We're going to be pretty much all football recruiting today. We'll start with a couple hoops notes to just catch you up:
Missouri signed CJ Roberts on Wednesday, the first day of the early signing period. Then yesterday, Felipe Haase inked with South Carolina. What that means is barring something completely out of nowhere, Mizzou is done for the early signing period. The Tigers have one scholarship left and won't use it until the spring signing period. The last spot will certainly go to a big man, and possibly a juco/transfer/fifth-year type guy. Just have to see who's available in the spring.
Now, on to football.
Louisiana DE Chris Turner will visit Missouri officially this weekend. Turner has been on Missouri's radar for months and has long been a guy the Tigers were hoping/expecting to land. There's a decent chance that happens this weekend. We frankly expected it over the summer.
Turner is the lone official visitor this weekend. Missouri will bring juco corner Keisean Nixon in for the Arkansas game, but that's all we're anticipating right now as far as official visitors until after the season is over.
There will be some unofficial visitors in with Turner this weekend. 2018 Illinois lineman Wyatt Blake is making the trip. We'll touch base with him early next week to see how things went. Thought it was good earlier this week to hear Barry Odom say Missouri is making Illinois (and the Chicago area in particularly) a recruiting focal point. As he said, there are just too many players there to not do so.
A few Mizzou commitments will also be in town to try to sell Turner. Case Cook, Jamal Brooks and Pompey Coleman all told me they're going to be at the game. Speaking of the commitments, I touched base with almost all of them to see if they'd scheduled official visits and if they were considering any other trips. I reached nine of the 12. Here's a quick rundown of what's going on with each:
Brooks: Hasn't set his official yet, but expects it to be in January.
Aubrey Miller: Hasn't set the date with Mizzou yet. Told me he is going to take five visits. Asked him where he might take the other four, got no response. At this point, no idea if there's reason to think he's wavering or not.
Cook: Hasn't yet set the date for his official, but says he will not take any others
Roderick Ford: Will take his official in December, but hasn't set the specific weekend
Larry Borom: Hasn't set a date, but won't take any other visits
Jafar Armstrong: Hasn't set the date, says he plans to do so soon
Logan Christopherson: Will take his official the weekend of December 9th
Coleman: Says he is pretty sure his official will happen in December and doesn't plan any others
Da'Ron Davis: Will take his official on December 9th and says he will take others. He does not have any other scheduled at this point in time. My read on this one is that he'll take at least another visit or two as he has said all along, but he'll sign with Mizzou. He's constantly tweeting about Mizzou and seems to be fully invested, but it's our impression he is enjoying the recruiting process and will probably take a couple other trips to see what's out there.
From talking with the commits, it seems Missouri's biggest weekend will probably be that December 9th weekend. They're trying to get most of the commits who are done playing in that weekend, I think, and I'm sure they'll add some uncommitted players that weekend as well. There are three available weekends between the end of the season and Christmas and then the entire month of January, so we're talking six or seven official visit weekends to bring in all the commits and fill out the class.
Last note is our regular Jeff Thomas update. First of all, he received his Under Armour all-American jersey this week and will be playing in that game. As far as his recruitment, we're still hearing it's Mizzou or Bama. There are people in Thomas' camp who are in both corners from what we're hearing. The most influential people here will be the East St. Louis coaches (who have strongly supported Mizzou for a few years now) and the ESL players on Mizzou's roster. Terry Beckner really seems to have turned into a leader for Mizzou this year and TreVour Simms is always posting positive things about the program on Twitter, so that's probably good for Mizzou. If I had to handicap it today, I'd still certainly favor Missouri to land his signature in February. But it won't be easy and we won't know until on or near National Signing Day.
That's what we've got for this week. I would think info will really start picking up in the next 2-4 weeks as visits get scheduled. Missouri still has half a class to fill, so we should be plenty busy in December and January and maybe even into February.
Missouri signed CJ Roberts on Wednesday, the first day of the early signing period. Then yesterday, Felipe Haase inked with South Carolina. What that means is barring something completely out of nowhere, Mizzou is done for the early signing period. The Tigers have one scholarship left and won't use it until the spring signing period. The last spot will certainly go to a big man, and possibly a juco/transfer/fifth-year type guy. Just have to see who's available in the spring.
Now, on to football.
Louisiana DE Chris Turner will visit Missouri officially this weekend. Turner has been on Missouri's radar for months and has long been a guy the Tigers were hoping/expecting to land. There's a decent chance that happens this weekend. We frankly expected it over the summer.
Turner is the lone official visitor this weekend. Missouri will bring juco corner Keisean Nixon in for the Arkansas game, but that's all we're anticipating right now as far as official visitors until after the season is over.
There will be some unofficial visitors in with Turner this weekend. 2018 Illinois lineman Wyatt Blake is making the trip. We'll touch base with him early next week to see how things went. Thought it was good earlier this week to hear Barry Odom say Missouri is making Illinois (and the Chicago area in particularly) a recruiting focal point. As he said, there are just too many players there to not do so.
A few Mizzou commitments will also be in town to try to sell Turner. Case Cook, Jamal Brooks and Pompey Coleman all told me they're going to be at the game. Speaking of the commitments, I touched base with almost all of them to see if they'd scheduled official visits and if they were considering any other trips. I reached nine of the 12. Here's a quick rundown of what's going on with each:
Brooks: Hasn't set his official yet, but expects it to be in January.
Aubrey Miller: Hasn't set the date with Mizzou yet. Told me he is going to take five visits. Asked him where he might take the other four, got no response. At this point, no idea if there's reason to think he's wavering or not.
Cook: Hasn't yet set the date for his official, but says he will not take any others
Roderick Ford: Will take his official in December, but hasn't set the specific weekend
Larry Borom: Hasn't set a date, but won't take any other visits
Jafar Armstrong: Hasn't set the date, says he plans to do so soon
Logan Christopherson: Will take his official the weekend of December 9th
Coleman: Says he is pretty sure his official will happen in December and doesn't plan any others
Da'Ron Davis: Will take his official on December 9th and says he will take others. He does not have any other scheduled at this point in time. My read on this one is that he'll take at least another visit or two as he has said all along, but he'll sign with Mizzou. He's constantly tweeting about Mizzou and seems to be fully invested, but it's our impression he is enjoying the recruiting process and will probably take a couple other trips to see what's out there.
From talking with the commits, it seems Missouri's biggest weekend will probably be that December 9th weekend. They're trying to get most of the commits who are done playing in that weekend, I think, and I'm sure they'll add some uncommitted players that weekend as well. There are three available weekends between the end of the season and Christmas and then the entire month of January, so we're talking six or seven official visit weekends to bring in all the commits and fill out the class.
Last note is our regular Jeff Thomas update. First of all, he received his Under Armour all-American jersey this week and will be playing in that game. As far as his recruitment, we're still hearing it's Mizzou or Bama. There are people in Thomas' camp who are in both corners from what we're hearing. The most influential people here will be the East St. Louis coaches (who have strongly supported Mizzou for a few years now) and the ESL players on Mizzou's roster. Terry Beckner really seems to have turned into a leader for Mizzou this year and TreVour Simms is always posting positive things about the program on Twitter, so that's probably good for Mizzou. If I had to handicap it today, I'd still certainly favor Missouri to land his signature in February. But it won't be easy and we won't know until on or near National Signing Day.
That's what we've got for this week. I would think info will really start picking up in the next 2-4 weeks as visits get scheduled. Missouri still has half a class to fill, so we should be plenty busy in December and January and maybe even into February.
