Rumors and more random thoughts

The first day of the draft went well for 2 former Tigers as Aldon Smith was selected by San Francisco with the 7th selection and Blaine Gabbert went 3 picks later to the Jacksonville Jaguars.  That makes 5 first round picks in the last 3 years for Mizzou and should end the myth that the Tigers and Coach Gary Pinkel can't get players drafted.  Throw in some later round pickups like William Moore and free agents such as Chase Daniel and we're getting a nice representation from the black and gold.  Will it help recruiting?  I really don't see how it can't help to.  All kids want to go to the next level and think that the only thing that would stop them would be poor coaching.  That just shouldn't be a problem anymore, and next years draft should just continue the process as I believe we'll see another 4 or 5 players drafted.

As spring camp ended, there were some questions about the post spring depth chart.  A lot of fans are disappointed that we didn't see more movement from the kids of the 2010 class that included such highly regarded recruits as Lucas Vincent, Nick Demien and the wide receivers.  To me, it just shows that we had some fairly decent athletes to begin with and kids that used to come in and start as freshmen are now having to earn their way to a starting position.  Another possibility is also keeping the younger kids hungry.  I'm still going to be really surprised if we aren't hearing a lot of Hunt, Sasser and Lucas this fall.  James Franklin sits at the top for the starting QB job this fall, but that battle is far from over.  If I was going to make a prediction concerning quarterback, it would be to possibly look for Ashton Glaser to seek a transfer if he's buried 3rd on the depth chart.  The kid can play, but it just doesn't look like he's ever going to do it in CoMO.

Something happened this week that was just funny, I don't care who you are.   The new pride of the Big Ten, hick nation was booted out of the AAU this week.  Apparently, after 102 years of membership, the association of 63 top research universities finally realized what a collection of dumb fucks lived in Lincoln.  The Big Ten can no longer say that all their members belong to the AAU and I imagine some academia types aren't really happy with Jim Delaney today.   I know it probably seems petty to be getting enjoyment out of this, but I do.  I'm just that way.
Lots of news from around the new lean Big XII following spring football.  We'll start talking about that later this week.  First stop, Ames, Iowa and the Cyclones. 

Dog days

It's mid to late July and summer is in full force.  This is the worst time of the year for me personally.  I'm primarily a football guy and there just anything going on with football for another couple of weeks.  The Royals have given us a couple of weeks of excitement but it appears that's going by the wayside also.  Actually, if you're a Missouri fan, about the biggest thing going on right now is whether basketball recruit Tony Mitchell will be approved by the NCAA clearing house and make it to Columbia for classes this fall.  There's been precious little news coming on the football front other than the stories coming from the Missouri recruiting sites, which have been like an oasis in the desert.  Oh, we've had a couple of things going on, such as college football realignment that ended like a fart in a hurricane and the ongoing ku ticket scandal and FBI investigation, which will probably last another 18 months at least.  But other than these it's been dry as hell.

But there is hope.  Football practice starts in about 2 weeks, and pretty soon we'll be discussing such things as can Blaine Gabbert improve on an excellent sophomore season when he threw for over 3,500 yards.  Also will be whether corn nation can continue their defensive dominance without the most dominant defensive tackle in the last 10 years and if Turner Gill's no profanity rule will carry on to the kansas fans.  What would the spirit of fair play and competition be without 30,000 drunken kansas buffoons urging their team to "rip his fucking head off" whenever the beaks kick off, which could happen an average of 3 times each and every game?

So bear with me a little longer.  Pretty soon I'll be gearing up and breaking down what I think/hope will happen this season and making wild assed predictions every week as it pertains to Big XII scores.  I'm far too old to be wishing my life away, so I'm going to enjoy the high temperatures as best I can.  And after all, it's not like summer doesn't have some things going for it.
In the next week or so, I'm going to take a look at what will be the last year of division play in the conference and offer my best guess on records and where the teams will finish.  Until then, stay cool and have a fabulous week.