like the longest winter you can remember?  I'm not trying to get into any pissing matches about this whole global warming controversy.  I realize that a 3 month period means nothing in the grand scheme of things.  But this has been a winter like I remember from when I was a kid.  When I got back from my vacation I found 10 inches of ice in my driveway.  Mercifully, since we got back on New Years eve, it kept me busy instead of watching my Tigers play their bowl game. 
Ok, I expect to see some winter in December or January living in Kansas City, but we're right at the end of February now and I've rarely seen the temperatures rise above freezing.  We almost always have a few days hit the 60's at this time of year but not a damn thing so far.  This is when I'm supposed to get excited about baseball starting in 6 weeks and the possibility that the Royals will finish the year with a winning record, but this year; nothing.

This kind of reminds me of the winters we had waaaay back when I was a kid.  It seemed like we had a lot more snow back then.  I suppose part of that is because I'm a little bit taller now than I was when I was 6 or 7 years old.  I feel bad for the kids today since with all the snow days it looks like they'll be attending classes until about June 10th or so.  I imagine a few family vacation plans will be re-thought now.
I really never have cared much for winter.  Even though I've sort of taken up skiing as a sort of past time, I'm damn sure ready to hop on my bike and get out and hit a few trails.  I'd like to go to the spring game in Columbia without having to wear a pair of coveralls.  Hell, I'd like to be able to watch the Royals on a nice warm May evening and have a beer while shooting the breeze with one or both of my sons.

I know that this is Missouri and things can change quickly.  I fully realize that by the middle of March, (March 21st according to my buddy Dave) we'll be outside doing what we love to do and I'll be scaring the neighborhood children by wearing my short pants again, but hey, this is America and I'm still part of the baby boom generation.  I want it now.   Have a great week folks and try to stay warm.  No idea what to talk about next time but I'm sitting here watching "Young Frankenstein" as I was working on this and I'm thinking about something along the lines of hot young actresses.  Teri Garr was simply smoking in that movie.