Whether you are looking for more space to host those game day parties or looking to upgrade, Stein & Summers is your #1 fan in helping you find the home of your dreams! We have over 100 licensed agents servicing Kansas City, St. Joseph, and surrounding areas - including Kansas! Interest rates are at a record low while homes sales prices are at a record high! Contact us today to get started.
1) We made it again everybody. It's game week. It was nice to have a normal-ish lead up to the season. We had SEC Media Days. We got to attend fall camp and talk to people in person. There will be a game at Faurot Field with people in the stands on Saturday. This season isn't going to be completely normal. There might be a few bumps in the road, there will almost certainly be times when reporters look down from the press box and say "Hey, where's this guy at?" We won't travel other than the BC game unless the SEC changes its silly media policy. But it's football season and it's better than last football season and that's a step in the right direction.
2) Speaking of which, I covered my first game in person since November 23 2019 on Friday night (and last for a while). It was good being back at a big game with a crowd that was excited. Maybe a lot of you didn't do this, but I've really figured out that I failed to realize how big a part of sports the crowd is. Don't get me wrong, I knew that it was more exciting to be at a game that had a big, buzzing crowd. But I don't think I appreciated just how much different it was. I heard someone over the weekend say that playing games last year just felt like practice. My son said the same thing about his swim meets through the pandemic. It's harder to get hyped up and give your best effort when there's nobody there and it doesn't seem like a real event. The talent is the same, but the crowd elevates it so much more. It makes it feel like an event.
As far as the game, the talent on the field lived up to the billing in East St. Louis vs CBC. I wrote about that yesterday. Joel Lorenzi was in Lee's Summit to watch Max Whisner. Mitchell Forde saw three high-level linemen at North Kansas City. We're not gonna cover three games every week or anything, but we do have plans to see the vast majority of current Mizzou commitments in person this season.
3) So what did we learn about where that talent will play college football? Not much. Which is not surprising. When you're going to cover a high school football game, you go into it knowing that the kids aren't really going to talk about recruiting very much. They're focused on their teams and winning games and titles now. After the game on the field isn't the place they're going to want to be singled out and separated from their teammates by talking about official visits and their top teams and such. You have to ask anyway, but you know you aren't going to get answers. Luther Burden clearly has some idea of where he's going to visit and what the process will look like. But he's not really going to talk much about it. There's not going to be a whole lot that changes in the next few weeks. You guys know the situation. He's going to take some visits. Missouri is in the lead. Georgia is the only team that really seems to have much of a chance to catch Mizzou. It will happen when it happens. I do not expect it to happen soon.
By the way, Burden is quite good. Better than I expected. CBC is the second-best team in St. Louis and once he got the ball in his hands, they rarely touched him, much less tackled him.
4) On to the Mizzou season now. Here's my prediction for the starting lineup on Saturday against Central Michigan:
QB Connor Bazelak
RB Tyler Badie
WR Keke Chism, Dominic Lovett, Barrett Banister
TE Daniel Parker Jr
OL Javon Foster, Xavier Delgado, Mike Maetti, Case Cook, Hyrin White
Notes: Elijah Young will play a lot. BJ Harris and Michael Cox will get carries. Chance Luper will play a lot. Mookie Cooper will play a lot if he's healthy. Connor Wood has a chance to beat out Delgado at left guard and will get reps. Niko Hea will play plenty at tight end. I'd expect Brady Cook to be the backup quarterback.
DE Trajan Jeffcoat, Isaiah McGuire
DT Kobie Whiteside, Akial Byers
LB Blaze Alldredge, Devin Nicholson
CB Ennis Rakestraw, Ish Burdine, Kris Abrams-Draine
S Martez Manuel, Jalani Williams
Notes: Chris Turner, Johnny Walker and Arden Walker will rotate in at DE. Darius Robinson, Daniel Robledo, Realus George and Mekhi Wingo should all see some time at DT. Allie Green, Akayleb Evans and Chris Shearin will all play at corner. Jaylon Carlies is the starter at safety, but can't play the first half because of targeting LAST YEAR and Shawn Robinson will rotate in too.
5) So what kind of opposition is Missouri facing on Saturday? It's the worst kind of game to me. It's a team that doesn't have a big name, but isn't bad. Don't get me wrong, Mizzou should win. As of today, the Tigers are 13.5 point favorites. But if Missouri doesn't play well, the Chippewas are good enough to make this close and on the right day even win. Obviously, it's relatively disastrous if Missouri actually loses the game. But it's a season opener and weird things happen. You don't really have any good idea what to expect out of teams in season openers. I could see this game being closer than Missouri fans are comfortable with for three quarters. I'll give my annual advice that will be completely ignored: Please don't try to make sweeping judgments about this team after one game or, even worse, one half or one quarter. How Missouri plays this weekend is not an indicator for how it will play 12 times this year, either good or bad.
6) Specifically, why is CMU dangerous? First of all, because they have a good coach. Jim McElwain takes a lot of heat, but he's a solid coach who's been a head coach in the SEC and actually was decent. He took over a team that went 1-11 in 2018 and he went 8-6 and made the MAC title game in 2019. He's a good coach, especially at the G5 level. The Chips only played six games a year ago. They lost Kobe Lewis, who ran for 1,000 yards in 2019, to a knee injury in the preseason. But Lewis wasn't even their leading rusher last year. That was Lew Nichols, who ran for 508 yards in six games and averaged 6.5 a carry. He'll be a freshman for the third consecutive year this year after playing in four games and keeping his redshirt in 2019. Kalil Pimpleton is the leading receiver. After spending his first year at Virginia Tech, Pimpleton had 82 catches for 894 yards in 2019 and was the leading receiver a year ago as well. He's also a guy they use on jet sweeps and running the ball a handful of times.
CMU played two quarterbacks last season. One of them has transferred, quite possibly because Jacob Sirmon transferred in from Washington. As far as I can tell, McElwain hasn't named his starter, but Sirmon is generally thought to be the guy. Sirmon was the No. 1 overall recruit in Washington in the Class of 2018 and the No. 6 pro-style quarterback in the country. He didn't play much at all in three years with the Huskies, but he's probably the guy Mizzou will see on Saturday. Returner Daniel Richardson and freshman Ty Pape have also been in the competition there.
Sixth-year offensive tackle Derek Smith entered the transfer portal last month, leaving a hole on the offensive line.
Defensively, CMU was 27th in the country against the run last year, but 120th against the pass. The Chips gave up 297 yards a game through the air last year. If Connor Bazelak has taken a step and the receiving corps is as improved as you hope it is, Mizzou should have a chance to make some big plays through the air this weekend.
