Rumors and more random thoughts....

Maty Mauk

If you don't follow football recruiting, then the name Maty Mauk won't mean a darned thing to you.  However, if you're a recruiting junkie it gets your palms just a little sweaty.  For those of you that aren't held hostage to this addiction, I'll tell you a little something about Mauk.  He's a 6'2", 185 pound quarterback from Ohio who's thrown for about 13,500 yards and 151 touchdowns in his first 3 years of high school.  He's one of the top 2 or 3 quarterbacks in the country, has offers from such programs as Michigan and Notre Dame, and there's a fair chance he's going to be giving his commitment to come to CoMO in 2012.  The Tigers have landed some pretty highly ranked recruits in Missouri, including guys like Blaine Gabbert, Sheldon Richardson and Jeremy Maclin, and recently starting picking up some 4 star kids out of Texas like Tristan Holt and recent verbal, Jonathan Williams.  But Mauk would be an anomoly.  He's from Kenyon freaking Ohio, not the normal Tiger recruiting ground.  Getting Mauk would signify that the Tigers are prepared to go head to head with anyone anywhere in the country for recruits.  The places Gary Pinkel has taken this program since his arrival is truly remarkable, even if there seems to be a head scratching loss every season.

Sheldon Richardson

And speaking of quarterbacks, we will, for the first time since August 31st when Brad Smith tore up defending Big Ten champion Illinois 33-20 in the first of 6 consecutive ass kickings Pinkel's Tigers have administered to the whining Illini.  You'd have to say that although James Franklin ended the spring period strong, that it's still way to early to call him the starter this fall.  Tyler Gabbert, and junior to be Ashton Glaser both showed signs this spring that they were more than capable of leading the Tiger offense.  While all 3 struggled at times, there's one thing you need to remember, and I'm dead serious about this.  The offense won't face many defenses as strong as the one they practice against.  If Sheldon Richardson indeed makes it on campus in June to add to a defensive tackle rotation that already includes guys like a hopefully healthy Dominique Hamilton, Terrel Resonno, Lucas Vincent and Marvin Foster to go along with the defensive ends, you are going to be a handful for offensive coordinators.  It's the kind of Missouri football I grew up watching and frankly, I can't wait.

Chris Freeman

I'm also hearing the Tigers will be committing more to rushing the football this year.  4 experienced tailbacks are returning and 4 seniors on the offensive line which was one of the best in the conference last year.  And what's even more amazing is the depth behind the starters.  Next year we'll be breaking in 4 new starters but will be picking them from kids named Gatti, Freeman, Demien, Meiners, Morse and Britt.  The Tigers are red shirting kids that would have come in as starters 5 years ago.   I'll be looking at more reports soon and trying to figure out what to look for this fall.  Until then, at least there's softball and baseball to talk about.  But now, I'm getting out of town for a few days much needed vacation.  Talk to you soon.  I'll try to keep up my scoreboard and some fun news stories and current events on my website.  I hope you'll stop by.

Some questions heading into spring ball. The offense......

We're a little over 2 weeks away from the start of spring football.  That means we now have less than two months with no college football to follow.  Now I happen to consider that about 6 weeks too many, but then I'm something of a fanatic.  The Tigers return 35 of the 44 players in the 2 deep from last year so you wouldn't expect there to be a lot of questions, but early departures by quarterback Blaine Gabbert and defensive end Aldon Smith created a couple of unexpected holes.  I'm going to talk about some of the questions on the offense today, which has to start with, who's going to be the guy pulling the trigger for the offense now that BG has left for the NFL?  The smart money says it's going to come down to 2 guys that were freshmen last year, James Franklin and Blaine's younger brother Tyler.  Both were highly regarded prospects coming out of high school and appear to be capable of taking over for Blaine, who in my opinion was under-appreciated by Tiger nation.  It can't have been easy following Chase Daniel who's always going to be considered a legend in Columbia following that magnificent 2007 season.  But let's remember that CD had guys like Maclin, Franklin, Coffman, Rucker and Saunders to throw to.  In Blaine's first season when he had Danario Alexander still around he had numbers that were very similar to Chases' sophomore season.  He just lacked the game breaker last year, other than TJ Moe's last minute catch against San Diego State and Jerrell Jackson's catch against OU in the 4th quarter that put the Tigers back in the lead to stay.  If I was handicapping this, I'd have to go with Franklin, but guys that watch the team daily say don't go to sleep on Tyler Gabbert.  If I was a betting man, which I'm not I'm guessing the loser of the battle could well transfer following the season, along with 3rd stringer Ashton Glaser who appears to be the odd man out.  Incoming freshman Corbin Berkstressor had a great senior season but I expect to see him red shirt this year.

The one loss that was expected was center Tim Barnes graduating.  For the past 2 years Travis Ruth was expected to be the successor, but it seems most everyone is talking about a lightly regarded kid from Lebanon, Missouri as most likely to be the starter this fall.  Justin came from my neck of the woods and may well be the first kid to start on a division 1 program.  He was also scorned as a 5.4 two star player who many felt was offered simply to fill up slots.  However, he's been praised by the staff since the day he got on campus due to his work ethic and understanding of the game.  He's yet another exhibit as to why we shouldn't take Rivals or Scouts rankings too seriously.  Actually, after guys like Alexander, Weatherspoon and Hood we should have had some idea that the coaches had some idea what they were doing, but then we wouldn't be Missouri fans.  If it teaches us anything though, we should realize that kids that are really good wrestlers in high school understand the concept of leverage and be able to transfer that to football.  Justin was a two time state champion in the heavyweight division.

At running back, the Tigers went with mostly a three headed, but sometimes four headed monster during the season.  All of the backs experienced some success, but the fact is, it's hard to recruit backs to the system unless you have someone that breaks out as a feature guy.  I know the Tigers realize this, especially with the difficulties they've had recruiting the big name kids, even those that are residents of the Show Me State.  All four of the returners are similar in that they're smallish guys with bursts of speed.  All are capable of breaking the big play any time they touch the ball, but questionable in their ability to break tackles and get the tough yards.  If indeed they attempt to get more touches to one guy, then I'm going to guess, and it's just a guess that the top two getting their chance to shine would be junior Kendial Lawrence and sophomore Henry Josey.  Both were highly regarded kids out of Texas and show more speed than De'Vion Moore, who was usually the starter last year, and Marcus Murphy, who spent the year as the deep man on kickoffs.  And don't rule out red shirt freshman Greg White as a potential short yardage guy.

One spot that you'd think with no questions would be at wide receiver with all three starters returning, but I'm convinced the team has to find a deep threat.  Last year the Tigers brought in three highly regarded recruits, although two of them were red shirted.  Marcus Lucas shed his shirt, but only made three catches last year, although he gained PT as the season went along.  I see him in sort of the D. Alexander mold; a tall receiver with good hands and deceptive speed that's capable of turning a short pass over the middle into a long gain.  Hopefully he can be nearly as effective and healthy.  For sheer speed, give me a look at the two kids that red shirted, Jimmie Hunt and Bud Sasser.  I expect both to earn plenty of playing time this year.  You also have to remember the kid everyone from the 'Lou was raving about a couple of years ago, Rolandis Woodland.  There's no doubt the kid is a burner.  Now he has to show he knows the playbook and can bring in the critical catch when it's prime time. I believe TJ Moe is a lock to hold on to his spot, but if I'm Jerrell Jackson or Wes Kemp, I'm making sure to get in some extra work this off season.  There are a lot of young lions looking to take your spot.
That's all for today.  I imagine we'll talk about how the basketball team fared this week next time, but when I get back to football, we'll discuss the defense.  Hope your weeks going well for you.

 

Spring football kicks off today!

If I had a professional baseball team to root for I'd probably be a little less excited about spring football kicking off this week.  However, I'm a Kansas City Royals fan so hope begins to fade for me somewhere between April 15th and the first of May.  So since I'm really not much of a basketball fan, (although I've become a big Mike Anderson guy) the thought of my favorite team getting out and getting after it is my main sports fix this time of year.  Missouri still enters spring ball as one of the youngest teams in the Big XII and the north division and is one of the co-favorites, largely being picked second behind hick nation up in Lincoln.
Today I'd like to take a look at the offense for the Tigers.  Despite losing most of their weapons from the year before, the Tigers averaged 29 points per game last year, which ranked 6th in the conference.  Not the heady statistics from the previous 2 seasons of course, but still pretty good from a conference that views defense as just something you do while you're drawing up plays for the next drive.  Sophomore Blaine Gabbert was ranked 3rd in the conference in yards per game and 2nd in pass efficiency with a score of 140.5, trailing only Colt McCoy of the Longhorns.  Of course, he's going to lose his biggest weapon in Danario Alexander, which might actually make him a better quarterback in the long run.  He's got to improve on his habit of staring down the receiver.  If he does that you can pretty much pencil him in as one of the favorites for 1st team all conference along with Jerrod Johnson from Texas A&M.

A bigger question, at least in my mind is who takes over the number 2 job.  The Tigers were rolling along at 4-0 when they met Nebraska in Columbia on October 8th in what turned out to be a monsoon.  Gabbert got his ankle rolled up on a completely clean tackle and wasn't the same for the next few weeks.  It was apparent that the coaching staff felt that a hobbled Gabbert was preferable to either of the alternatives, former walk on Jimmy Costello or true freshman Ashton Glaser.  So this year the Tigers went out and recruited and landed 2-4 star prospects in Tyler Gabbert, Blaine's younger brother and James Franklin from Lake Dallas high school in Corinth, Texas.  James was the 20th ranked player in the state and represents the highest ranked player Coach Pinkel has ever been able to pull out of the Lone Star state.  Both James and Tyler enrolled in January and are available for spring practice.  I'm going to go out on something of a limb right now and predict James is # 2 on the depth chart when fall practice rolls around in August.  I think Tyler takes a red shirt.

Despite the popular notion that all Missouri does is throw the ball, last year was the first time since 2006 when they didn't have a 1,000 yard rusher.  Senior Derrick Washington went for slightly over 800 yards last year after rushing for over 1,000 as a sophomore.  He's backed up by junior DeVion Moore and sophomore Kendial Lawrence, a former Parade All America as a senior in high school.  This year they also recruited Marcus Murphy, Henry Josey and Greg White as running backs.  I think the 3 returnees are all solid and expect red shirts for the incoming freshmen unless someone surprises in fall camp.  To me the problems we had running the ball had less to do with talent and more with scheme.  I hear rumblings that we'll see more 2 back sets this year and hope to see some of that occurring with a quarterback under center.

As I said, the receiving corp takes a hit this year with the loss of All America Danario Alexander.  He was Gabberts #1, #2 and #3 option last year and I believe we had some other guys miss opportunities as Blaine tended to focus in on Alexander.  Hell, the guy caught 113 passes for 1781 yards and 14 touchdown last year.  Why wouldn't you look for him?  However, there is absolutely some talent left in the cupboard as Wes Kemp returns for his junior year firmly entrenched as one of the starters.  Another junior, Jerrell Jackson absolutely showed that he's capable of making the big play.  There's also plenty of returning talent in Rolandis Woodland, Michael Egnew, Jaleel Clark and TJ Moe as well as incoming freshmen Marcus Lucas, Jimmy Hunt and Bud Sasser.  I think the red shirt burns on at least 1 of these guys, but frankly, I doubt any of them open the season as starters.  The tight end position was forgotten last year which was surprising considering the success of former Tigers Martin Rucker and Chase Coffman.  Junior Andrew Jones opens as the starter and really the only thing I believe he lacked last year was Gabbert being able to find him.

The offensive line returns 4 of 5 starters from last year, minus guard Kurtis Gregory who's moved on.  The tackles last  were juniors to be Elvis Fisher and Dan Hoch.  Elvis will miss most of spring ball due to surgery which should give "Big" Jack Meiners a chance to show his stuff with the 1st unit.  Tim Barnes will man the center position as the only senior starter this year and I expect expect either Meiners or Jayson Palmgren to fill in at the guard spot for Gregory.  I actually wouldn't be surprised if one of the starters last year, guard Austin Wuebbles is replaced by one of those 2 also.  To top it off, the Tigers brought in 3 highly regarded offensive line prospects in Mitch Morse, Nick Demien and Anthony Gatti.  Offensive line is a difficult position to play as a freshman in the Big XII and both Gatti and Demien are coming off knee injuries as seniors.  I really expect all 3 to take a red shirt but wouldn't be surprised if one is able to crack the 2 deep.   
So in closing, despite the fact that Mizzou lost one of the premier receivers from last years team, I really don't expect the Tigers to miss a beat this year.  They've been recruiting top notch talent and frankly they expect to succeed.  Offensive coordinator David Yost will benefit from his year of experience and the youngsters will have the benefit of another year in the program.  Mark it down, the Tigers will average 35 points a game this fall.
Next time we'll talk about the other side of the ball where the future is just a bit more cloudy.  Have a good week folks!