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I'm going to be on the road all day tomorrow so as a bonus (penalty?) you all get my thoughts tonight
1) So I just realized this is the first time I've done this since Missouri officially hired a new coach. That said, you got all of my reactions to that last week. Eli Drinkwitz is at Missouri, Barry Odom is at Arkansas and it's officially a new era in Mizzou football. I've been covering the team for more than 16 years now...and this is the first time they've had an outside hire as the head coach. That's pretty remarkable continuity. Here are the Power Five programs that have had fewer than three head coaches since 2001:
Clemson
Georgia
Iowa (only one)
Missouri
Northwestern
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
TCU (only one)
Virginia Tech
That's a pretty short list. And here's what they all have in common: At some point in the last 20 years, they've had what is arguably the best stretch in school history. Continuity is good. In other words, you hope Drinkwitz is here for a long time because that means pretty good things.
2) Let's talk about the staff. Here's what we know so far:
Special Teams: Erik Link
Defense: Charlie Harbison
Defense (LB probably): DJ Smith
DL: Brick Haley
OC/QB: Eliah Drinkwitz
Offense: Casey Woods
We know Ryan Walters and David Gibbs at least have the opportunity to stay and are on the staff right now. We don't know if they will choose to stay, but for now they are. If those coaches stay, that means there are seven coaches out of ten we know about (Drinkwitz doesn't count against the ten obviously). The Tigers would need three more coaches, at least two of which and probably all three, would coach offense. Woods will coach running backs or tight ends probably. So Mizzou needs to fill the other spot. They need a receivers coach and an offensive line coach. That would fill out the staff (the other option would be to combine tight ends and receivers and potentially still hire a quarterbacks coach or an extra defensive assistant, though that seems unnecessary if Gibbs and Walters both remain).
3) I'd be remiss if I didn't touch on some of the coaches that left. Some of them were your typical college football assistants, here for a couple years and gone. But Andy Hill and Cornell Ford have 43 years of coaching at Missouri between them. I understand many think it was time. And honestly, you're probably right. Especially because I don't think you should dictate to a coach who he has to hire. But these two guys did a whole lot for Mizzou. You add in Hill's playing days and that's 47 years of service to the school you all love. They were a big part of the renaissance of Missouri football. They had a big hand in recruiting guys like Martin Rucker, Chase Coffman, Sheldon Richardson, Jeremy Maclin, who all might be among the top ten Missouri players of all time (certainly top 20-25). Plus a whole bunch of other guys. I enjoyed working with both of them over the last two decades. Like anybody you work with for 19 years, some days were better than others, but they were always professional to me and always treated our site well. Even if it needed to happen, I’m sorry it did.
4) As I was writing this, another tweet popped up
It sure looks like Tyler Badie is transferring. We can’t yet say he is. He wasn’t in the transfer portal as of Friday. The media relations people do not yet know if he is transferring. I’ve got someone checking the portal (hopefully tonight) to see if he is now in it. To officially enter the portal you have to go through compliance and no one at Mizzou is aware that he has done that. He very well could be intending to transfer--and yes, that's what the tweet looks like--but we can't say it for sure yet. Obviously it would be a blow for Missouri. It’s also the kind of thing you just kind of expect. Anthony Watkins, get ready. Or Simi Bakare, step up. Or one of the freshmen better be ready.
5) Speaking of which, with Jalen Logan-Redding off the board to Minnesota, the potential number of decommits is five. It seems unlikely Jalen St. John is coming back. Cooper Davis isn’t coming back. There’s still a decent chance Missouri hangs on to Robert Wooten and Elijah Young. Again, you kind of know this is going to happen when you make a coaching change. Obviously you’d like to hang on to everyone, but you probably aren’t. Any time a coaching change is made anywhere, the first thing posted on this board is “Are there any commits we might be able to poach?” So you know that's what every other program in the country was trying to do when Mizzou made a change. It’s the cost of doing business. When you make a coaching change ten days before the early signing period, you’re giving the coach a free pass on the first class.
6) Now the tough thing is when you sign a mid-major coach, he’s probably not bringing a lot of guys with him. Are there some App State commits who could play in the SEC? Sure. But probably not a ton of them honestly. So that’s why this first weekend was pretty much solely focused on hanging on to the guys that Missouri already had when Drinkwitz was hired. Here is the current commit list:
https://missouri.rivals.com/commitments/football/2020
I’d say we feel pretty good Missouri is going to sign ten of them. Still definitely up in the air on Ray Curry (I’d lean Arkansas) and JJ Hester (I really don't know at this point and wouldn’t be shocked if he waited until February). Signing ten isn’t that bad…but again, the first class is going to be patchwork. And that makes it tough. When you’re Missouri, you can afford one below average class. You can’t afford more than that. Which is why you’d always rather NOT have to make a change than to make one.
7) Missouri won a basketball game on Sunday. I’m not going to break it down because I didn’t see it. But Mark Smith scored 23 points and Missouri played good defense and the Tigers beat Southern Illinois which was exactly what they were supposed to do. On December 30th, they play Chicago State, and they’re going to beat them too. That will make them 7-4. Between now and then they face Illinois in the Braggin’ Rights Game on Saturday. Missouri needs this game more than Illinois. The Illini are 8-3, but two of their losses are to Arizona and Maryland, who are top 25 teams, and the third is to Miami, which isn’t a terrible loss. Missouri’s got three decent losses, but then a loss to Charleston Southern that almost counts as two losses when you get to Selection Sunday. If the Tigers are going to make a run at the NCAA Tournament, they’ve definitely got to beat either Illinois or West Virginia…and I think they probably have to beat both.
8) So is tournament talk a real thing? Not yet. If they win the next two and they’re sitting 8-4, we can start to think about it.
If they lose to West Virginia or Illinois: They’re 8-5 non-con with an absolutely atrocious loss. You’ve got to think it takes at least 10-8 in SEC play and probably at least a win in Nashville to get them in. I’m still not sure that would get them in and I’m also not sure that would be realistic.
If they beat West Virginia and Illinois: They’re 9-4 with three solid wins, three decent losses and a terrible one. If you can get to .500 in league play, you’re giving yourself a shot.
So the last two non-con games are relatively large.
9) Robin Pingeton’s team lost to Missouri State on Sunday. They are 3-8. This is a lost season. At this point, you hope the freshmen play well and develop and you stack a couple more good recruiting classes behind them. I think we all thought this was going to be a step back. It’s been more like six or seven.
10) The last thought is just an explanation and a thanks to you guys. The last two weeks were non-stop action and we didn’t really pay much attention to anything outside of the coaching search. This weekend, I had previous plans to take my son on some college visits out East and Mitchell had a prior engagement, which is why we missed the hoops game. If we’re going to miss one, that’s a good one to miss, but you guys pay because we cover the teams every single day. And we’re back to doing that as of tonight. We’ve finally got our feet back under us after the coaching change and we’re full-steam ahead with hoops and recruiting. We’ll also do our best to get Coach Drinkwitz on a podcast some time in the next few weeks. We’re going to let him get through the early signing period and then enjoy Christmas with his family, but I’m shooting for our first pod of 2020 to be with the new coach.
I'm going to be on the road all day tomorrow so as a bonus (penalty?) you all get my thoughts tonight
1) So I just realized this is the first time I've done this since Missouri officially hired a new coach. That said, you got all of my reactions to that last week. Eli Drinkwitz is at Missouri, Barry Odom is at Arkansas and it's officially a new era in Mizzou football. I've been covering the team for more than 16 years now...and this is the first time they've had an outside hire as the head coach. That's pretty remarkable continuity. Here are the Power Five programs that have had fewer than three head coaches since 2001:
Clemson
Georgia
Iowa (only one)
Missouri
Northwestern
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
TCU (only one)
Virginia Tech
That's a pretty short list. And here's what they all have in common: At some point in the last 20 years, they've had what is arguably the best stretch in school history. Continuity is good. In other words, you hope Drinkwitz is here for a long time because that means pretty good things.
2) Let's talk about the staff. Here's what we know so far:
Special Teams: Erik Link
Defense: Charlie Harbison
Defense (LB probably): DJ Smith
DL: Brick Haley
OC/QB: Eliah Drinkwitz
Offense: Casey Woods
We know Ryan Walters and David Gibbs at least have the opportunity to stay and are on the staff right now. We don't know if they will choose to stay, but for now they are. If those coaches stay, that means there are seven coaches out of ten we know about (Drinkwitz doesn't count against the ten obviously). The Tigers would need three more coaches, at least two of which and probably all three, would coach offense. Woods will coach running backs or tight ends probably. So Mizzou needs to fill the other spot. They need a receivers coach and an offensive line coach. That would fill out the staff (the other option would be to combine tight ends and receivers and potentially still hire a quarterbacks coach or an extra defensive assistant, though that seems unnecessary if Gibbs and Walters both remain).
3) I'd be remiss if I didn't touch on some of the coaches that left. Some of them were your typical college football assistants, here for a couple years and gone. But Andy Hill and Cornell Ford have 43 years of coaching at Missouri between them. I understand many think it was time. And honestly, you're probably right. Especially because I don't think you should dictate to a coach who he has to hire. But these two guys did a whole lot for Mizzou. You add in Hill's playing days and that's 47 years of service to the school you all love. They were a big part of the renaissance of Missouri football. They had a big hand in recruiting guys like Martin Rucker, Chase Coffman, Sheldon Richardson, Jeremy Maclin, who all might be among the top ten Missouri players of all time (certainly top 20-25). Plus a whole bunch of other guys. I enjoyed working with both of them over the last two decades. Like anybody you work with for 19 years, some days were better than others, but they were always professional to me and always treated our site well. Even if it needed to happen, I’m sorry it did.
4) As I was writing this, another tweet popped up
It sure looks like Tyler Badie is transferring. We can’t yet say he is. He wasn’t in the transfer portal as of Friday. The media relations people do not yet know if he is transferring. I’ve got someone checking the portal (hopefully tonight) to see if he is now in it. To officially enter the portal you have to go through compliance and no one at Mizzou is aware that he has done that. He very well could be intending to transfer--and yes, that's what the tweet looks like--but we can't say it for sure yet. Obviously it would be a blow for Missouri. It’s also the kind of thing you just kind of expect. Anthony Watkins, get ready. Or Simi Bakare, step up. Or one of the freshmen better be ready.
5) Speaking of which, with Jalen Logan-Redding off the board to Minnesota, the potential number of decommits is five. It seems unlikely Jalen St. John is coming back. Cooper Davis isn’t coming back. There’s still a decent chance Missouri hangs on to Robert Wooten and Elijah Young. Again, you kind of know this is going to happen when you make a coaching change. Obviously you’d like to hang on to everyone, but you probably aren’t. Any time a coaching change is made anywhere, the first thing posted on this board is “Are there any commits we might be able to poach?” So you know that's what every other program in the country was trying to do when Mizzou made a change. It’s the cost of doing business. When you make a coaching change ten days before the early signing period, you’re giving the coach a free pass on the first class.
6) Now the tough thing is when you sign a mid-major coach, he’s probably not bringing a lot of guys with him. Are there some App State commits who could play in the SEC? Sure. But probably not a ton of them honestly. So that’s why this first weekend was pretty much solely focused on hanging on to the guys that Missouri already had when Drinkwitz was hired. Here is the current commit list:
https://missouri.rivals.com/commitments/football/2020
I’d say we feel pretty good Missouri is going to sign ten of them. Still definitely up in the air on Ray Curry (I’d lean Arkansas) and JJ Hester (I really don't know at this point and wouldn’t be shocked if he waited until February). Signing ten isn’t that bad…but again, the first class is going to be patchwork. And that makes it tough. When you’re Missouri, you can afford one below average class. You can’t afford more than that. Which is why you’d always rather NOT have to make a change than to make one.
7) Missouri won a basketball game on Sunday. I’m not going to break it down because I didn’t see it. But Mark Smith scored 23 points and Missouri played good defense and the Tigers beat Southern Illinois which was exactly what they were supposed to do. On December 30th, they play Chicago State, and they’re going to beat them too. That will make them 7-4. Between now and then they face Illinois in the Braggin’ Rights Game on Saturday. Missouri needs this game more than Illinois. The Illini are 8-3, but two of their losses are to Arizona and Maryland, who are top 25 teams, and the third is to Miami, which isn’t a terrible loss. Missouri’s got three decent losses, but then a loss to Charleston Southern that almost counts as two losses when you get to Selection Sunday. If the Tigers are going to make a run at the NCAA Tournament, they’ve definitely got to beat either Illinois or West Virginia…and I think they probably have to beat both.
8) So is tournament talk a real thing? Not yet. If they win the next two and they’re sitting 8-4, we can start to think about it.
If they lose to West Virginia or Illinois: They’re 8-5 non-con with an absolutely atrocious loss. You’ve got to think it takes at least 10-8 in SEC play and probably at least a win in Nashville to get them in. I’m still not sure that would get them in and I’m also not sure that would be realistic.
If they beat West Virginia and Illinois: They’re 9-4 with three solid wins, three decent losses and a terrible one. If you can get to .500 in league play, you’re giving yourself a shot.
So the last two non-con games are relatively large.
9) Robin Pingeton’s team lost to Missouri State on Sunday. They are 3-8. This is a lost season. At this point, you hope the freshmen play well and develop and you stack a couple more good recruiting classes behind them. I think we all thought this was going to be a step back. It’s been more like six or seven.
10) The last thought is just an explanation and a thanks to you guys. The last two weeks were non-stop action and we didn’t really pay much attention to anything outside of the coaching search. This weekend, I had previous plans to take my son on some college visits out East and Mitchell had a prior engagement, which is why we missed the hoops game. If we’re going to miss one, that’s a good one to miss, but you guys pay because we cover the teams every single day. And we’re back to doing that as of tonight. We’ve finally got our feet back under us after the coaching change and we’re full-steam ahead with hoops and recruiting. We’ll also do our best to get Coach Drinkwitz on a podcast some time in the next few weeks. We’re going to let him get through the early signing period and then enjoy Christmas with his family, but I’m shooting for our first pod of 2020 to be with the new coach.
