Sorry for the delay. Had a change of schedule on a few things this morning and had to do the podcast first. Anyway, here we go with today's links so far:
From last night: Mizzou needs football now more than ever
Pete's story on Drew Lock being back in the spotlight
Podcast with Pete's exit interview and Keenan Cummings on West Virginia
We'll have a Chamber tomorrow mid-morning, Pete will have another story before that, and I'll have our game preview and prediction for Saturday before kickoff. I'm on the road to Morgantown most of the day tomorrow.
For today's Daily Down Low, I'm going to do a preseason edition of one of our popular posts from previous years, my ten thoughts on college football. But before that, an interlude on politics and idiocy and how it relates to Mizzou football. And before we get into this, let me be clear: I don't care what your feelings are on the second amendment. I don't want them posted here. I'm not posting my feelings on it. This isn't going to be another political pissing match that I lock (well, yes it is, but I don't want it to be).
Yesterday, a reporter from Montgomery (AL) was asking all of the coaches if they had a policy about their players owning handguns. A good number of them, including Barry Odom, did. Here is the exact exchange between the reporter and Odom on the call, taken from me listening to the replay this morning:
Q: Do you have a policy on handguns? And I understand hunting can be a separate issue.
A: “We’ve got policies within our program and obviously within the University on a number of things and handguns would be one of those policies.”
Q: Just to be clear, is it the policy that it is not allowed?
A: “Yeah, you’ve got to make sure, with the rules and you mentioned hunting and some things like that. But if there’s a handgun issue then we deal with it and not allowed within the program.”
The reporter then sent out a tweet saying that Odom prohibited his players from having handguns. And reading that, and after listening to it, I can see why he thought that was what Odom was saying. The question wasn't really clearly answered. Anyway, for whatever it's worth, a content aggregator (aka someone who browses the stories and Twitter feeds of actual reporters and then lifts out certain quotes and snippets and writes stories of their own--I have my own name for these people, but it's not as nice as content aggregator) then used that tweet in a story headlined "Mizzou head coach reportedly prohibits players from legally owning handguns." (FWIW, said headline has since been tweeted out by the NRA among others).
Honestly, none of us had any idea this exchange yesterday was controversial or even a story. In fact, according to another reporter who was on the call (Pete was on for us, I was not), about half the coaches have the same policy as Odom. One of them flat out said his players aren't allowed to have handguns. So anyway, this morning this apparently was a big deal and a Mizzou spokesman offered the following explanation to me:
"Our policy states that any player who has a legal issue, and if an illegal gun is involved in the issue, he is removed from the program. That’s what Barry was referring to when he said “not allowed within the program” – meaning illegal guns, that’s all."
In addition, "the University has a policy that doesn’t even allow legal guns to be carried on campus, so that’s an issue as well."
So what basically happened is that a somewhat unclear answer to a question was tweeted out (an answer that wasn't unusual when compared to the rest of the answers on the call), picked up, sensationalized by someone who hadn't heard the comment and likely has no idea who Barry Odom even is, and now it's wasted an hour or two of everyone's day. Welcome to the media where 20% of your job is to cover what happens and the other 80% is putting out fires created by people that don't know what the hell they're talking about.
Anyway, on to my Ten Pre-Season College Football Thoughts:
1. This is the best opening weekend of games I can ever remember. Ole Miss/Florida State, Wisconsin/LSU, Bama/USC, Oklahoma/Houston, Texas/Notre Dame, UGA/UNC. There are just great games all over the place. Buy some refreshments of your choice and start making the ass-groove in your couch.
2. In the SEC West, I'm picking Alabama because I think you have to pick Alabama till they lose. But the Tide has to go to LSU this season (more on the Tigers in a little bit) and if they trip there, the door could be open for someone else to go to the title game.
3. In the SEC East, I think you have to pick Tennessee. They've got the best roster and the most experience, along with the best quarterback in the division. UGA has a first year head coach, Florida is probably taking a step back from last season and I don't think the other four are good enough to win it. As I've said a few times, this season will either validate what Tennessee fans think of Butch Jones or will validate what everyone else thinks about him.
4. My Power Five conference winners: ACC-Clemson, B1G-Ohio State, PAC-12-Stanford, SEC-Bama, Big 12-TCU (what the hell, I don't know).
5. Best game of the weekend nobody will talk about--I think it might be Mizzou/West Virginia. But outside of that, I'll go with UCLA at Texas A&M. The Bruins are ranked 16th in the pre-season and Josh Rosen is a Heisman hopeful. I don't know what to think of the Aggies, but a road opener at a Power Five school is rarely easy.
6. Top 25 team I don't believe in: Washington. I know Chris Petersen is a really good coach. But I don't think I could name a single player on the Huskies' roster. Maybe that's more about me than them, but I'll buy UW as No. 12 in America when I see it.
7. Coaches who better win or else: Dana Holgerson, Charlie Strong, Mark Stoops, Kevin Sumlin.
8. Coaches I hope lose a lot: Jim Harbaugh (just don't like him and am tired of hearing about him), David Beatty (if you need an explanation on this one, you're on the wrong board).
9. My Heisman winner is....Leonard Fournette, LSU. DeShaun Watson at Clemson, Christian McCaffrey at Stanford and somebody none of us is talking about will also be invited to the ceremony.
10. My college football playoff is (really, you know my Power Five winners, so it's got to be four teams out of that and Notre Dame, who I will never pick to live up to the preseason hype) Clemson vs Alabama and Stanford vs Ohio State. More with my heart than my head, I'll take Clemson and Stanford to win and the Tigers to beat the Cardinal for the national title.
Going forward, I'll do the Ten Thoughts every Sunday morning. It may be a bit later this weekend based on how long my layover is on the way from Pittsburgh to St. Louis.
From last night: Mizzou needs football now more than ever
Pete's story on Drew Lock being back in the spotlight
Podcast with Pete's exit interview and Keenan Cummings on West Virginia
We'll have a Chamber tomorrow mid-morning, Pete will have another story before that, and I'll have our game preview and prediction for Saturday before kickoff. I'm on the road to Morgantown most of the day tomorrow.
For today's Daily Down Low, I'm going to do a preseason edition of one of our popular posts from previous years, my ten thoughts on college football. But before that, an interlude on politics and idiocy and how it relates to Mizzou football. And before we get into this, let me be clear: I don't care what your feelings are on the second amendment. I don't want them posted here. I'm not posting my feelings on it. This isn't going to be another political pissing match that I lock (well, yes it is, but I don't want it to be).
Yesterday, a reporter from Montgomery (AL) was asking all of the coaches if they had a policy about their players owning handguns. A good number of them, including Barry Odom, did. Here is the exact exchange between the reporter and Odom on the call, taken from me listening to the replay this morning:
Q: Do you have a policy on handguns? And I understand hunting can be a separate issue.
A: “We’ve got policies within our program and obviously within the University on a number of things and handguns would be one of those policies.”
Q: Just to be clear, is it the policy that it is not allowed?
A: “Yeah, you’ve got to make sure, with the rules and you mentioned hunting and some things like that. But if there’s a handgun issue then we deal with it and not allowed within the program.”
The reporter then sent out a tweet saying that Odom prohibited his players from having handguns. And reading that, and after listening to it, I can see why he thought that was what Odom was saying. The question wasn't really clearly answered. Anyway, for whatever it's worth, a content aggregator (aka someone who browses the stories and Twitter feeds of actual reporters and then lifts out certain quotes and snippets and writes stories of their own--I have my own name for these people, but it's not as nice as content aggregator) then used that tweet in a story headlined "Mizzou head coach reportedly prohibits players from legally owning handguns." (FWIW, said headline has since been tweeted out by the NRA among others).
Honestly, none of us had any idea this exchange yesterday was controversial or even a story. In fact, according to another reporter who was on the call (Pete was on for us, I was not), about half the coaches have the same policy as Odom. One of them flat out said his players aren't allowed to have handguns. So anyway, this morning this apparently was a big deal and a Mizzou spokesman offered the following explanation to me:
"Our policy states that any player who has a legal issue, and if an illegal gun is involved in the issue, he is removed from the program. That’s what Barry was referring to when he said “not allowed within the program” – meaning illegal guns, that’s all."
In addition, "the University has a policy that doesn’t even allow legal guns to be carried on campus, so that’s an issue as well."
So what basically happened is that a somewhat unclear answer to a question was tweeted out (an answer that wasn't unusual when compared to the rest of the answers on the call), picked up, sensationalized by someone who hadn't heard the comment and likely has no idea who Barry Odom even is, and now it's wasted an hour or two of everyone's day. Welcome to the media where 20% of your job is to cover what happens and the other 80% is putting out fires created by people that don't know what the hell they're talking about.
Anyway, on to my Ten Pre-Season College Football Thoughts:
1. This is the best opening weekend of games I can ever remember. Ole Miss/Florida State, Wisconsin/LSU, Bama/USC, Oklahoma/Houston, Texas/Notre Dame, UGA/UNC. There are just great games all over the place. Buy some refreshments of your choice and start making the ass-groove in your couch.
2. In the SEC West, I'm picking Alabama because I think you have to pick Alabama till they lose. But the Tide has to go to LSU this season (more on the Tigers in a little bit) and if they trip there, the door could be open for someone else to go to the title game.
3. In the SEC East, I think you have to pick Tennessee. They've got the best roster and the most experience, along with the best quarterback in the division. UGA has a first year head coach, Florida is probably taking a step back from last season and I don't think the other four are good enough to win it. As I've said a few times, this season will either validate what Tennessee fans think of Butch Jones or will validate what everyone else thinks about him.
4. My Power Five conference winners: ACC-Clemson, B1G-Ohio State, PAC-12-Stanford, SEC-Bama, Big 12-TCU (what the hell, I don't know).
5. Best game of the weekend nobody will talk about--I think it might be Mizzou/West Virginia. But outside of that, I'll go with UCLA at Texas A&M. The Bruins are ranked 16th in the pre-season and Josh Rosen is a Heisman hopeful. I don't know what to think of the Aggies, but a road opener at a Power Five school is rarely easy.
6. Top 25 team I don't believe in: Washington. I know Chris Petersen is a really good coach. But I don't think I could name a single player on the Huskies' roster. Maybe that's more about me than them, but I'll buy UW as No. 12 in America when I see it.
7. Coaches who better win or else: Dana Holgerson, Charlie Strong, Mark Stoops, Kevin Sumlin.
8. Coaches I hope lose a lot: Jim Harbaugh (just don't like him and am tired of hearing about him), David Beatty (if you need an explanation on this one, you're on the wrong board).
9. My Heisman winner is....Leonard Fournette, LSU. DeShaun Watson at Clemson, Christian McCaffrey at Stanford and somebody none of us is talking about will also be invited to the ceremony.
10. My college football playoff is (really, you know my Power Five winners, so it's got to be four teams out of that and Notre Dame, who I will never pick to live up to the preseason hype) Clemson vs Alabama and Stanford vs Ohio State. More with my heart than my head, I'll take Clemson and Stanford to win and the Tigers to beat the Cardinal for the national title.
Going forward, I'll do the Ten Thoughts every Sunday morning. It may be a bit later this weekend based on how long my layover is on the way from Pittsburgh to St. Louis.
