Not kissing any Ass. Man that’s refreshing. So tired of the announcers that always have to be “politically correct”

As talented as Burden is with the ball in his hands, his impact as a decoy can't be understated. At one point last year, Drink lauded his selflessness. And while I can't call myself a true "knower of ball," I think anyone with two eyes could see that the fake pitch to Luther-Brady dive play is the reason Brady has so many rushing touchdowns.

That being said, I think instead of the "you're going to have to beat us without Luther" defense we've seen so many times, Vandy went with the opposite - "if you're going to beat us with the pass, Luther will have to beat us." It's why most of the LBs stayed home in the middle of the field (taking away our biggest passing threat) and the safeties just played center field. You couple that with the OLine's overall below-average pass protection and--credit Gabe with this take--Kirby's insistence to "fix" the passing game while in game, you saw the offense we saw.

It's also why that first play in OT was so open. Credit Brady for looking off the safeties--if you notice everyone sold to the right side and the safety responsible for the Luther double was caught flat footed. It was an absolute dime and probably the best passing play of the season.

I'm trying real hard to focus on the positive, but I don't think the offense is as far off as it felt on Saturday.

I couldn’t imagine losing my wife this young.

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@Clint Cosgrove much love your way sir

These guys are the best in the business, so I respect what they say. Few notes:

- Mizzou looks stuck in the mud, offense looks like it operates slower, and way of out sync
-“Midzou” Tom Fornelli
- Shocking how similar we looked to Vandy athlete wise, mentioned they have improved, but that’s not good
- Says they are in a slog and need to get back to an attacking style of offense
- Bud thinks they absolutely should not get in at 10-2

Hard to argue any of this. Hopefully, we can turn it around, but we’re running out of time

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Really good highlights of Manfred so far this season. Does it all for his HS team and a bit underrated in my opinion. Have him down (unofficially) for 15 catches for 333 yards and two scores on offense; 21 tackles, 1 PBU on defense along with 186 punt return yards so far this season.

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We will trash OU

Haven’t posted much but it seems about this time every season we start having issues with the qb… undisclosed injuries, demonic possession, poor coaching… something..
This seems to be a pattern…

As the first varsity sport to commence play this fall, Mizzou's soccer season is almost upon us. I thought I'd do a quick preview for those interested and try to update periodically throughout the season:

This will be head coach, Stefanie Golan's 3rd season at the helm of the program. She went 7-10 (3-7) her 1st season and 5-8-4 (2-5-3) her 2nd season for a 12-18-4 record at Mizzou. The improvements were incremental and I think if the program doesn't show improvement this year, her seat could be getting warm. I don't think she'll be fired but her contract is up at the conclusion of the 2025 season. Since her hire, she's done everything possible to downplay expectations and emphasizes "progress" and "building the program" both of which are genuine and admirable goals. However, in the age of the transfer portal, few have the patience for 5+ year rebuilds. And when you see the quick turn-arounds accomplished at a program like Michigan State which relied heavily on transfers to win the Big 10 in their coach's 2nd year and has a similar modest soccer tradition, I don't think this impatience is unwarranted.

This will likely be her best team but they have a tough schedule so whether their record will reflect that is a question. They play some tough non conference road games and have yet to show the ability to win on the road. The conference schedule also lines up to give them the majority of their tough games at home and easier on the road. Here's the schedule:

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Of note, Mizzou soccer is the first event in the Zou to the Lou series and will play Mo St in St Louis on Sept 10

Here are the departures/additions in the offseason:

Departures/Graduates: 8 players walked in May. Of those: Oduyoye (D) and Easley (F) were starters with Lyman (D/M), Johnson (F) getting minutes, but none were stars. Either none were offered or none chose to accept a 5th year (Covid) of eligibility.

Departures/Transfers: There were 3 transfers out. Rising junior, Kylie Dobbs (F), transferred to Loyola Marymount. She was the teams leading scorer last year with 4 goals. However, she could never get the necessary score on the fitness test to start. Hannah Boughton chose to transfer closer to home after her 1st season and will be continuing her career at Baylor. This one hurts a little as she got the 2nd most minutes of the freshman and showed promise. The other transfer was another freshman, Sophia Skoubis, who didn't see the field at all even in the spring so I think the writing was on the wall. She transferred to Coastal Carolina. Mia Mosby, another freshman who didn't see the field, decided to just be a student.

Arrivals/Freshman: Coach Golan signed a freshman class of 10. This is larger than in the past but I think it's becoming more typical. Four of the players were early enrollees. The highest ranked were Morgan Meador (D) from St Louis, Bri Buels (F) from Indianapolis, and Shania Spriggs (D/M) from Loganville, GA. I believe these players were 4 star but I don't currently have a subscription to Top Drawer so that's just my recollection.


Arrivals/Transfers: The team added 3 incoming transfers. Mallory McGuire, a sophomore midfielder, joined the team for the 2nd semester after playing her 1st season at Rutgers. Two grad transfers arrived this summer, Nicole Icen (F) from Mercer where she was SoCon POY, All-conference, and All-Freshman during her time there, and Alycia Morin (F) from Boston College.

This is getting long, so in Part II, I will concentrate on last year's accomplishments and reasons for optimism for the upcoming season.

441 yards, 3rd in the SEC, only 31 behind the leader.

Cody through 4 games last year only had 403.

Means nothing but we can stop pretending like this team's issues are because Schrader is gone.

Why I also think the passing game finds it's groove after the bye.

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My column on a team that's mostly living off praise and hype earned by last year's team

I'm willing to listen if anyone can provide me an actual sensible defense of what Eli Drinkwitz just did there. I promise I am. But I see no world in which you can provide me that. If you're going to go for it, you run the clock down to 6 seconds and throw a hail mary. You cannot in any scenario leave time on the clock to give Vandy the ball back. Particularly with enough time to run a play AND attempt a field goal.

There were a million other problems in that first half. The defense looked asleep, the quarterback was bad, everyone except Nate Noel basically sucked. And still, you should be in a tie game getting the ball to start the third quarter. And you aren't because your head coach just went completely brain dead.

I'm not ready to say Missouri's going to lose this game. But if it does, Drinkwitz has a TON of explaining to do about what happened in the last 20 seconds there.

Beat Kentucky 13-12

Early season games don’t always look pretty, get the wins and work on your issues.

Mizzou has cleaned up our penalties. Cook looked average at best for quite a few games last year so we can have some optimism that he’ll figure it out.

I could see Miami, Oregon, and possibly Michigan jump us.

May be exactly what this team needs. Perceptively easy opponents at home….going on the road to a hostile environment can make or break. It is a time when the team has to pull all in one direction or you can’t function. I bet players are looking forward to it.

As good as Noel has been in replacing the ground yardage. Cody just had a knack last year for busting the td runs in the red zone. I think we have been pretty good between the 20s. But Good/championship teams score touchdowns. We missed some fg yesterday but we need sixes or we will keep playing barnburners that might not go our way eventually

if we want any shot of being a playoff team

1. O-line - not sure why this isn’t being talked about at all… the run blocking has been inconsistent at best and the pass protection has been rough. And this is against Vandy and BC. We’re going to get eaten alive by any competent SEC front seven. Seems like Brady is uncomfortable in the pocket.
2. QB play - Brady has to be better. Plain and simple. Better blocking on designed QB runs and better pass protection would be a good start.
3. Special teams - Craig is young and should improve with time/reps. Not sure why everyone was so quick to anoint him the next Mevis after last week. Additionally the unforced errors on kick and punt returns need to be cleaned up.
4. In game decision making - there were some truly bad decisions made today.
5. Offensive playcalling - seemed not great today

It was ugly. They won. Each week you work to be 1-0.

I don’t understand why so many people pay to be here to pleasure in doom and gloom.

Enjoy 4-0.

Okay, first off, Mizzou won. Let's say that. Because the thoughts are not going to be reflective of a winning effort.

It’s fair to worry about the passing game now.

I’ve defended it as alarmist the first three weeks. I thought it was good enough. Right now, it isn’t. That doesn’t mean it can’t be or the season’s over. That doesn’t mean I’m benching Brady Cook. But it has to get better. Missouri is no threat to beat anybody deep. If the guy gets open, Cook misses him. If Cook throws a good pass, the receiver doesn’t make a play. Even passing plays that work are often thrown two or three seconds after they should be. It doesn’t look good right now. They need to fix it in the next 14 days.

So what do you do about it?

You ride Nate Noel. He’s the best thing this offense has. And, yes, I include Luther Burden in that. Noel had 24 carries for 199 yards. He’s now averaging 110 yards per game. And when he gets tired, give it to Marcus Carroll. I don’t care about the hype of the receiver room. I don’t care about Brady Cook’s feelings or anybody else’s. This team runs the ball really, really well. It throws the ball relatively poorly. Your goal is to win as many games as you can. Your path to doing that right now is to ground and pound and play good defense.

Is the secondary a problem?

Missouri’s pass defense has mostly been very good this year. But when it’s bad, it’s REALLY bad. Four touchdown passes, three at least 30 yards, all on completely blown assignments where the throw wasn’t even challenging. It’s like a boat that looks really nice and then springs one leak and the whole thing goes down. I think Missouri’s defense is good. But it can’t afford the one or two snaps a game where it is bad to turn into 60 yard touchdowns. Those plays (the exact ones the Missouri offense isn’t making) can make a game that shouldn’t be close close.

What in the world was Drinkwitz thinking before halftime?

Even nearly two hours later I have no defense for the decision to go on fourth down from your own 47 while leaving enough time on the clock for Vandy to get a play and a kick off. Maybe Brady Cook snapped it too soon. Maybe guys didn’t know the play. Maybe a million things. You know how you avoid all of them? You punt the damn ball and thank the heavens above you’re tied in a game you played like absolute garbage for 30 minutes. Instead, Drinkwitz just handed the Commodores three point and a world of momentum. Fortunately, his players—and the fact that Vandy simply isn’t very good—saved him. By a hair.

Did this team read its press clippings?

They’ve said the right things. Something to prove and Vandy plays us tough and we know it’s gonna be a dogfight. But they didn’t play like a team that really believed it was in for a fight. They played like a team that thought it didn’t have to earn a win for the first 30 minutes. That said, they won the game. It wasn’t pretty. If you play that way eight more times you’re in trouble. But Missouri has a bye at a time it could probably really use a bye and Eli Drinkwitz is about to earn a good chunk of that nine million dollar salary in the next 14 days.

It appeared that the ref was holding Brady from snapping the ball on every snap. I know if we sub out, Vandy also gets to and Ive seen that happen every so often, but yesterday it seemed like literally every snap, which wound the clock down considerably. Was this due to a deliverate tactic by Vandy that most teams just dont tend to do? They never showed subs running on/off so i couldnt tell. Just felt weird and way way more frequent than ive ever seen before… Did anyone else notice this/can explain? TIA

Talks Mizzou at the 19 minute mark.

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Hopefully on the field they get back to basics and clean up the issues upfront and at QB and off the field they do a ton of self scouting and work out why they’re settling for so many FGs. The team is talented, but they need to focus back on the basics this week.