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1) So the biggest unimportant day of the year is here. SEC Media Days begins today. Mitchell Forde is in Atlanta for us and will have all the coverage of Mizzou's appearance. He'll leave tomorrow morning. If media days is the kind of thing that interests you, you can follow along on SEC Network or read the sites that cover the other teams in their leagues. Media days, largely, is a waste of time in my opinion. It's one of two things at this point: An outdated concept from when newspapers used to write conference capsules and it was the only place anyone could read about all the teams in the league or a way for the SEC Network to fill up four days of programming. It's probably a little bit of both. But the truth is, nothing important is going to be said by Eli Drinkwitz or any other coach. Greg Sankey's address might be interesting considering everything that's going on around college sports. Either way, though, they're having media days and we're there and we'll have coverage of anything that does happen on the Mizzou front.
2) Since I just told you I think media days are pointless, of course now, I'll talk more about media days. I am interested to see one thing with Mizzou: I expect this team--and this coach--very much to attempt to just blend in and lurk in the background this year. Eli Drinkwitz has been brash and cocky and he's talked a lot the first two years. He hasn't really done that this offseason. On one Finebaum appearance he even said his dad told him it was time to quit talking and win some games. I don't know if his dad really told him that, but I think it's going to be kind of a team-wide approach this year. Shut up and prove it on the field. I don't mean that to sound derogatory. I like covering a coach that says some things and I'm sure we'll still get a few barbs and one-liners because that's who Drink is and I don't think he can just shut it off. But I don't think you're going to see any headlines coming out of Atlanta from Missouri. I think they're going to be largely ignored by the league and national media, I think they're going to be picked between 5th and 7th in the East and I think they're going to try to use that as fuel to play well.
3) I don't really know enough about every team in the league to predict an order of finish that would be anything more than a wild guess. But the league media will vote on that over the next four days. Here's my prediction of the way the media will predict things:
EAST
Georgia
Tennessee
Kentucky
Florida
South Carolina
Missouri
Vanderbilt
WEST
Alabama
Texas A&M
LSU
Arkansas
Ole Miss
Auburn
Mississippi State
The media will also pick all-SEC teams which is ridiculous. I can say that having voted on them before. By the time you get to the offensive and defensive lines, it's just a wild guess. We don't know. We cover the teams we cover. I don't know if Kentucky has a great offensive guard or not. Please put no stock in the preseason all-SEC team that comes out this week. For the record, other than Harrison Mevis, I doubt Missouri has anyone picked to the first-team all-SEC team.
4) I've said my bar for Missouri this year is a 7-5 regular season. The predictions will be worse than that. The odds in each individual game will say Mizzou should go 5-7 or 4-8. I don't care about that. For me to come out of this season feeling the way you should want to feel about the program after year three, I need to see seven wins. Because it's time for potential energy to start to become kinetic energy. I'm not saying the boulder needs to be rolling 1000 miles an hour down the hill. I'm saying it needs to be picking up speed. So I want to go with three questions that need to be answered on each side of the ball IF that's going to happen.
OFFENSE
1) Is the quarterback play improved from last year? I don't care who the quarterback is. It doesn't matter who it is. It's not my job or your job to figure out who the best guy is. It's the coaches' job to figure that out and to have that guy on the roster that can be better than Connor Bazelak was last year. It doesn't matter if it's 24 (25?) year old Jack Abraham or 18 year old Sam Horn. Missouri just has to have a guy that's better than the guy they had last year who was playing at far less than 100% and yet the coach still felt like he was the best guy to trout out there all year.
2) Speaking of potential vs production, do we see production out of Mizzou's wide receivers? There are a lot of bodies. Mizzou fans are excited about a lot of those bodies. You should be. But the truth is, Missouri has two receivers who have ever caught more than 26 passes in a college season. Barrett Banister and Tauskie Dove have each done that twice. The best year out of a receiver on the current roster is Dove's 38 catches for 576 yards last year. Personally, I think expectations for Luther Burden are going to be unrealistic this year. I think he's going to be a really good player. I don't think he's going to single-handedly revive the program as a true freshman (especially if the first question here isn't answered positively). This is the year Mookie Cooper has to produce if he's going to be a good college player. This is the year we have to see consistency from Dominic Lovett. If those things don't happen, some of the guys we aren't talking about as much have to be big surprises.
3) Does Missouri have a complete offense? The only thing that's really worked in the first two years is picking out your best running back, handing it to him 25 times a game and letting him chew up yards. This isn't a lot different from the first two questions when you get down to it. I'm not asking who will replace Tyler Badie because while I don't expect anyone to run for 1600 yards, I do think Missouri has enough guys to get some yardage on the ground if the line is solid. But Missouri's running game has been great the last two years and it hasn't been enough because nothing else has been even average. So this season isn't about Nate Peat or Elijah Young or the running game. It's about everything else trying to rise much closer to that level than it's been.
5) Now let's go to the three questions about the Missouri defense.
1) Can they stop the run sometimes even a little bit? The recipe to beat Missouri was very simple last year: Find a guy who can stand up and run forward and hand him the ball over and over and over and watch Missouri fail to stop him. Yes, it got better in the second half of the season, mostly because it couldn't get worse. They don't have to lead the SEC in run defense. They can't be last.
2) Is Ty'Ron Hopper the next Nick Bolton? There are high hopes. He's probably Missouri's most well-regarded defender. Part of that is his production against Missouri last year. He made 12 tackles, 11 of them solo, two for a loss. But in the other 12 games, he had 50 tackles (4.2 per game), 21 solo tackles (1.75 per game) and six tackles for loss (0.5 per game). Those aren't Bolton numbers. I think he's a good player. I don't have any idea if he's a difference-making great player.
3) Who emerges in the secondary? This is similar to the receiver position on offense. Missouri has bodies. But do they have proven bodies? I like Jaylon Carlies, but he tailed off in the second half of last season. Martez Manuel has played a lot, but needs to be better. Same for Ennis Rakestraw. What do they have in Joseph Charleston? Is DJ Jackson ready to be a star? There are a lot of guys there. There aren't a lot I know a ton about.
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