1) The transfer portal opens today. In fact, it seems it's already open. A lot of players have already said they’re going in.
Nine of them from Missouri so far. There may be more today, I’m not sure. There will certainly be more in the next 45 days. Today isn’t the only portal day. It’s the first one. The window remains open through mid-January. There will be some guys who will play bowl games and then leave. There might be a few who go home for Christmas break and decide they don’t want to come back. Most of them will probably be guys that don’t play a lot, but some will probably be guys that do. There’s only one mission in the portal: Gain more than you lose.
Eli Drinkwitz did it last year. He’s going to have to do it again this year. Most of the portal additions last year (at least the meaningful ones) were on defense. The Tigers will probably need some more of that, but I think the focus will be on offense. I think they could use a transfer at every single position on offense. And, yes, that includes quarterback. I expect Missouri to pursue one.
We've already got a thread going to keep you updated during the day.
2) What’s the roster going to look like for the bowl game? I’ll be honest. I have no idea. Some of that will be cleared up by portal attrition. Some might depend on NFL aspirations.
Isaiah McGuire, Dominic Lovett, Jalani Williams and
Martez Manuel aren’t playing. We know that already.
DJ Coleman, Trajan Jeffcoat, Darius Robinson, Ty’Ron Hopper, Kris Abrams-Draine and
Jaylon Carlies all could have NFL hopes as soon as next season so we’ll see what happens there. But again, everyone’s a free agent right now. There aren’t more than a handful of guys I would feel comfortable guaranteeing are on the roster next year and playing on December 23rd.
3) Speaking of the bowl game, did they dodge KU? We’re going to talk to
Eli Drinkwitz later this morning. He’s obviously not going to say Missouri didn’t want to play Kansas. I hope to talk to
Desiree Reed-Francois today too. She’s not going to say it either. Did it happen? Maybe. I know you all think Brett McMurphy just made it up, but I’m certain he didn’t. I’m sure someone told him that. That doesn’t make it true either. Who knows what the truth is? Do we care? Missouri has reasons the Liberty Bowl wasn’t high on its list. Somebody told McMurphy that game wanted MU/KU and MU said no. Missouri says the Liberty Bowl always preferred Arkansas. Believe who you want to believe. I honestly don’t think it matters all that much. Many will be upset the Tigers are not playing closer to home against a team with which they have a lot of history and will use it as another illustration of why Mizzou never has nice things and is cursed by the powers that be. Many will convince themselves that the Gasparilla Bowl is only a half-step below the College Football Playoff and quite obviously the greatest situation in which a college football team could find itself. Whatever. They're both meaningless minor bowl games that nobody outside of those fanbases is going to remember six weeks from now.
4) KU? Oh, they’re coming to town for a basketball game. You know, the sport that most of us actually identify with this rivalry. I know many are in the camp that says if there’s a scoreboard and Kansas is the opponent it’s important to win. And I get that. I promise I do. But this was always mostly a basketball rivalry to me. A lot of that is my age. When I was growing up, MU/KU was important because the winner of that game might not win another game all year (many of you remember when those schools formed college football’s Bermuda Triangle with Kansas State providing the third side).
But Missouri and Kansas basketball were both really good when I was growing up. Between 1985 and 2002, Mizzou missed four NCAA Tournaments and Kansas missed one. In that entire span, there were as many games where both teams were ranked in the top five as there were when neither team was ranked. They were the ones you circled on the calendar. They weren’t just important locally, but they were important conference and nationwide. Ask most Kansas fans about Missouri, they're going to think of
Norm Stewart. Ask most Mizzou fans about Kansas, they're going to think about
Roy Williams or
Bill Self or maybe
Danny Manning depending on their age.
College basketball is better when this series is being played. It will be even better if it’s a competitive series.
5) The Tigers might be able to make that happen. They might be good. I’m not 100% sure yet. Saturday would go a long way toward helping me find that out. The Tigers are 9-0. They’ve had an easy schedule. The win at Wichita State wasn’t season-defining, but it was good. The other eight were expected. Kansas is ranked in the top ten, but there are some flaws. They’re somewhat young. They’re not that big. They haven’t played in anything like what they’re going to play in on Saturday afternoon. If Missouri can win this game, you start counting wins toward NCAA Tournament eligibility. A 10-0 start probably has you halfway to what you’re going to need. You’ve got UCF, Illinois and Iowa State left in the non-con. If you could take two of those, you’re looking at 11-2. The SEC is pretty good this year. Even 8-10 would get you to 19-12 and have you playing for a chance to get in at the conference tournament. So Saturday’s big. And not just because it’s the Jayhawks.
mutigers.com
apnews.com
www.ncaa.com
