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Football season is (mostly) over, recruiting/transfer season is ramping up, basketball season is ongoing and I've got a lot of thoughts. So here we go.
1) The football season was...fine. It wasn't a huge disappointment. It wasn't a raging success. It wasn't a significant step forward or back. It happened. It answered some questions and created others. It was a step in the process. Eli Drinkwitz has said a number of times this year that it would be great if Missouri was able to skip some steps in that process, but it's not realistic. And that's where we are. This season was the next step. It sets up a very important season in 2022. I think year three is the year that you need to see unmistakable steps forward to feel good about the future. But there are so many things that are left to occur before we get there and before we find out whether that step is going to take place.
2) The most active place in the next couple of weeks (and maybe the next couple of days) is likely to be the transfer portal. That started last night when Mitchell Forde broke the news that Daniel Parker Jr. is entering the portal. It's going to be the first of many. I fully expect double digit transfers out this offseason. Some of those will happen in the next couple weeks. A few more will probably happen during or after Christmas break following the bowl game. The final wave won't occur until after spring football. This is not going to be for the faint of heart. Any time kids start leaving the program, fans panic a little bit. Even if they're not significant contributors. But this is pretty normal with a coaching change. You usually get through a year or two and then a lot of kids who gave it a shot under the new regime figure out they're not really going to play and they start to leave. Add to that the fact that you've got the new world of college football where kids can transfer one time without sitting out and this is going to happen at virtually every major program in the country. It is our approach not to speculate on specific kids who could leave, but if you use common sense, you should be able to figure out some of them. There will probably also be a few that surprise us. That's simply the world we live in now. It's going to be wild for the next couple of weeks. We'll keep you up to date on all of it. I'm going to update the scholarship chart later this morning and we'll probably do that multiple times in the next couple of weeks.
3) Parker's transfer officially closes the book on one of the most fascinating things I've covered in 19 years. The Tiger Ten--or at least the Missouri part of it--is over. In the class of 2018, there were ten in-state recruits that made up what at the time was the consensus best in-state class in history. Was it overhyped? In the end, absolutely. And I'll take some of the blame for that. But not all of it. Missouri invited them all to campus for a special recruiting event unlike any that had been done before (Drinkwitz and his staff did something similar this past summer for what it's worth). Parker was the only one that came to Missouri and that went a long way toward building the narrative that Odom couldn't recruit at a level high enough to succeed here. Let's take a quick look at what happened to those guys in order of their state ranking.
Trevor Trout: Went to USC, retired from football
Michael Thompson: Went to Oklahoma, transferred away to a lower level
Mario Goodrich: Went to Clemson, made 67 tackles and 4 interceptions in four years
Ronnie Perkins: Went to Oklahoma, played very well for three years (61 tackles, 16.5 sacks), drafted in the third round by the New England Patriots last year
Kamryn Babb: Went to Ohio State, has battled multiple injuries, has been a special teams player the last two seasons
Daniel Parker Jr.: Caught 41 passes for 337 yards and was a reliable blocker at tight end
Dallas Craddieth: Went to Iowa, played sparingly over four years
Daniel Carson: Went to Texas, transferred away, is not currently playing in FBS (not sure where he landed)
Cameron Brown: Went to Ohio State, has become a starter at corner for the Buckeyes, has 38 tackles, 7 passes defended and an interception, almost all this year.
Ayodele Adeoye (wasn't in the Missouri rankings after transferring to IMG): Has 62 tackles and an interception in three years at Texas, but most of that was in his freshman year
If we could re-rank the class, we'd go:
Perkins
Brown
Parker
Goodrich
Adeoye
Babb
Craddieth
Trout
Thompson
Carson
And really only one of them would have been worth any of the teeth-grinding done back then. Just a reminder that recruiting wins and losses aren't often as important as we think they are at the time.
4) A lot of the transfers are going to occur because they have to occur. As of right this second, Missouri has 87 players on scholarship for next season. That number assumes that every player eligible to return actually does so. Obviously that's not going to happen (more on that coming up). But the point is, as of right now, Missouri has to shed two more scholarship players even if it adds no one else in this class. And Missouri is going to add more players in this class--probably 10 to 13 of them. So that tells you that there are going to be 12 to 15 transfers out simply to get back to the 85 scholarship limit for next season.
5) So let's talk about next year's "super seniors." I want to be clear that very little of this is settled right now. Most of these players probably haven't officially made their decisions. But I'm just going to run through every player who has been here for four or five years of playing time and give you my guess on whether that player is coming back.
Allie Green: We've always assumed he would just be here one year. Not impossible he comes back, but we'd expect him to go
Akayleb Evans: Virtually no chance he comes back
Jake Hoffman: We've been told he plans to return
Sean Koetting: We've been told he plans to return
Shawn Robinson: He has said he plans to return
Ben Key: He didn't see the field this season. It would be a surprise if he was back
Richard Taylor: Former walk on who picked up a scholarship this season. We'd bet he moves on. Missouri, honestly, needs the scholarship
Zeke Powell: Tough to guess. He's played some and there's some potential and experience there, but he didn't play much down the stretch
Case Cook: Our guess is that he's going to move on. But Missouri would certainly be happy to have him back.
Hyrin White: Maybe the toughest to project. Right now we think he comes back, but it's like 51/49
Barrett Banister: Definitely a candidate to come back
Boo Smith: Tough one to call, but if we had to guess he moves on. Not sure if he'd go somewhere he can play more or simply move on to whatever is next
Simi Bakare: Tough to see him coming back
Tyler Badie: Zero reason he should return
That's 14 kids. We'd project about five of them return. So that frees up nine spots right there. Obviously there will be players beyond this class who opt to move on as well.
