PETE SCANTLEBURY ON FOOTBALL RECRUITING
Before we get into some of the specific names in this Chamber, I'm going to take a minute to talk about how much room Missouri has left in this class. For the past few weeks, I believed Missouri would take between 23-25 recruits in the 2013 class, and I was basing that estimate on new offers and players still left on the board.
In short, I may have been wrong.
I've spoken to a few sources who would know, and they've told me that Missouri's magic number to round out this class is 20. I didn't get this answer for sure, but I imagine the real number is 21, because Antar Thompson will head to JUCO after signing with the Tigers. That leaves two spots available. However, the current situation was described to me as a "must-have situation." From here on out, Missouri isn't going to take a player just to fill a spot. The staff only wants to take best-available players. The four likely candidates that seem to fit that mold are Tampa (Fla.) Jesuit tight end Ezekiel Elliotthttp://rivals.yahoo.com/footballrecruiting/football/recruiting/player-Ezekiel-Elliott-135901.
Of that list right now, I'd say that landing Johnson may be the biggest challenge. Johnson announced a final three of Missouri, Cincinnati and South Florida. He cancelled a visit to Rutgers this weekend in favor of staying in Tampa and seeing South Florida. The Bulls have a lot of momentum right now on the recruiting trail, and signs are pointing toward Johnson staying home.
On to this weekend's visitors ...
The big news broke already, and Elliott will be in Columbia beginning today. It's not his first visit to Columbia. It's not his first visit to Columbia since committing to Ohio State. He's been a pretty familiar sight at games this fall, and obviously with his parents being athlete alums, it makes sense.
But what doesn't make sense to me, as I've tweeted and discussed before, is Elliott saying this is just a courtesy visit. It is not. It would make no sense for this to be a courtesy a visit. No one takes a courtesy visit about ten days before National Signing Day. He could have made any one of his trips during the season an official visit and be done with it.
A source told us that when Elliott's quotes about this being a courtesy got to the staff, they told him if that was the case, he should just cancel the visit. They didn't want to waste his time, or their own time. Elliott is still visiting. So, as I said, this is not a courtesy visit.
I'm not trying to sound like it's a foregone conclusion that he'll switch to Missouri this weekend or sometime before Feb. 7. At best, it seems like a 50-50 situation between the Tigers and the Buckeyes. Getting him on an official visit, and confirming that visit, is a big step for Missouri. The staff will have the red carpet ready for him, no doubt. Trent Hosick, already on campus, will play a big role this weekend, I'm sure. Hosick has already been in Elliott's ear on some of his other trips this fall. I'm not sure what, exactly, Missouri will have to do to flip him this weekend, as obviously he's extremely familiar with the program and the staff. Josh Henson's offensive tweaks will be a big point of discussion, I'm sure. It's going to be an interesting weekend to follow, especially after last year's visits for Evan Boehm and Dorial Green-Beckham, which proved to be the difference for both of those in-state stars.
I know that's not a ton of news regarding Elliott, but with how quietly he tried to make this visit, I don't think anyone could expect a lot of information surrounding his visit. Because he spoke with reporters before the visit, I imagine he'll talk after it. Stay tuned.
The other two visitors this weekend are Shindelar and Tuttle (Okla.) tight end/ defensive end Dawson Bassett[/URL]. Missouri still has ground to make up on Tulsa for Shindelar, who has told him he'll play tight end for them without a doubt. The Tigers see Shindelar as a jumbo athlete who could play either side of the ball, and I'll imagine they'll make it clear to him that their policy is to allow players to start at whichever position they like. I don't think Shindelar's decision would be affected by Johnson, if the Tampa tight end does pick Mizzou.
Bassett, as I reported yesterday, does not have an offer yet, and I don't know if an offer should be expected this weekend. The staff may want to see how he developed physically after his senior year, as the last time the entire staff saw him came in June at their Kansas City camp. At 6-foot-4, 215-pounds (his listed measurements), he's not too far away from Jason Reese, who is 6-4, 222. Bassett may be a late offer closer to NSD.
The last name still remaining out there is Duron Singleton. He's visiting Syracuse this weekend and told me he'll make a decision following the visit. Missouri seems to be the team to beat for his services.
There are a few other names out there which surfaced recently, namely Frankfort (Kent.) receiver Ryan Timmonshttp://rivals.yahoo.com/footballrecruiting/football/recruiting/player-Ryan-Timmons-135420 and Atlanta (Ga.) receiver Deangelo Yancey[/URL]. It does not look like Timmons will visit, as Florida and Ohio State have recently offered. Another site has reported that Yancey may visit next weekend. However, a source told me that while Missouri has expressed interest, neither player has been offered yet. With J'Mon Moore and Donovahn Jones already in the fold at receiver, it doesn't appear likely that Missouri will offer either player, at least not on offense.
Should Missouri miss out on Singleton, it appears they've looked at a few more safeties from Georgia. One new name is Juston Mincyhttp://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/recruiting/player-Juston-Mincy-124661, out of Southwest Dekalb in Decatur, Ga. I don't think the interest is too serious at this point, but Missouri knows about him at least.
-- Before we wrap up this section today, I have some more information on Missouri's most recent 2014 offer. This week, Missouri offered Fort Worth (Texas) All-Saints quarterback Foster Sawyerhttp://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/recruiting/player-Foster-Sawyer-132754, 6-foot-5, 210-pounds. He's Missouri's second QB offer for 2014, joining Edmond (Okla.) QB Justice Hansen, who has been the Tigers' top target for some time now.
Our guy at SoonerScoop.com, Josh McCuistion, caught up with Sawyer, and passed on these quotes:
"I think that's how it is very year once the senior year is done, once the seniors are committed, I think the recruiters start getting out there and the hype starts building," Sawyer said. "I try and stay away from all of that stuff, I play the game because it's fun and I try not to get too caught up in al the hype. But there have been a few schools I haven't heard from and then they just got interested over the past few weeks. The recruiter and the head coach from Missouri came by and gave me an offer ? it was my first offer.
"I want to go up there for a junior day to try and learn more about them, I like Missouri's offense and want to see some more."
Last year, Sawyer completed 59.5 percent of his passes for 2,810 yards, 27 touchdowns and 13 interceptions.
BRIAN AUSTIN ON BASKETBALL RECRUITING
Looking at 2014 targets this week including a few that we knew Mizzou had expressed interest in, but now it seems their interest has picked up. ?Aquinas (GA) shooting guard Cliff Alexander is a high priority for Missouri, however we have not been able to get in touch with Alexander or his coach yet. Those are two names that are obviously at the top of many schools wish list so the competition will be very strong, but it appears that Mizzou has kicked their recruiting of the two top 25 targets up a notch. It continues the positive trend of Mizzou going after very highly rated targets in the class of 2014. For months, we've been hearing from sources that 2014 is where the Tigers have felt they have a chance to make a real national splash on the recruiting trail.
I was also able to catch up with the coaches of Dwayne Morgan as well. Morgan is down in Florida playing in a tournament and will be taking was supposed to take an unofficial visit to USF, but a first round loss might throw a wrench in their plans according to Dwayne Wise. Morgan's first official visit will take place February 8-10 when he visits Indiana. After that he plans to visit UNLV then Missouri. According to his coach the Missouri visit would likely happen at the end of February or the beginning of March.
Okonoboh's coach, Vic Pastore, told me that Okonoboh hasn't scheduled any visits and isn't really even thinking about them yet. All of Okonoboh's focus is on his own season right now and he understands that there is a lot of time left in his recruiting process.
Last thing, a source told us Tim Fuller will be down in the Dallas metro area soon checking in on Emmanuel Mudiay.
GABE DeARMOND FRANK HAITH AND THE NCAA
I won't be long here. I just want to kind of catch everybody up on the Haith situation.
When Jeff Goodman's story broke early this week, things looked kind of dim. But as we told everybody at the time, right now, it's just a REPORT. You don't make statements or react to a report until you know for sure it's true. I think Goodman does a great job and fully expected what he reported to be true. And I want to stress that I'm not sure it WASN'T. His story may have been 100% correct...until the NCAA came out and said it had screwed everything up on Wednesday.
For those who may not have kept as close a tab on the situation, here is my story from Wednesdayhttp://missouri.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1463583.
I have said this already, but I don't think the NCAA mess can be a BAD thing for Haith. It may not help, it may not change anything for the better, but I don't see how it could possibly have made it worse. Let's say the NCAA gets through the investigation and thinks it has enough to charge Haith with unethical conduct and failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance as Goodman said. Does the mess of the investigation impact their willingness to actually DO it? Becuase if they do it and I'm Haith's lawyer, I'm pitching a fit and saying, "How can you tell me that we should trust this part of the investigation when you already told us you screwed it up?"
Bottom line, I think Haith's chances of staying at Missouri next year went WAY up on Wednesday. On the court, there's no discussion. He's done plenty. Off the court, there are really only two questions:
*Does the investigation of the investigation change what the NCAA will charge him with?
*Has he been truthful with Missouri throughout the process?
The answers to those questions determine the future.
One final note, IF something were to lead to Haith leaving, I feel confident saying the most likely scenario would be Tim Fuller taking over. Not saying it's a foregone conclusion, but from what I've heard and been told, I think that would be the path Missouri is most likely to take.[/URL]
Before we get into some of the specific names in this Chamber, I'm going to take a minute to talk about how much room Missouri has left in this class. For the past few weeks, I believed Missouri would take between 23-25 recruits in the 2013 class, and I was basing that estimate on new offers and players still left on the board.
In short, I may have been wrong.
I've spoken to a few sources who would know, and they've told me that Missouri's magic number to round out this class is 20. I didn't get this answer for sure, but I imagine the real number is 21, because Antar Thompson will head to JUCO after signing with the Tigers. That leaves two spots available. However, the current situation was described to me as a "must-have situation." From here on out, Missouri isn't going to take a player just to fill a spot. The staff only wants to take best-available players. The four likely candidates that seem to fit that mold are Tampa (Fla.) Jesuit tight end Ezekiel Elliotthttp://rivals.yahoo.com/footballrecruiting/football/recruiting/player-Ezekiel-Elliott-135901.
Of that list right now, I'd say that landing Johnson may be the biggest challenge. Johnson announced a final three of Missouri, Cincinnati and South Florida. He cancelled a visit to Rutgers this weekend in favor of staying in Tampa and seeing South Florida. The Bulls have a lot of momentum right now on the recruiting trail, and signs are pointing toward Johnson staying home.
On to this weekend's visitors ...
The big news broke already, and Elliott will be in Columbia beginning today. It's not his first visit to Columbia. It's not his first visit to Columbia since committing to Ohio State. He's been a pretty familiar sight at games this fall, and obviously with his parents being athlete alums, it makes sense.
But what doesn't make sense to me, as I've tweeted and discussed before, is Elliott saying this is just a courtesy visit. It is not. It would make no sense for this to be a courtesy a visit. No one takes a courtesy visit about ten days before National Signing Day. He could have made any one of his trips during the season an official visit and be done with it.
A source told us that when Elliott's quotes about this being a courtesy got to the staff, they told him if that was the case, he should just cancel the visit. They didn't want to waste his time, or their own time. Elliott is still visiting. So, as I said, this is not a courtesy visit.
I'm not trying to sound like it's a foregone conclusion that he'll switch to Missouri this weekend or sometime before Feb. 7. At best, it seems like a 50-50 situation between the Tigers and the Buckeyes. Getting him on an official visit, and confirming that visit, is a big step for Missouri. The staff will have the red carpet ready for him, no doubt. Trent Hosick, already on campus, will play a big role this weekend, I'm sure. Hosick has already been in Elliott's ear on some of his other trips this fall. I'm not sure what, exactly, Missouri will have to do to flip him this weekend, as obviously he's extremely familiar with the program and the staff. Josh Henson's offensive tweaks will be a big point of discussion, I'm sure. It's going to be an interesting weekend to follow, especially after last year's visits for Evan Boehm and Dorial Green-Beckham, which proved to be the difference for both of those in-state stars.
I know that's not a ton of news regarding Elliott, but with how quietly he tried to make this visit, I don't think anyone could expect a lot of information surrounding his visit. Because he spoke with reporters before the visit, I imagine he'll talk after it. Stay tuned.
The other two visitors this weekend are Shindelar and Tuttle (Okla.) tight end/ defensive end Dawson Bassett[/URL]. Missouri still has ground to make up on Tulsa for Shindelar, who has told him he'll play tight end for them without a doubt. The Tigers see Shindelar as a jumbo athlete who could play either side of the ball, and I'll imagine they'll make it clear to him that their policy is to allow players to start at whichever position they like. I don't think Shindelar's decision would be affected by Johnson, if the Tampa tight end does pick Mizzou.
Bassett, as I reported yesterday, does not have an offer yet, and I don't know if an offer should be expected this weekend. The staff may want to see how he developed physically after his senior year, as the last time the entire staff saw him came in June at their Kansas City camp. At 6-foot-4, 215-pounds (his listed measurements), he's not too far away from Jason Reese, who is 6-4, 222. Bassett may be a late offer closer to NSD.
The last name still remaining out there is Duron Singleton. He's visiting Syracuse this weekend and told me he'll make a decision following the visit. Missouri seems to be the team to beat for his services.
There are a few other names out there which surfaced recently, namely Frankfort (Kent.) receiver Ryan Timmonshttp://rivals.yahoo.com/footballrecruiting/football/recruiting/player-Ryan-Timmons-135420 and Atlanta (Ga.) receiver Deangelo Yancey[/URL]. It does not look like Timmons will visit, as Florida and Ohio State have recently offered. Another site has reported that Yancey may visit next weekend. However, a source told me that while Missouri has expressed interest, neither player has been offered yet. With J'Mon Moore and Donovahn Jones already in the fold at receiver, it doesn't appear likely that Missouri will offer either player, at least not on offense.
Should Missouri miss out on Singleton, it appears they've looked at a few more safeties from Georgia. One new name is Juston Mincyhttp://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/recruiting/player-Juston-Mincy-124661, out of Southwest Dekalb in Decatur, Ga. I don't think the interest is too serious at this point, but Missouri knows about him at least.
-- Before we wrap up this section today, I have some more information on Missouri's most recent 2014 offer. This week, Missouri offered Fort Worth (Texas) All-Saints quarterback Foster Sawyerhttp://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/recruiting/player-Foster-Sawyer-132754, 6-foot-5, 210-pounds. He's Missouri's second QB offer for 2014, joining Edmond (Okla.) QB Justice Hansen, who has been the Tigers' top target for some time now.
Our guy at SoonerScoop.com, Josh McCuistion, caught up with Sawyer, and passed on these quotes:
"I think that's how it is very year once the senior year is done, once the seniors are committed, I think the recruiters start getting out there and the hype starts building," Sawyer said. "I try and stay away from all of that stuff, I play the game because it's fun and I try not to get too caught up in al the hype. But there have been a few schools I haven't heard from and then they just got interested over the past few weeks. The recruiter and the head coach from Missouri came by and gave me an offer ? it was my first offer.
"I want to go up there for a junior day to try and learn more about them, I like Missouri's offense and want to see some more."
Last year, Sawyer completed 59.5 percent of his passes for 2,810 yards, 27 touchdowns and 13 interceptions.
BRIAN AUSTIN ON BASKETBALL RECRUITING
Looking at 2014 targets this week including a few that we knew Mizzou had expressed interest in, but now it seems their interest has picked up. ?Aquinas (GA) shooting guard Cliff Alexander is a high priority for Missouri, however we have not been able to get in touch with Alexander or his coach yet. Those are two names that are obviously at the top of many schools wish list so the competition will be very strong, but it appears that Mizzou has kicked their recruiting of the two top 25 targets up a notch. It continues the positive trend of Mizzou going after very highly rated targets in the class of 2014. For months, we've been hearing from sources that 2014 is where the Tigers have felt they have a chance to make a real national splash on the recruiting trail.
I was also able to catch up with the coaches of Dwayne Morgan as well. Morgan is down in Florida playing in a tournament and will be taking was supposed to take an unofficial visit to USF, but a first round loss might throw a wrench in their plans according to Dwayne Wise. Morgan's first official visit will take place February 8-10 when he visits Indiana. After that he plans to visit UNLV then Missouri. According to his coach the Missouri visit would likely happen at the end of February or the beginning of March.
Okonoboh's coach, Vic Pastore, told me that Okonoboh hasn't scheduled any visits and isn't really even thinking about them yet. All of Okonoboh's focus is on his own season right now and he understands that there is a lot of time left in his recruiting process.
Last thing, a source told us Tim Fuller will be down in the Dallas metro area soon checking in on Emmanuel Mudiay.
GABE DeARMOND FRANK HAITH AND THE NCAA
I won't be long here. I just want to kind of catch everybody up on the Haith situation.
When Jeff Goodman's story broke early this week, things looked kind of dim. But as we told everybody at the time, right now, it's just a REPORT. You don't make statements or react to a report until you know for sure it's true. I think Goodman does a great job and fully expected what he reported to be true. And I want to stress that I'm not sure it WASN'T. His story may have been 100% correct...until the NCAA came out and said it had screwed everything up on Wednesday.
For those who may not have kept as close a tab on the situation, here is my story from Wednesdayhttp://missouri.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1463583.
I have said this already, but I don't think the NCAA mess can be a BAD thing for Haith. It may not help, it may not change anything for the better, but I don't see how it could possibly have made it worse. Let's say the NCAA gets through the investigation and thinks it has enough to charge Haith with unethical conduct and failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance as Goodman said. Does the mess of the investigation impact their willingness to actually DO it? Becuase if they do it and I'm Haith's lawyer, I'm pitching a fit and saying, "How can you tell me that we should trust this part of the investigation when you already told us you screwed it up?"
Bottom line, I think Haith's chances of staying at Missouri next year went WAY up on Wednesday. On the court, there's no discussion. He's done plenty. Off the court, there are really only two questions:
*Does the investigation of the investigation change what the NCAA will charge him with?
*Has he been truthful with Missouri throughout the process?
The answers to those questions determine the future.
One final note, IF something were to lead to Haith leaving, I feel confident saying the most likely scenario would be Tim Fuller taking over. Not saying it's a foregone conclusion, but from what I've heard and been told, I think that would be the path Missouri is most likely to take.[/URL]
