I think it’s time we have an open debate about talent acquisition during the Drinkwitz era.
Recently in an interview Drinkwitz said they prioritize “production over potential”, seemingly a way to justify losing his top high school recruits after their freshmen season. Nwaneri, Brown, Lacy, Crutchfield all highly touted recruits who had lofty expectations, already gone.
Those positions, along with other portal targeted positions, have been backfilled by a mix of highly productive players from lower level teams and guys who occasionally saw the field at higher levels.
The loss of these high school recruits along with a mixed bag of transfer portal hauls plus the Pribula signing has made me start to question priorities.
Mizzou has two highly touted QB’s on the roster in Horn and Zollers. I understand the situations are unique (Horn with baseball/injuries, Zollers only a true freshman) but seemingly Drink has pulled in a gadget-type backup QB to become the day one starter over these two.
Maybe Pribula is better than both, but I feel like this move along with other activity shows that Drink and co would rather take an average to slightly above average player out of the portal than take the time to develop talent and put unproven guys on the field.
Why would any high school recruit come to Mizzou just to be recruited over in the portal? There have been some really big hits out of high school (Robinson, Membou, KAD, Rakestraw) but the vast vast majority of high school recruits end up getting recruited over in the portal and transfer out.
I don’t think this program will consistently get where it needs to go relying on 1) high quality players being available in the portal and 2) being able to recruit those players when needed. There needs to be some risk taken on high school recruits and they need to be given the opportunity to develop.
Maybe I’m ignorant and these high school guys transferring out actually aren’t that good, but even if that’s the case then it makes you question talent identification. I also wasn’t as concerned about high school guys leaving in prior years until the exodus of the big names this season. Losing priority players hadn’t been a significant issue before (except Lovett and Wingo).
What do you think? Do you also see this as a problem? Or just the new reality of college football?
Recently in an interview Drinkwitz said they prioritize “production over potential”, seemingly a way to justify losing his top high school recruits after their freshmen season. Nwaneri, Brown, Lacy, Crutchfield all highly touted recruits who had lofty expectations, already gone.
Those positions, along with other portal targeted positions, have been backfilled by a mix of highly productive players from lower level teams and guys who occasionally saw the field at higher levels.
The loss of these high school recruits along with a mixed bag of transfer portal hauls plus the Pribula signing has made me start to question priorities.
Mizzou has two highly touted QB’s on the roster in Horn and Zollers. I understand the situations are unique (Horn with baseball/injuries, Zollers only a true freshman) but seemingly Drink has pulled in a gadget-type backup QB to become the day one starter over these two.
Maybe Pribula is better than both, but I feel like this move along with other activity shows that Drink and co would rather take an average to slightly above average player out of the portal than take the time to develop talent and put unproven guys on the field.
Why would any high school recruit come to Mizzou just to be recruited over in the portal? There have been some really big hits out of high school (Robinson, Membou, KAD, Rakestraw) but the vast vast majority of high school recruits end up getting recruited over in the portal and transfer out.
I don’t think this program will consistently get where it needs to go relying on 1) high quality players being available in the portal and 2) being able to recruit those players when needed. There needs to be some risk taken on high school recruits and they need to be given the opportunity to develop.
Maybe I’m ignorant and these high school guys transferring out actually aren’t that good, but even if that’s the case then it makes you question talent identification. I also wasn’t as concerned about high school guys leaving in prior years until the exodus of the big names this season. Losing priority players hadn’t been a significant issue before (except Lovett and Wingo).
What do you think? Do you also see this as a problem? Or just the new reality of college football?
